Labor Day Prep

There were lots and lots of things to slice while I was in my mother's kitchen by myself. These were for the sangria that needed to sit a day.

My mother decided the best menu would be enough chicken wings to feed an army and bratwurst. I see that as an appetizer and a side item... Prepping wings usually calls for a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, but there was not one available. So, I used this coffee mug. I can picture that coffee mug in every kitchen my family's lived in.

This is how packed the fridge was the day before the Illinois reception. I don't think the fridge was this packed with food when my mom threw a surprise 40th birthday party for my dad. (The last good party she hosted far too many years ago.)

1. Hot dogs The bratwurst she wanted to buy from Butera looked disgusting, so she opted for too many packs of hot dogs. Her original plan was to make macaroni & cheese for all the kids. At a BBQ? Kids eat hot dogs. (And Scrappy wasn't a fan of mac & cheese yet.)

2. Encore Cases and cases of cheap soda were crammed into the fridge. Cheap soda, fine. But to take up all that real estate for something that could be chilled in the cooler the next day? The entire shelf was filled with cans.

3. Tobasco Most of one large bottle goes into a batch of wings. I'm surprised there aren't more bottles of Tobasco in this picture. I ended up buying two or three more after this photo was taken.

4. Wings We bought 9 packages of a dozen wings that morning. After my mom emphatically told me about how much more experience she has with party planning than I do and that there were 30!! people coming, I turned the volume off on the little voice in my head that kept saying, "This is ridiculous." So, after visiting every grocery store in town to see who had the best deal, we were panicking that there weren't "enough" packages left at the first store by the time we came back to it. Four packages wouldn't do. We needed nine. Nine package of 12 wings that would be cut into two smaller wings each for 30 people my mom hasn't attempted to feed since my dad turned 40... Somewhere on mute, the little voice was saying, "This is ridiculous." And that was before I attempted to use an old coffee mug and a dull knife to turn frozen packages of wings (because five had to come from the freezer) into something delectable.

5. Carrots You can't see the six pounds (seriously) of potato salad hidden in the fridge, so I'll just point to the ridiculous amount of carrots.

6. Lemonade My mom really wanted lemonade. I don't know anyone who drinks it besides her. It was on sale buy-one-get-one-free, so there are two in the fridge.

7. Taco Dip Blue Goose apparently makes a mean taco dip. I don't know if I had any... It was yet another grocery store in town to hit that.

8. Berries I bought a few too many raspberries and strawberries for the sangria. Some of the strawberries went into a Jell-o salad. But that's a lot of berries.