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You can tell a lot about a party, or party-goers for that matter, by checking out the food table.

One of my good friends from high school best summed up this idea when we were in the middle of a fight over how much food to buy for a party we were hosting together. She didn’t want to spend money on snacks, so she pointed out, “You can always tell if it’s a bad party if everyone eats all the food.” I responded that we didn’t want to look cheap by offering our guests plain potato chips and the Costco pizza bites she’d had in her freezer all year.

She had made a good point, however, and her comment has stuck with me through the years as I’ve thrown and attended my share of parties. Unless you have some amazing display that involves fresh California rolls or something like that, the food table is where people congregate when they’re either really bored at a lame party, they don’t know anyone, or they’re approaching party-tragedy status and their friends sent them over to try to sober up.

I was most recently reminded of my friend’s comment when I was flipping through the party pages in the January/February issue of Hollywood Life and stopped to closely examine the pictures from the Hollywood Style Awards. There, in the middle of all the photos of celebrities like Carmen Electra, James Denton and Nicole Richie posing and looking fabulous for the camera, was a photo of the “scrumptious dessert towers.” The aforementioned “dessert towers” were giant displays of Twinkies beside other chocolates and cakes. And, in addition to the food, the photo featured a lone unnamed guest helping herself to some of the chocolate while all of the other guests stood with their backs to the food table doing what the magazine called “mingling most stylishly.”

It was at that moment that I realized the girl at the dessert table was me. And let’s just say that you know you clearly were not the life of the party when you find documentation of you eating chocolate at a party like Kirstie Alley did pre-Jenny Craig.

I tried to justify my loser status by saying that a Westwood party the night before had left me swearing off alcohol for at least five days. So the only thing tempting me at the Style Awards was Sprite from the open bar and free food to ease my hangover.

And while the photo made me realize I was clearly out of my league when it came to becoming part of the Hollywood party crowd, I could have at least faked belonging if I’d opted to clutch a martini rather than a food plate and actually talked to people rather than giving off the appearance of having as many friends as Britney Spears did in the season premiere of “Britney and Kevin: Chaotic.”

Looking like you deserve to be party-edited at a Hollywood event may make you look like a loser in a national magazine. But doing so at a Westwood party might end up haunting you on Facebook now that they added that feature where you can tag photos of friends. Let’s just say I’ve had an unflattering photo in a magazine. I’ve been lucky to avoid any overly embarrassing party photos on Facebook so far. But be careful next time you go out, because you never know who has a camera.

Every time she throws a party, Rodgers secretly hopes there is lots of leftover food. E-mail her at jrodgers@media.ucla.edu.