Had a great time at our "Girls' Night Out." I made a big green salad--just the basics, with green leaf lettuce, plum tomatoes, mushrooms, red onion, and feta cheese. Added chicken and made two dressings from scratch: zesty Italian and ranch. It went over big and I had little salad to bring home, but what there is, I'll have for lunch today. The food was great and included another salad, veal parmasean, pasta dishes, macaroni and cheese, muffins, and lots of other things. The centerpiece was a fabulous armadillo cake our hostess, Tonya N., made to follow the story line. The cake plays a prominent part in the movie, though not in the play. She managed to make it look like an armadillo, with greyish icing, sliced almonds for fingernails and wonderful hind quarters. Yes, we all had a piece after it had been duly admired and it was pretty good. I brought a six-pack of Coors Light and there were plenty of all kinds of wine to share, too.
Tonya's is a lovely turn-of-the-twentieth-century house--not elegant, but very homey, like an old farmhouse, which I think it was. It has practically all the original parts. The windows have those tiny panes surrounding the larger part and the floors are wonderfully worn and polished by generations of feet. The stove in the kitchen is probably vintage about 1940--it's enamal, with heavy stainless steel fitings and a built-in griddle and stock pot. Tonya, a farm girl herself, keeps chickens in the backyard (this is in rural New Gretna) and showed us the multi-colored eggs they lay.
The food was great and while we ate, we watched the film version of the play, which I've seen several times. Then "Billy" and his two assitants came in, and did the hair and make-up in eighties style for several of the actors.
Got home about 9:15 (it had started at 4:00) to have my weekly chat with Ellen on the web cam, then did the same with P. and N.