Foodie Memories- Winter Pasta Party

As mentioned before, one of my favorite things about a great meal with friends or family (and always a combination of both!) are the memories created about the experience. As part of this little food & cooking blog, I wanted to start recording some of those memories as well so that they don't slip away.
A more recent one happened a few years ago when my husband (fiance at the time), brother and I lived together in the Eastport section of Annapolis. After attending a friend's birthday party in Baltimore, and a very interesting journey back to another friend's for a place to crash, I felt the need to throw a small dinner party with a little less of a debacle theme to it. The next weekend we invited over some close friends and I set to making a HUGE (I think we ate off of it long after the time that most people in their right minds would have tossed it out!) pot of Fruitti di Mare, and a comperably large batch of spiced wine, as it was sometime in late winter. Friends rolled in, wine was poured and snacks were eaten. I remember looking out into the living room to see my brother and his girlfriend rifiling through music selections, my husband teaching my friends Ted and Gil how to play cribbage, and my dear freind (and fellow foodie for the past 8 years) Mona dutifully grabbing us a plate of cheese and treats to enjoy while we put the finishing touches on the meal- and I remember thinking that although we're all a bunch of mid-(ok, mid to late) twenty somethings with not a lot of reserve, we still new how to throw a damn good party.
The dinner ended up (not to the surprise of any of the attendees) going into the late hours of the evening, where stories circled around the table, and every so often we would all errupt into a chorus of laughter at the story teller's punch line. By the end of the night, I was holding my stomach not just from overendulging, but from laughing so hard it hurt. In between the satirical retelling of our lives, other topics came up for discussion, from current events to food to greatest albums, and we were determined to leave no stone unturned. When the last glass of wine had been drank, the last cannoli split (thanks Mona & Ted!), the last tear of laughter wiped away and the last guest had left, I remember looking around our now festively dishevled townhouse and thinking, life is good.
The next morning, however, I'm pretty sure I may have recanted the sentiment. After a couple of hours in a dark room with lots of hydration and an ample supply of ibuprofin I was able to fix myself and return to my original notion- and in the end it was worth all the hurt that morning.