Can you believe that stuff? OMG, You'd never know it to look at me, but I'm not someone who eats fried foods, donuts, loads of bacon or the rest of that stuff. Just bring on the cookies and chocolate! When I saw this site, I cracked up with laughter! I hope that these aren't County Fair foods or on some restaurant's real menu!

Well, it was dikon. I had jicama, but I thought dikon was more compatible taste-wise. There is a reason for using white for Valentine hearts . I don't understand the whole business about the red heart’s connection to Love and passion. When you are near someone you love, true, smoke gets in your eyes and your heart starts to pound faster and heavier --- OK, is that love? But in fact the heart has nothing to do with the situation. It is really the brain telling the heart what to do. Any sexologist will tell you that the most erotic organ in your body is up there, not down there. So, since the brain is white, and the shape of the brain is kind of heart shaped with a split in the middle, why not white brain for Valentine? :-) http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/brain/133/3/941/F2.large.jpg dcarch

its tonight.. not last night ... this is MI for you ... yesterday.. near 90 ... stuffy ... half sun.. half clouds.. brisk breeze when cloudy.. stagnant in sun ... humidity a million and a half ... wait for it ... last night .. 48 ... and the humidity left [or so it feels] .. high today mid 60s or so .. cloudy and windy ... and tonight.. into the 30s ... my base problem is rural living ... in town.. i would probably wing it ... its always warmer in that micro .. been running the a/c and heat for 2 weeks now ... its nuts ... its either freezing or new orleans out there .. otherwise know as MI ... whats that cliche ... if you dont like the weather in MI .. wait a minute.. it will change ... i need to clean out the accumulated oak leaves .. so i would have to move all the pots anyway ... so may as well do it today ... i will use the garden cart on the lawnmower... and move about 25 or so at a time ... and i will leave them in the barn for a week or so .... [if i get lazy.. maybe all summer.. lol] ... near the open door ... then i should be bulletproof ... 10 day forecast looks harmless besides.. i need the exercise ... ken

If this is the first time for doing this and you have just over three weeks to organize and pull it off, limit what you do so that you can be sure to do it well. . Keep it simpler and you will be more successful and be able to build in the future. It sounds like you are responsible for getting pricing for the groceries, but also at least to some degree determining the menu and what those groceries will be. Pancakes, butter and syrup are given. Do you want to provide vegan or GF options or figure that GF folks will expect pancakes not to be their thing and be satisfied with generic pancakes being vegetarian? If you do decide to provide GF and/or vegan options, I would say so on any publicity for the event. Since it is a dinner, you could consider adding eggs for more protein/substance, and it could be a GF option. Scrambled are easiest -- and you may be buying eggs for the pancakes. Bacon is great, but it is harder to cook a lot of it to correct doneness and it is messier. Sausage or ham are easier to deal with for crowds. Since this is Shrove Tuesday aka Fat Tuesday, it might be fun to have whipped cream, chocolate chips and some berries. The baked apples sound good too, but both of these could reduce baked good sales if you want to add the bake sale on the side. Decide whether you would rather have just the dinner and both provide and charge a bit more or do the bake sale. I have also seen dessert auctions where towards the end of the meal, people bid on a whole cake or pie. This works best with family events where folks tend to come for the entire event rather than just come, eat and go. You could adapt the idea to coffee cakes, muffins and other take home items since many will have had all the sweet they can handle with pancakes and syrup -- with or without whipped cream, etc. You can do some pricing online. Sam's allows you to shop online and pick up at the warehouse, so you should be able to shop and price their options online. I think Walmart does also, though not all items may be in stock at the stores, so you might have to order in advance. Costco has different pricing online and I'm not sure they have the same order and pick up. They also don't typically give prices over the phone. If you were starting 6 months out, you could do a lot more research (mixes, scratch recipes, stores, etc. -- and maybe drive yourself nuts with it all, but given what you said about Krusteaz, I decided to take a look. Interestingly, Sam's and Walmart both have Krusteaz Buttermilk complete 10 lb bags with pricing shown online -- and Walmart runs slightly cheaper than Sam's -- about $7.50 vs $8. The info says that makes 240 pancakes (not what size) and all you add is water -- so that is your total cost for pancakes. The nutritional info says 90 servings per bag -- I'd guess you might do larger pancakes for dinner and maybe serrve as few as 50 guests peer bag -- but that's still 15 cents per person. And Krusteaz will reimburse half of that? I would go buy a smaller box of the mix and make a test batch this weekend. If you are happy with them, I'd stop worrying about the pancakes and move on. You can hardly make it easier or cheaper than that. Move on to sausage or ham, syrup, butter, plates, napkins, forks and knives and beverage options (since it's dinnerr, you can get away with iced tea, lemonade and water -- maybe add coffee) then decide if you want to add anything else. Have you set a price for the dinner? Do you have any idea how many people you might be serving? Will you sell tickets in advance (helps you can get an idea -- rough idea if you also do at the door sales)? I think you probably have enough to deal with without trying to get sponsorships or donations -- I would consider those things to consider adding next year. Those things take more time than you have to do successfully. You often have to go back, call and follow up a number of times to get an answer or work out details. Have I made this long enough to lose you yet? LOL Sorry