Vegan party!

About a month ago, Dan and I hosted a party in DC for our JASC friends to come and eat/drink/be merry & "celebrate togetherness", i.e. our engagement. We had planned for a picnic outside and ordered food and cake in advance, so when it rained that weekend, we had to go to plan B -- which happened to be our favorite sports bar, Rocket Bar. Rocket Bar doesn't have its own food, so it allows you to bring in outside food. This was perfect for us, since we'd already arranged our vegan catering for pick-up!

We had five people staying over at our apartment that weekend, so I tried to start the morning off nice with some vegan cinnamon rolls - a nearly disastrous endeavor, since our oven started smoking, and not in a glamorous 60s kind of way (OK, smoking was never that glamorous.) There was some crud at the bottom of the oven making a terrible smoke, which miraculously didn't leave its mark on the cinnamon rolls. They came out fine - more undercooked than usual, because we were so eager to stop the smoke!

Luckily, the food only got better from that point on. Woodland's Vegan Bistro supplied us with fried "chicken" and macaroni & cheese to feed 15 (and then some), along with barbecue sauce and hot sauce. Dan made some pasta salad, and a friend brought chips and hummus. I LOVE Woodland's vegan chicken, and though it's always better fresh out of the frier, the leftovers kept Dan and I happy for days. And, the macaroni and "cheese" is one of the best dishes in DC, and I'm not the only one who says so.

Our friend Diane got a photo of the plated food -- I was too busy running around ordering champagne and trying to get the jukebox to play good music to remember to take a photo!

We also ordered a cake for the occasion, from Sweet Themez Bakery. They made us a "Cherry Blossom" cake, which was cherry-flavored cake and cherry jam in the middle - we loved it! Again, borrowing a photo from another friend, Yuri.

Sometimes it's not that exciting to have a lot of food and cake left over after a party, but we were grateful for it - with guests staying over the next day, it helped feed us all for lunch and sustained my lunches for a few days afterward. And I could eat that cake for days if I had to!

So, lesson learned - vegan parties in DC are a piece of cake, even when it rains. I won't pretend I wasn't nervous about the logistics of getting us all together & well fed, but it all came out perfectly, and we had a great time hanging out with our close friends.