snacking out

Last night Joan, Laura, Marianne and I had a long-awaited Girls' Night at my place. We intended to watch chick flicks and eat lots of popcorn; we ended up talking and eating lots of chips and salsa con queso, and monkey bread.

All day prior to the get-together, I was reminiscing on the slumber parties of my adolescence, when our parents supplied 5-10 teenage girls with enough junk food to feed the army of Attila the Hun, and we would stay up till 3 or 4 a.m. yakking and drinking caffeinated soda and stuffing our mouths with Doritoes, Cheetoes, popcorn, chips and dip.

So I wanted to provide a feast (perhaps partially in denial of my current poverty -- I can be far more lavish with guests than I can with myself, and it's more satisfying to feed other people anyway), and I did. There were chips & salsa, an enormous veggie spread with ranch dip, baguette (provided by Marianne) with butter or sun-dried tomato spread (which didn't turn out like I'd hoped, but was edible), chocolate chip monkey bread (provided by Laura, and delicious), soda, and wine.

And we couldn't eat it all. I didn't even break out the hummus and babaganouj (I have FINALLY conquered the recipe!) with pita, the popcorn, or the cheeses that Joan brought. And I realized, to my astonished disappointment, that I'm no longer an adolescent. Eating till I burst now means so much less than it used to.

The conclusion: I'M GETTING OLD. Not really. The actual conclusion is, don't buy tons of food for a girl party. Because now I'll be stuck with it for weeks.

BUT the conversation was delightful and fulfilling -- nothing warms my heart like a fellowship of women (unless it's communion with one amazing man -- and I'm something lacking that at the moment, not completely but in part) -- and we're planning to make tracks for a girly shopping trip to Chicago in a week.

At least we didn't run out of food!