You're inviting folks over to watch the Oscars, but you want to serve them a bill-of-fare that reflects this year's idiosyncratic slate of best picture nominees, rife as it is with genre movies: Science fiction! Horror! Sports! Thrillers!
Imagine that! We've finally got an Oscar field whose horizons stretch beyond the usual roster of stultifying historical dramas and bloated biopics! There's energy! There's verve! There's a hairy leg that hops around at night and attacks folk! You can't do bean dip and pigs-in-blankets again! You gotta raise your game and meet the moment!
Here's some suggestions.
Bugonion
You know a Bloomin' Onion? Yeah, same idea. But instead of an onion, deep fry some shrimp (the bugs of the sea!) in batter so thick they turn into just so many indistinguishable lumps of golden crispiness.
Important: If at any point during the ceremony any of your guests say, "Hey, great fried shrimp!" spend the rest of the night insisting that you have no idea what they're talking about: "What this? This is fried broccoli!"
And then, just when you have them believing that, wink at them coyly. Cultivate and maintain an air of uncertainty, is the idea here.
Keep this up until the end of the evening, at which point haul out your karaoke machine and warble "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" — all five verses, plaintively, like a dirge — thus souring your guests on the whole evening and sending them home in a foul mood.
F1
Place a wireless computer keyboard on the table. Keep an eye on your guests. If any of them press the F1 key, open a menu labeled "HELP" and hand it to them.
Hm? What's that? The movie's about … car racing, you say. Ah. I see.
Well, hell. I dunno, then. Get a Costco cake shaped like a racing car, or whatever. Tell your guests you got it from some fancy New York patisserie, and that the pastry chef has earned four — four! — Michelin tires.
No yeah I know look the thing is I had that whole keyboard thing planned.
Franks, in Stein
You know that old ceramic beer mug you got at Oktoberfest, back in your college years? Get it out of storage, dust it off, and cram it with boiled hot dogs. Your guests will say, "Geez, you really just slapped this together," which: The point.
Iberico Hamnet
Get a ham. If your guests complain that it's too salty, tell them it's been brined in the tears you've shed over your DEAD CHILD.
Marty Crunchwrap Supreme
Buy a Crunchwrap Supreme, cut it into very, very skinny slices. Shove them in your guests' faces. Some of them will find this charming, and admire your charismatic hustle, but most of them will just find it seriously annoying.
One Batter After Another
Prepare sponge cake batter, chocolate cake batter and red velvet cake batter. Serve to guests on mixer beaters.
You'll want to wait until later in the evening to bust this out, and not just because you don't want to spend all night watching your guests licking batter off of mixing beaters like the disgusting animals they are. No, you want to hold off because you're serving them raw eggs and want to delay any gastrointestinal ramifications of this fact until they've made it to the safety of their home bathrooms.
The Secret Agent
Prepare a leg of lamb, but hide it away. Then, midway into the evening, bring it out and sort of hop it around the party, inviting guests to take a bite. Then hide it away again, and pretend it never happened.
When guests ask what the hell that was all about — and they will — mutter something about how the leg of lamb is an urban legend and that it has something to do with police corruption, apparently. This will leave them puzzled and delighted.
Sentimental Value Meal
Bundle together a bunch of old love letters. Serve with a faded photo of your dead parents and your childhood pet's favorite chew toy, which you've been meaning to throw out for years.
Ask guests if they want to supersize it. If they say yes, shout "ALEXA PLAY SEASONS IN THE SUN BY TERRY JACKS."
Dinners
Prepare each guest two identical fried fish sandwiches (be sure to use fresh grease). Before serving, douse one in ketchup. OPTIONAL: Accompany with a cup of comparatively flavorless Irish stew.
Grain Creams
Serve bowls of oatmeal. Print out the words to several songs about ghosts and scatter them around the table; this will ensure that your guests find your oatmeal "lyrical and haunting."
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