A week of parties–Valley of the Dolls

Or in other words…boy, am I pooped! (This was going to be one post about three "parties" but I got so carried away with the first one that I am going to spare you all by creating separate posts. You can thank me later...)


Since this is my last year in my unit at Stoneybrook, it was decided that we would have Thanksgiving here. Wait, first let me back up. For those of you who don’t know, I love, love, love anything Jacqueline Susann and anything Valley of the Dolls (but NOT Beyond Valley of the Dolls!!) What does this have to do with Thanksgiving? Well, I have been talking about having a Valley of the Dolls party for like for-ev-er. So, I enticed my sister to come earlier than everyone else if I finally had this party.
Due to my dwindling funds, I kept the party very small, plus a few of my friends had other plans that couldn’t change. The only props I bought were some “silver” trays from the dollar store to throw all my “pills” onto (actually candy.) I made several props that only a true movie lover would know.  Only one of my friends hadn’t already seen the movie, so we each took turns acting the scene that went with the prop and I did a serious reading of the opening of the book. Great stuff!!
I made little stars out of foam board and painted them with glitter paint pens (that I had on hand!) Then I stuck skewer sticks in them and put them in a coke bottle (because Jennifer North orders coke in the movie.) These were all placed on a silver tray with dolls on them (which is also a scene in the movie with Neely.) Karen acted this scene out and added the montage scene of Neely exercising and taking dolls (while her then husband, Mel – played by one of my favorite Route 66 actors Martin Milner – shakes his head “no.”)

Sparkle Neely, Sparkle!

My sister did an awesome impression of Susan Hayward as Helen Lawson singing “I’ll Plant My Own Tree.”
This picture from the movie is from a great blog post about Valley of the Dolls and the Roman Calendar. Plus it has lots more great pics from the movie, including one of my favorites of Neely singing with her necklace accidentally encircling her “boobies, boobies, boobies…”


Lastly, I acted out the scene between Jennifer and her mother “I sent you fifty dollars last week Mother…”where she tells her mother that she will take her fur back to the pawn shop to get more money for her.



Then we proceeded to watch the movie while eating all our goodies. I used vintage Pyrex and a fondue set from the 60’s. Karen brought her vintage chip and dip set  for our favorite onion dip from Trader Joe’s (read all about it on An Immovable Feast’s blog.) She also brought a vintage punch bowl set (matching ladle and cups – very fancy), in which she made a classic sherbet punch. Ahem, some us of may have spiked ours, as well.  To go with the fondue was Swedish meatballs, apple slices, French bread and asparagus. Jessica requested mushroom caps and I found some freshly made at the grocery store. This saved me a lot of time from having to make one of the recipes in my vintage cookbooks. I didn’t know that mushroom caps are still popular but it turns out the Trader Joe’s also carries them frozen. I have them now in my freezer waiting for the next round of guests.

Lastly, Arlene made a requested dessert from my Joys of Jello book, the Crown Jewel Dessert. This is also known as Broken Glass Jello as seen here on The Simple Skillet Blog. If any of you want my original recipe, email me so I can send you the pdf that I scanned.


It was really tasty. Arlene went above and beyond by making the colored Jellos in the shape of circles so it matches the crazy circles in “I’ll Plant my Own Tree”!