Week 138: Boards and Lakes

Week 138: August 17th-23rd, 2025

Any excuse my friends and I have to get together, dress up, and come up with a themed party, we will. Birthdays are taken especially seriously. So, when my friend Victoria decided her belated birthday celebration would be "Brunch Boards and Booze" theme, we all got to work. The idea behind this theme is like a potluck: everyone brings a board (like a charcuterie board with a theme) and a corresponding cocktail.

For a while now, my friends and I have been using Partiful for larger, planned events because it is a good way to see all the RSVPs and party information in one place. While I'm not sponsored (I definitely don't get enough traffic on this silly blog to warrant a sponsorship with any brands), I do really suggest using Partiful for a user-friendly app that keeps party planning fun!

Victoria sent out her invitation on Partiful, and each person who RSVP-ed "Yes" could comment what kind of board and booze they were going to bring. After some quick Pinterest scrolling for Inspiration, I chose a "chocolate" board and some kind of chocolate or cream cocktail.

At first I was considering making a "Snickers Shot," which is Kahlua, Frangelico, and Bailey's layered in a glass shot, but I had Oreo and chocolate Jello pudding packets I wanted to put to use. So, instead of a layered shot, I made a spiked chocolate pudding. I played with some different combinations of Kahlua, Irish cream (Kavanaugh, not Baileys, because it was cheaper, haha), and the Pinnacle Whipped Vodka.

The plethora of ingredients I was using for the pudding shots

Mixing the pudding in my handy KitchenAid <3

The final product was pretty thick for the chocolate Jello mix

I ended up using this recipe by Sarah White on the Planning Inspired site. Alongside the pudding mix and cold milk, it calls for Pinnacle Whipped Cream Vodka, Kahlua, Cool Whip and sprinkles. It came together nicely, but getting the mixture nicely into the cute plastic Dollar Tree pudding cups I found was a nightmare. It was a mess, and I spent way too long meticulously cleaning off the drips from the edges of the cups before putting them in the fridge to fully set.

The cups were a nightmare to clean up

I placed the cups on a tray for easy transport to the fridge

For the Oreo pudding packet, I didn't have any Cool Whip left, so the final product was a bit more runny. It wasn't able to set as well as the regular chocolate pudding because it was missing a more stabilizing ingredient like the Cool Whip to offset the anti-setting properties of alcohol. Since pudding isn't really a liquid you can drink, I guess the runny Oreo mixture turned out to be more like a beverage than I intended.

The funnel was semi-useful

You can see the consistency of the Oreo mix was runnier

I used a funnel for the Oreo mixture because it was more liquid-y than the chocolate one. The funnel helped a little with the mess while filling the cups, but I still had to go back in and wipe the edges of the cups off. In the future, I think using a piping bag or some sort of dispenser (like maybe this one for pancake mix) to slowly and carefully fill the cups without dripping all over the place would save a lot of time and headache.

I got tiny plastic spoons at the Dollar Tree and placed them alongside a wafer straw in each cup when I served the pudding at Victoria's party.

My board and my pudding cups!

For my board, I bought a bunch of different chocolate-y snack mixes and cookies and just piled them on. I would've made it look prettier if I had more time, but we got to the party slightly late and I had to set the board up quickly before it could go on the table. I forgot to take a picture of all of the packaging for the content of my chocolate board, but it was a mixture of chocolate covered pretzels, caramels, kettle corn, wafer cookies, and even special Girl Scout Thin Mint balls that I found at Home Goods.

Top: Bagel board spread, Middle: DIY Bloodys, Bottom: fruit and chocolate board

Top: fruit and chocolate board, Middle: toast and pudding, bottom: toast and chicken and waffles

Some of the other boards were a bagel board, a DIY Bloody Mary station, a fruit board, a toast board (bruschetta, avocado spread, etc.) and a chicken and waffles board. For drinks, there were a lot of options. Of course we had Bloody Mary's (it was brunch, after all!), a pineapple cucumber agua fresca (optional: add tequila and ice!), a plethora of hard seltzers and canned cocktails (mainly Cutwater brand), and a new favorite of the group: Sun Cruisers. We've never been a beer group, but there's always some in the fridge as an option just in case.

After a long day of eating, drinking and yapping with my friends, you'd think I'd be hungover or at least a little tired. Surprisingly, the next morning, my boyfriend and I woke up at 7am and went on a morning hike around Chollas Lake Park. I'd never been before, and it was nice to get outside and touch grass a bit.

Hiking in San Diego is so different from up north in the Bay Area because its all very dry and desert-y. I always get dust in my shoes and find myself longing for more shaded pathways on hiking trails in San Diego. Chollas Lake had some nice shade directly around it, but the trails throughout the rest of the park were pretty exposed to the sun. It was early enough that it didn't get too hot, but I would suggest against going if you want to avoid sun exposure.

I have a soft spot for any City run parks (shout out to the City of Berkeley Parks & Recreation, my first employer) and felt a little tight in my chest when I saw the Chollas Lake signs for the City of San Diego's summer programs. I make better money at my current job, obviously, but in an ideal world, I'd love to still get paid to run around with kids all day.

This was one of the hottest weekends we've had yet this summer, and I'm surprised I didn't go to the pool or the beach at least once. I hope the warmth continues for at least a few weeks so I can fully maximize my outdoor time in the sun.

See you next week.