So as I’ve probably mentioned before, every Wednesday night two people from the group make an appetizer, main entree, side, dessert and drink for everyone with the budget of £70.  This week, it was my turn with Caiti.  On Monday, instead of cleaning the house, we went to Tesco to buy the ingredients we would need to cook with on Wednesday.  We decided to mix things up a bit and made our common meal have a murder mystery theme to it.  So we went online and bought a 1920’s gangster themed murder mystery.  We started an hour earlier than we usually do because we were not sure how long it would last (common meal normally starts at 6:30 with appetizers, dinner at 7 and we are cleaning up by 7:30-7:45).

We gave everyone their characters and their character’s information by Saturday night so they would have enough time to go and get a proper outfit for the evening.  My character was Lucy Legiano, wife of the New York mob boss, Charlie Legiano, and a New York mobster myself.  Over the weekend, I went to a thrift store and bought a blazer for only £10 and then headed to the market to buy a fedora.  Some characters were in other mobs such as Atlantic City and Chicago’s and some of the girls were flappers.  Because there is only one guy in our group, a few people had to be men, but it seemed to work out very well.

We decided to make bread with oil and parmesan for an appetizer, homemade Confetti Mac n’ Cheese with carrots, peas and chicken for the main meal with salad, and a chocolate éclair cake for dessert, with gin and tonic or gin and juice for drinks (very 1920’s).  We started cooking around 4 and were just finished with everything in time by 5:30.  We made two and a half bags of shells, cut up four full carrots, a bag of peas, six chicken breasts, three bags of salad, and six long rolls of bread for the appetizer as well as a lot of cheese and it made for more than enough food plus leftovers.

As we entered the main common room at 5:30, everyone was dressed in 1920’s attire.  It was exciting to see everyone get their characters and really be into the game.  We had a total of three rounds throughout the evening. The first round was during appetizers.  We each received a clue that gave us information to share with the group as well as information to keep to ourselves to know.  After the second round (after dinner), Zach’s character was shot and killed and it was up to everyone to tell their alibis and figure out for themselves who they believed killed him.  He was able to participate throughout the rest of the game, though he could no longer talk, he was a ghost.  Throughout each of the rounds certain people would go out of the room with another and tell them a private piece of information that no one else would know.  This caused great curiosity throughout the group and by the end, everyone had different thoughts and opinions about who killed him due to what they knew.

In the end, we did finally find out who the killer was and told each other all of the secrets we had learned that others were dying to know about.  It turned out to be a lot of fun and a great night.  The food turned out to be delicious as well, which was very exciting.  Common meal is always one of the best nights of the week because depending on how much people have spent the previous weekend, they might not have that much food lying around the house, so common meal might be the only real main meal for the week.  The leftovers are always a great thing to have to snack on as well throughout the remainder of the week.