Wednesday, August 4, 2010

re: Love: The Grand Experiment

Along with getting married comes bridal showers, and I am lucky to have friends who have offered to throw them for me. I had to share details of our San Francisco shower, because the details are just amazing. My dear friend Emily REALLY outdid herself on this one (with a thanks to Jordan for the invites and other friends for contributing food).

The theme of the party was R&D, The Grand Experiment (R&D being Derek's and my initials, and "The Grand Experiment" being an awesome excuse to incorporate science into a bridal shower).


Upon entering, all guests were issued a lab coat and clipboard, with a Grand Experiment pencil for scientific note-taking. (Seriously. All the pencils had "The Grand Experiment" stamped on them).



The tablecloth was a bunch of different graph papers sewn together, and the flowers were kept in beakers.



The food was laid out in threes - marked A, B and C for control purposes. Each food group had three components - a generic version, a grocery-store-but-brand-name version, and a gourmet version. Everyone tasted each of the three types of each food, and then voted on which one they liked best. At the end, by raise of hands, we tallied which foods were most popular. All my favorites were represented: cheese, chocolate, bacon, mint icecream, chips and salsa, chocolate chip cookies, junior mints and more.









The whole thing was positively nerdy.

It was actually a lot of fun to find out which of our friends had more refined taste, and which ones could get away with eating generic for the rest of their lives. I'm not surprised that my expensive tastes showed up in my food choices (if there had been a Prada brand cupcake there, I am sure I would have tasted it) . The big upset was when McDonald's honey packets won over the special raspberry-flavored gourmet honey from Marin.

We finished it all off with my favorite cake - the princess cake from Schubert's Bakery. No need for any testing there. Already know this one is awesome.

I am so glad that my shower was a good excuse for fun food and friends. All in the name of science.

(some of these photos were stolen from liz, who hosted us in her home/laboratory)

4 comments:

Katie said...

Oh man, I cannot even begin to express the awesomeness of this party! There is little I love more in this world besides a head-to-head comparison of things.

You're lucky to have such awesome friends!

Senja said...

That is such a great party/idea!
If you guys ever come to Sweden, I'll treat to you a real "Princesstårta". Our favourite!

bex said...

Katie - yes!! And it is nice to finally settle some of those age-old arguments, you know? Which is really better? An oreo or a safeway-brand equivalent?

Senja - omg. that alone would be worth coming to sweden for.

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