We’re throwing a huge bash for my friend Anne’s 40th birthday over 4th of July, and I got put in charge of organizing the food.  This is a new one for me, as I’ve never tried to come up with “snacks and finger food for 200 people” before.  I’ve done dinner for 50, but this is a bit different.  So now I’m trying to balance time/money/labor to figure out how much is too much.  The biggest challenge is figuring out what can be done ahead of time, how to store it if I do, and how to keep the cost down and still have it dazzle people.  Plus, as with the feast I did, it’ll be at an SCA event, so everything has to be done with camp kitchens. 

I’m going to focus on Arab snack/street food.  I think a lot of it can be done pretty cheaply.  I found a recipe for various spice/nut powders for dipping hard boiled eggs into which sounds both easy and cheap, so I think that one’s a go.  I think in the interest of cost/time/inclination we may end up with some Indian or Greek options thrown in, but hey, the Arabs were/are a pretty cosmopolitan bunch, right?

I’ll let you know how it works out.  If I think of it I’d like to get some pictures too.