Tonight our friends will come celebrate Gordon's 40th birthday. We would have done held the party the weekend of his birthday except that I was in school. And last weekend was bad because we had lots of stuff going on and Gordon was working. So it's tonight!

I've got a fairly BTD friendly menu going here. Swedish meatballs (turkey) and lamb gyro (an Alton Brown recipe from "Good Eats!"), a veggie tray, a fruit tray, a little antipasto tray of olives, pickles, artichoke hearts, sliced tomatoes and crackers (rice and rye) and cheese (sheep, goat, AND cow). There's also artichoke and olive tapenade with rice crackers.

For dessert there will be brownies, chocolate chip cookies, birthday cake and chocolate fondue with fruit and biscotti and marshmallows.

It's not totally healthy, but it should please a variety of palettes and won't be terrible for me or my hubby (he won't eat the lamb). And it is all wheat-free, except for the pita for the gyros, and I won't be eating the pitas! I'm not using dairy in any of the recipes, either. The only dairy is in the actual cheeses - I'm using plain soy or almond milk for the swedish meatballs and tzatziki sauce for the gyros.

I've thrown many small dinner parties and always paid attention to the BTD for those, but I've never thrown a party for this many people and still even partly stuck to my 'wheat, beef, dairy-free' diet. We'll see how it goes! The baked goods are fabulous - completely wheat-free mixes by a company called Pamela's Products. They DO have potato starch in them, but I figure if I'm eating baked goods I'm not too concerned with the ingredients! They are wheat (and gluten) free, and they taste fabulous. Most people I've served them too have no clue that they are wheat-free.

Alright. It's 2am, and I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. I'll let you all know how it turned out!