National Treasure Themed Dinner

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had so much fun with last year's Jurassic Park Themed Dinner that we decided to make it an annual Valentine's Day celebration! This year my daughter chose the movie, and decided on National Treasure. 

Unlike last year when there were dozens of ideas on Pinterest, it seems as if nobody has had a National Treasure dinner before, so we were on our own for ideas. Because precious little food is shown in the movie, we began by breaking it into scenes, then contemplating options appropriate for each place. 

Boston - Boston baked beans? Chowder? A bowl of tea with toy boats floating in it?

Agent Sadusky's office - donuts and coffee?

Philadelphia - cheesesteak sandwiches? 

Once we had a list, we were able to choose three specific scenes to base our food on. We also realized that it would be best for our tummies, if we separated this into both lunch AND dinner. 

For lunch, we chose the Gala scene. While not shown within the movie, we imagined canapés would have been present, and champagne was an obvious choice. We enjoyed mozzarella skewers, broccoli-cheese stuffed peppers, and sausage bites with peach alcohol-free bellinis in flutes decorated with fingerprint stickers. Target sold heart-shaped cherry decorations this year for Valentine's Day, and because much of the movie takes place in Washington DC - known for its cherry trees - I picked up a garland, the snack plates, and the napkins. The garland was hung over our "treasure" and we used the paperware for both lunch & dinner. 

I considered a treasure hunt with ottendorf cyphers and invisible ink, but in the end decided it might be too juvenile. Instead, we found a new game, called Conspiracy Theory. Conspiracies and treasure hunting CAN go hand-in-hand, and we thought it would be a
fun addition to our weekly game day collection. It's a Trivial Pursuit style game, with questions on: aliens, mythos, (cryptids) schemes, tech, and "random". It was silly, we were terrible at knowing the correct answers, and we loved it. Then we watched Destination Truth, and opened our treasure boxes; tiny gold brick boxes left over from my daughter's birthday party last year. They were decorated with images of the Templar seal, and filled with a few Lindor chocolates, and chocolate-coated freeze-dried fruit. 

For dinner, we chose Patrick's house. Dinner was homemade cheese pizza, and Coke with plenty of lemon. We turned our electric fireplace on and the lights off while watching the movie. 

Then, just for fun, my daughter and I made chocolate "Parkington Lane" chocolate caskets complete with white chocolate skeletons and cheesecake mousse, for the scene where they find the treasure. 

This was a lot of fun to plan, and everything was so delicious! I can't wait to see what we do for next year!