I’ve never thrown a party before in my life. Even my childhood birthday parties were hosted by my mom, who bought the cake and ice cream and whisked my hair out of the candle flames before my head was set on fire. Since she’d proven herself so well in the past, I put her in charge of organizing this brouhaha. Thanks, Mom! There are a lot of questions that go into planning a party, like, where do we hold it? Do we serve food? How many people are going to come? Why am I so stressed out planning an event that is supposed to be fun? Little did I need to worry though, because I had a fantastic time, which is why combined with finishing a half-marathon earlier that day, I considered it to be one of the best days of my life.

My cousins Allison and Adrienne and my Aunt Elaine helped me and my mom set up the room. As people started to trickle in, I greeted them and started signing books. One of the cool things about having a book published is that you get to write in other people’s books and it’s not considered vandalism.

To keep the guests entertained as people kept arriving, we introduced the “Lick the Produce” quiz. I printed out images of all the fruits and vegetables I’ve tried in the Lick the Produce series over the past year and made people fill out surveys guessing what they were. Nicole helped us out by doing a lovely Vanna White impression.

It wasn’t done just for fun though, it was done for free pasta! Since I’m the PastaQueen, I decided I needed to bestow my bounty upon the winner. Ari over at FiberGourmet donated a lovely gift basket that we gave away to Nancy, who got the most correct answers with 11 out of 28. (It was a hard quiz!) Here’s a picture of me and my mom (the PastaQueen Mother?) with the basket.

As you’ll notice, I am holding a Spaghetti Scepter, lovingly handcrafted by my Aunt Donna from a pasta server, ribbon, sparkly jewels, and lots of hot glue. She surprised me by spending the night making them as party favors. Thanks, Donna!

Next up I read the “Trail Mix” chapter in my book in honor of Indianapolis since it takes place on our local nature trail. I tried not to talk to fast and to project my voice. I hadn’t read the chapter for a couple months, so as I was reading I was also scanning slightly ahead so I wouldn’t trip over the words. My heart stopped a little when I saw that the word “bastard” was coming up and glanced at my mom’s church friends in the corner of the room. Oh, well! If they were okay with a book titled Half-Assed hopefully they weren’t offended by my potty mouth.

After that I did a Q&A. At the end my mom just happened to ask what I would be doing this weekend and I made my big Today Show announcement. After that we ate and I got to talk to my friends and meet several of my readers. It’s so awesome to meet people in person and finally put faces to IP addresses. It’s odd, but I would probably recognize a lot of you more by your email addresses than your actual names. I was a little worried that I might be crashing somebody’s diet by serving spaghetti and meatballs and fettucini alfredo and lasagna, but Lord knows I needed the carbs after all the running around I’d done that day.

Amy and Nicole took a picture with my cover signs, pretending they were standing in my fat pants too. I stole a couple of their pics for this post and Allison sent me the rest. Thanks for the photos, guys!

And then people started to trickle out and the party was over. My Aunt Elaine and cousin Allison posed me for several pictures, making it truly like the wedding reception I never had. Instead of stuffing cake into some guys face, I held up my Spaghetti Scepter next to my book sign. For several hours I was transported to a parallel dream world where I had no problems, everyone was happy for me, and there was lots of pasta. The happiness just glowed outwards and I had a great time, even though my feet were battered from running and started to hurt in my heels.

Then I went home and slept for nine bazillion years.

Thank you to everyone who attended! I hope you had a good time too. Special thanks to my mom, Donna, Elaine, Adrienne and Allison for all their work and planning. Thanks to my publisher for the signs and their other support. And kudos to our server Barb who cracked me up and truly earned her tips by walking up and down the stairs from the kitchen to our dining room.

Maybe we can do this again some time.

But sometimes people offer me free pasta, me, the PastaQueen, the major marshal of the macaroni military. When I got the e-mail from Fiber Gourmet offering me samples of their new light pasta it was like someone had just sacrificed a goat on a Greek temple built in my name. How could I say no?

