The Help Viewing Party

I love a good book and a I love a good party – so a party about a book is my FAVORITE.

I invited a bunch of friends who had read The Help and were excited to see the movie over for a Southern meal and Southern conversation. (minus the gossip)

My menu:

• Mint juleps - These were slightly disappointing.  VERY sweet and sort of a mojito tease.  But they were very popular in the south in the 60′s.
• Deviled eggs – I love deviled eggs, but this was my first time making them myself…and man are they a pain!  Very tedious, but still yummy.

• Fried Chicken – I’ve never fried chicken myself, but I’ve watched my mom do it and know better than to give it a college try on a night like last night – SO, Church’s it was.
• Bourbon sweet potatoes – THESE WERE AMAZING.

• Corn bread – So I asked my friend Carrie to make the cornbread for the night.  She said she’d never made it before to which I replied, “I mean, Jiffy is totally fine.”  Well, Carrie made the mistake of telling her mother that she was going to make jiffy for the dinner – her mother’s response – “Oh no you are NOT!  I can’t believe you’ve never made cornbread before, I have failed you as a mother.  I’ll be there tomorrow to teach you.”  SCORE for us because not only did she help Carrie make cornbread, she also made us black eyed peas and an incredible squash casserole.  Thanks Carrie’s mom.
• Caramel Cake – Minny is famous for these cakes in the book so I thought we needed to include it in the supper.  Turns out, caramel cakes are a HUGE undertaking, so I made these “cupcake” versions.  They turned out super cute, but VERY sweet.  VERY.

• Minny’s chocolate pie – fun fact – one of the bakers for the movie made 53 different chocolate pie recipes to find the perfect one for the film – this recipe is the one she landed on.  And it’s GOOD.

So after dinner I broke out the trivia for the book/movie.  I started by having everyone identify which characters each actress was portraying using these…

After we knew who each actress was, we used these in a modge podge game of “who said this”/spoons (where everyone grabs a spoon, but one person is left without one).  I basically just had a list of quotes and as I read them, the ladies grabbed a picture of the character who said it.  Very fun.  I also did just some classic trivia questions from the book.  We had all read the book over a year ago, so it was good to brush up before heading over to the movie!

The party favors were CD samplers of some of the music from the movie (Patsy Cline, Bob Dylan, etc.)…

Such a fantastic group of women and an incredibly great night.

Check out the trailer and GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!

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