Appies in a Jiffy

It started out as a bit of a joke. I was supposed to bring appies to a 1960's-themed party. And what I remembered most about party food from that era was: toothpicks. Well, that and ambrosia salad, tomato aspic and sausages-in-a-can.  Since tomato aspic is essentially, and weirdly, jello + tomato juice  and ambrosia salad is the opposite of ambrosia, I didn't think they'd be very popular. And where on earth do you buy sausages in a can these days? Honestly, food from the 60's is more fun to remember than it was to eat.

If you went to parties in the sixties, you might also remember food-on-a-toothpick. These tasty morsels were  then shoved into a pineapple that had been cut in half and placed face down. Nothing escaped the toothpick. Not the Velveeta "cheese" nor the bacon-wrapped chicken livers nor the sausages out of the can. Very classy. 

Having no pineapple on hand, I used an apple as the toothpick holder. Also short on chicken livers, I made a Greek-salad-on-a-stick by poking the toothpicks through  grape tomatoes, kalamata olives and cucumber chunks. The feta cheese cracked when I ran the toothpick through, so I just left them as squares on their own. Very authentic 1960's fare. But with a gluten-free, oddly post modern twist. And they were actually quite tasty.

 

By now, I'd run out of edible 1960's inspiration and had to dig into my1980's recipe stash. I made a platter of smoked salmon "bites" because everyone always likes them. I swear. No hyperbole.

Smear some cream cheese across thin slices of baguette or your choice of crackers. Place pieces of smoked salmon on top.  Then sprinkle either dill, capers or something green like parsley over the top. It's that easy. And delicious.

But it got me thinking about the 1960's. Those were the days, my friend: We thought they'd never end.(cue: Mary Hopkins) On a Saturday night, the parents would gather, put on loud dance music and play vaguely naughty games like pass the grapefruit using only the neck.  The women wore little black dresses and stockings held up with garter belts, wigs or "falls" (hairpieces) and rhinestone jewelry. After the party - and too many highballs - they'd throw the kids in the back of the V-8 Mercury - with no seatbelts, but lots of second-hand smoke - and swerve their way home. Good times.