After visiting their website and reading some of their blog, I got the impression that they are a small company. I myself work at a small company and have a soft spot in my heart for fellow entrepreneurs. You get a lot of freedom when you don’t work for “the man” (even though I actually do work for a man), but it’s a lot of hard work too. You earn every last cent, just like you’ve got to earn every damn pound you lose. I sort of imagined Ari (the VP who e-mailed me) hunched over a noodle-making machine in his basement in the middle of the night while his wife shuffled to the top of the stairs in her pink bunny slippers and yelled, “Come to bed already!” But Ari would just keep cranking out the noodles and yell back, “No, I must make one last batch for the bloggers!” (Note: I have no idea if Ari has a wife or even a basement. Sometimes I just like to make up interesting back stories for people I’ve never met.) And then I read their blog entry about trying to pick a title for their company and how it was the “single most important aspect of your brand” and felt unspeakable kinship since my book title is still not finalized.

Fiber Gourmet was kind enough to send me three bags of pasta, one of each flavor which are Classic Fettuccine, Tomato Fettuccine, and Spinach Fettuccine. They come in resealable plastic bags like this (blogger not included):

When I went to open the bag, I couldn’t find a notch to rip it open like I do on my shredded cheese bags. I thought, “Aha! I have found something negative to say! Now I won’t sound like a total shill!” But then I realized I’m a dumb ass and I could just grab both sides of the plastic bag and pull it apart pretty easily without the need for any scissors.

The pasta comes in circular wads, though they probably have a fancier, more marketable term for them, like “rosettes” or “wad-ettes” or something. I weighed them and they are each a little less than an ounce. There were about 12 in each bag which jives with the label’s information that there are five 2oz servings. However, it does make it a little more difficult to figure out how many calories and carbs you are eating in your serving, so maybe it would be better if they had ten wads that were exactly 1 oz each. Or maybe I am being anal.

I don’t know if they did this on purpose or if it was an accident, but the wads are rather brilliant. The problem I’ve always had when I make spaghetti is that I don’t know how big it is going to look on my plate when it’s cooked. I don’t line up all the noodles in straight lines before I eat them. With Fiber Gourmet I can tell exactly how big my serving is, which greatly reduces my chance of overeating. I am prone to finish what’s on my plate, but if I only cook what I want to eat, I can’t pig out. Okay, I used to eat Ramen noodles raw, but I don’t do that with pasta anymore.

When I first moved out onto my own, I experienced some trial and error when I had to figure out how much food to cook for dinner. When I lived with my mother and brother I always cooked enough for everyone because it was polite. If I was going to sauté a chicken breast, it wasn’t that much more work to throw two more on the skillet. When I first cooked spaghetti just for myself, I used a mostly empty box I’d grabbed from our pantry. I just dumped the rest of the box into the boiling water figuring it would make about one serving.

Suddenly I was trapped in a live reenactment of Strega Nona. There was pasta practically flowing out the door. I ended up eating all of it over the course of four meals, when I’d only thought it would make a serving or two. I’m sure packaging straight noodles is a more efficient use of space, making them easier to stack and transport and thus saves money. However, I’m not a truck driver or a loading dock hand. I am someone trying to manage my weight, and I much prefer the wads of pasta to the long noodles I get in a box from the grocery.

I cooked one wad of each flavor and I honestly couldn’t taste much of a difference between the flavors. Maybe this was because I cooked them all together and I ended up with a tomato/spinach/classic blend. But I wanted to review the pasta already and not leave Ari hunched over his noodle machine, so I thought it best to just cook them all at once. Then I poured some Prego on them and some Parmesan cheese and it was very good. It kept me full for the rest of the evening too. The nutritional information is comparable to other whole-wheat pastas and actually has less calories per serving. I was also glad they were not poisoned as part of an elaborate scheme by a disgruntled fat acceptance fanatic who might set up a dummy corporation and create their own pasta line just to kill me. I’ve really got to stop making up these back stories.