Casserole: the verb

What dish deserves its own event?

Answer: The casserole, of course. And an event it got.

To be perfectly honest, I was a little worried that planning a gathering of this feastable magnitude would only lead to a let-down afterward for not living up to the high expectations we'd set in our minds. I remember that feeling when I was younger when my party planning entailed glorious mental images of endless laughter, puffy paint, ghost stories, snacks, sodas, movies, fun music and staying up till sun-up - the reality being that we all fell asleep by, like, 10 p.m., while watching a movie.

We had been planning this party for literally 2 months, right after we made the discovery that we all shared this guilty pleasure for canned soup with pick-your-vegetable, cheese and crunchy topping. I tried my best to keep myself from imagining a table overflowing with hot pads, serving spoons a dishes of varying sizes containing steaming, creamy delights, with people standing around it in wonder and amazement. Or drink stations around the kitchen to offer the social lubrication needed to loosen our dance joints and aid us in enjoying a game or two, causing us to hoot and holler.

I blocked those ideas from my mind and just decided to just let the thing happen, casserole style.

Do you see how appropriate that was? The casserole is basically the easiest dish ever, designed to quickly fill the tummies of you and the rest of your army. You can try to make it more difficult, but we all know that in the end, you're just going stir something together and plop it in a dish and bake it. It's not a dish to worry about - it comes out every time.

So all we had to do, in theory, was to provide the place and invite the known casserole lovers to bring their casseroles (and a little booze), and our party would be set.

I'll take this opportunity to mention that a casserole never suffers from throwing in a few last-minute ingredients. Corn and cheese are great examples. Also great for describing what else got thrown in during the final hours of party-prepping, such as the embroidered souvenir "Casserole King" t-shirt for our friend Jeffy (oops, forgot to take that picture) and a couple games (which weren't as cheesy as they were brilliant).

When the guests began parading in with their hot dishes, the magic happened. It all turned out. The party totally casseroled. What else do I need to say here? I think I've gone on far too long about it. My lack of photos only speaks to the amount of fun I had - here's practically the only photo I managed to pause to take.