Savory Snacks: Fancy Carbs (Soft Pretzels!)

If you aren't a carb person, I really just don't know what to do with you. Seriously. It's not that I don't want to understand it's that I quite simply can't. I love veggies and sometimes I get pretty strong meat cravings, but in my heart of hearts, I'm all about bread. For example, when I was in law school I managed to procure a free mini-loaf bread maker (thank you, LexisNexis) and for the next several days, I was in rapture. I made honey-oatmeal bread, tomato-basil bread, garlic bread (many times), and pretty much anything else you can think of (aside from sourdough, as I did not have a starter lying around). It was heaven.

One problem: I would eat the entire mini-loaf in a sitting. I would take it out of the bread maker, steam still rising from it, and inhale it with balsamic vinegar. Invariably I would get halfway through and think to myself "I should stop now and save the other half, but I'm still hungry." Then I would get three quarters of the way through and think "Soooooooooo full, but the last quarter isn't enough to save." The result of this dance being me in the fetal position on the couch for an hour alternating between "oh god so full" and "but it was so goooooooooood."

You didn't need to know that. I'm sorry, but here are bread-like items for your digestive delight! Does that make up for it? I hope so.

Savory Snacks: Meaty Delights

Cookie parties are fantastic, they really are, but you simply must have some form of salt-laden snacky goodness to combat the sugar high.

In an unrelated note, children are not the only people who respond amusingly to sugar.

Back to salt. I'm a huge proponent of having at least one or two warm snacks. This requires a little bit more attention to timing, in that you should be pulling things out of the oven maybe 10 minutes after people start arriving or you should be cooking as the night goes on, depending on your personal style, the location/visibility of your kitchen, and the likelihood that you will forget about something and set your house on fire. Please do not set your house on fire.

I opted for foods that can be assembled at any time during the day and then thrown in the oven right before people arrive, with a bonus of making the house smell pretty fantastic: (1) Andouille sausage wrapped in puff pastry dough and (2) Bacon-wrapped dated stuffed with goat cheese. Men will eat these, women will eat these, even children will gobble them down (though they may make a face when first presented with a date).