About Last Night

Great ways to entertain yourself for free:

1.  Give your cat a ball of masking tape, sticky side out.

2.  Look in the mirror, make a sexy face, and then spend 40 minutes trying to capture it on film for your Facebook profile picture.

3.  BLEEP.

4.  Get invited to a (free) fabulous event.

The Frugal Hostess did all of those things last night, and the best was the free fabulous event. 

FruHo was invited to the Tony Awards Viewing Party at the fabulous Fox Theatre by Russ Sauve, whom she "met" on Twitter a few weeks back.  TFH has been to a zillion Oscar parties, some fancy and some ghetto, but the Tony Awards have never really been on her radar screen, so this seemed like a great opportunity to try something new.  Plus, if you live any where near Atlanta, you know that the Fox is an amazing venue, and any excuse to go there is a good one.

First, TFH needed a date.  FruHubs was out of town, so Sidekick Sherry came along for the ride.  The ladies had cocktails at Livingstons, then tottered across the street to the Fox.  [A note on tottering: In the last year, FruHo has gone from wearing four-inch heels and mascara to tie-dye and flip-flips every day, so her party shoes nearly knocked her on her ass.  Re-education may or may not begin soon.]  Once there, they checked in and climbed a flight of stairs to the party room.  Off to the left, in a separate room, the silent auction items (benefiting Unicef) were on display.  Hey, FruHubs?  Stop hyperventilating.  TFH got there too late to bid.  Which is a shame; there was a lot of cool stuff up for auction.

In the main event room, 15 restaurants were offering tastes at tables set up around the perimeter of the space.  You've been to events like this before, undoubtedly, so you know that the food quality can be...spotty.  Well, The Frugal Hostess is delighted to report that, with only a couple of exceptions, everything was delicious.  There were salmon rillettes (from Il Mulino, maybe?  If you know, leave it in the comments.); lasagna from Joey D's; lobster bisque from New York Prime; and pulled duck sliders from Livingston.  Hudson Grille brought amazing lobster dip and some desserts, and there were more desserts from Broadway Diner.  

But the best thing, by far, was the beef carpaccio from Veni Vidi Vici.  Thinly sliced rawish-rare beef was wrapped around a Parmesan bread stick, and there was an anchovy garlic dip (maybe with Dijon mustard?).  Dude.  Seriously.  Just, wow.  This will be making an appearance at a party in the near future.  (That's Chef Jamie Adams in the picture.)

The tables were mostly reserved, which made it awkward to find a place to sit down (TFH got denied by someone sitting alone at the Unicef table!  Really, Unicef?).  The good news?  FruHo and Sidekick Sherry scored drink tickets from some gentlemen they ended up sitting down with (who won their tickets on Facebook), so that helped.  Aside from those guys, and Atlanta's favorite City Councilman, Kwanza Hall, the average age in the room was about 86.   Maybe a lot of life-long patrons were invited?

The Tonys themselves were, uh, kind of like the Drama Club banquet.  Remember how all the hard-core drama kids always seemed vastly more sophisticated than you, like they all smoked pipes and had ex-husbands?  And yet, those drama geeks were, you know, kinda geeky.  Or at least, off.  Same with the Tony Awards.  You knew that the nominees and presenters were famous and a BFD and all, but many of them seemed like they smoked pipes and had ex-husbands. Next year, The Frugal Hostess will pay better attention to what's happening on Broadway.

Now's the part where, if she hadn't received free tickets to this event, TFH would make some gentle suggestions for next year's party.  Like to invest more in the flowers next year, and to have live entertainment during the commercial breaks.  And maybe an official emcee.  Just minor, tiny little tweaks.  But, since FruHo would never want to appear ungrateful, she'll just keep those between us.

In all, this was a great, great event, and a wonderful time was had by all.  Thank you, Fox Theatre, for existing, and for inviting The Frugal Hostess to come and write about your party!

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