Obamarama

To celebrate President Barack Obama's inauguration, Jon and I threw a party in his honor, replete with many of his favorite foods. We relied on the blog ObamaFoodORama, and some serious Google research, to come up with the following menu.

-Obama's family chili recipe (link to the recipe here), which was very tasty. I'd definitely make it again.

-His supposed favorite snacks, Planter's Trail Mix and Dentyne Ice -- I'd never tried it before, but liked the gum a lot! We nixed the idea of Nicorette.

-Salted edamame: I'm pretty sure I read that Illinois is the fourth largest soybean producing state, though I can't remember where. Also, I hope that Obama will help figure out our fuel crisis and think that going back to (or starting with?) the basics is part of the answer.

-Make your own salad roll (link to directions here), because, as our new President says, "We can't allow any idle hands." Salad rolls are great to serve at a dinner party because they help people interact, though it's very time consuming to prep the vegetables. So much so that I watched a lot of the Inauguration proceedings with tomato seed-covered hands!

-Frittatas with a hashbrown bottom, and onion, red pepper, and spinach, which is our President's favorite vegetable aside from broccoli. Oh the shame -- originally I wanted to make prosciutto wrapped asparagus -- until I read he doesn't like asparagus!

-Cupcakes, because I kept watching TV segments and reading news articles about how they were hugely popular in D.C. leading up to the inauguration. And Whole Foods' sea salt caramels, as a nod to Obama's addiction to Fran’s Grey Sea Salt Caramels.

-PBR because it's Obama's favorite beer, and a cocktail called Obama au Lei. I came up with the very New Orleansy name -- we wanted to do something that honored his Hawaiian roots, so I used the site Drink Swap to find the perfect rum and pineapple-based cocktail recipe. I also added in ample doses of hope, change, intelligence, and charisma for equal measure. A few days later, I enjoyed getting a little tipsy on the rum-soaked pineapple pieces that were salvaged from the bottom of the drained punch bowl. Don't know if it was the rum, or the thought of President Obama, but along with being tipsy I felt quite hopeful and intelligent too!