Wash the clothes. Vacuum the floor. Take out the trash. There are events that happen to us all the time that aren?t really worth remembering. Then there are those rare, special occasions, the ones that take you out of the ordinary and lift the moment to a higher level, making this moment just a bit more kick ass than the others. The day you get married. The day you graduate college. And of course, the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Yup. I just compared the amazing time I had getting married to a children?s novel which I still read and WILLINGLY ADMIT TO. And that, folks, is just how I roll. I have been a big book reader since, well, since I could read. When I was a little troublemaking kid, my parents used to ground me from my books, because they were the only thing that I looked forward to. I don?t read everything ferociously, only books I find interesting and I am sorry, but Harry Potter is one of them. I woke up at 8am on Saturday, July 21st, and walked the whopping two blocks to the book store, where I waited in a long, seemingly never ending line for around 40 minutes. And when I saw people exit the store before me, swinging their precious little books in my face, I seriously wanted to tackle one of them. I had to harness the power of Potter to restrain myself. Harry would want me to wait my turn.
This is the sort of thinking I used all day. Harry would want me to wear sweat pants to his book debut. Harry wanted me to be comfortable and wear my glasses instead of my contacts. He would want me to eat a breakfast sandwich while waiting in line. And I couldn?t let Harry down. Once I procured the book, I went home to take stock of the stash I had set up for this event.
Its no easy task, gathering food proper for the final Harry Potter book. Like pairing a fine wine with food, you must take your time and consider all factors of the wine before you commit to it. First, you must consider the candy factor. They ate a lot of candy in the books, so it only made sense to buy some candy in homage to it. Like Bertie Botts Every Flavor beans. I don?t really like jelly beans that taste like grass and bogers, so I ended up with Pear flavored Jelly Belly Jellybeans, because they taste like a real pear and are just a great candy. The fact they are hand held and not messy is a definite bonus when reading a big old book like this. I also decided to make a pint of my frozen dessert as a child, Nerds Blizzards, which were really just vanilla ice cream and nerds.
So I made a vanilla bean ice cream, and threw in some Nerds, and let me tell you?don?t knock it till you try it. A lovely combo of sweet, creamy vanilla and tart, candy-coated sugar crystal goodness.
The ice cream cone turns this into a one armed dish so your other arm can balance this 600 page tome.
It really is important to have easy to eat food. This is a hard cover book slightly over 600 pages. The further you get in the book, the more weight goes on to your reading hand, causing dangerous side affects like cramping, tiredness, and lack of desire to finish reading!!! Look at the pressure. That?s a whole lotta book for one little hand, and I?m an adult. Just think about the kids.
These fresh smoked beer nuts were the perfect snack dish.
Salty, meaty, smoked, warm and small, they were good for the beginning of the book, before it got too heavy and I had time to lick the salt off my fingers. The further I got, the more I needed something portable and less messy. This is where my new best friend Lemon Crisps come in.
They are lemon cream filled cookies, but instead of cookies on the outside, they have salted club crackers, which give you this whole salty-sweet-citrus combo that is surprisingly addicting and portable, too. Look at the lack of crumbage here!
It only took me 15 hours to read the book from start to finish (I took breaks, I swear), but let me tell you, if I was not properly nourished, I might have never made it to the end of the greatest book ever. Thankfully, Harry wanted me to have some beer nuts. ~LTG
