Progressive Party - House Pub Crawl

You may have heard of Progressive Dinner Parties – this is a variation on that. A Progressive Dinner Party is when each course of a meal is served at a different home. Kind of like a traveling potluck dinner. On Wikipedia, I read about a more complicated Progressive Party where the guests also change from house to house, so you get to party with a whole new crowd at each stop. The overly complicated directions (and pretty diagrams!) for that are at this link. Good luck explaining that one in an invitation!

My friends threw a Progressive Party/House Pub Crawl that the group still talks about today. I wanted to impart this idea to you in hopes that you will have an equally epic night.

Once upon a time, in a college town not far away, there were four friends who lived within a two block radius of each other. Each friend was given the responsibility to come up with a Drink and a Food for the progressive party that represented the country/place of his/her choice. Hosts and guests would then go from house to house together to sample the food and drink.

About twenty guests converged on the first house. There, the host provided Bailey’s shots and green jello. This was supposed to be representative of Ireland. The guests appreciated that instead of going with the obvious food choices of corned beef or potatoes, the host chose to go with green jello, the national dish of the Emerald Isle.

After eating their fill of gelatin, the mob of guests walked to the second house. The host at the location provided Sangria and Tortilla Español so the guests could explore the tastes of Spain. She also “entertained” the guests with an album of photos taken during her recent Study Abroad experience in Toledo, Spain and played some Spanish pop music.

The third host home provided some much appreciated food from the tropics. Teriyaki chicken and pineapple skewers and piña coladas were served - and by this time the tipsy guests were willing to laugh at jokes about getting lai’ed. (Drunken guests may or may not have also devoured an entire box of Samoa Girl Scout cookies that was inadvertently placed in plain sight on top of the refrigerator.)

No one needed to drink or eat any more at this point, but motivated guests gamely traipsed to the fourth and final party house. There they courageously imbibed Hurricanes and Jambalaya made by the host, a native of New Orleans. After the Hurricanes, no one can actually recall what else happened that night. Legend has it that the guests walked to a local bar to sober up and tried to remember all the places they had been to that evening.

Green jello - synonymous with Irish Pride

If you are over the age of 24, you may want to tweak this party idea so your guests don’t die of alcohol poisoning. (Our livers seemed stronger back then, didn’t they?) But I think the basic concept still works.

1. Have a theme for the party to keep it cohesive. Each host provides food from their home state or ancestral home. Each host has to serve a vegetable that they’ve grown in the garden. Each host has to pair their favorite wine with an appetizer. Each host picks an awesome scene from a movie to watch, then serves a coordinating beverage and food. (“Mystic Pizza”, anyone? Anyone?)

2. The hosts must live near to each other. Either walking distance or short driving distance. (Designated drivers!)

3. Limit the number of host houses to three or four. Three is probably better. (See above cautionary tale.)

4. Each host can invite a few guests. Decide ahead of time how many guests that will be so each host knows how much food and drink to prepare. It’s a great way for guests and hosts to meet new people!

5. Since guests are only going to be at each house for less than an hour, you don’t need to plan on table seating for every guest. Thus, appetizer type foods work better than foods that you need to sit down to eat with a knife and fork.

6. As a host, choose food that can be prepared ahead of time to reduce the wait time when everyone shows up at your house. The idea is that each party stop flows into the next. Plus, you will be at the previous homes, enjoying yourself, and won’t be at home to do the last minute things you normally would before a party. Have all the plates and cups arranged and ready on the table. Something in a crock pot or that can be served cold are great choices.