A Mexican Fiesta
Friday night, I had a few friends over for a Mexican-themed dinner party. As often happens when I entertain, I got so caught up in cleaning and cooking and making sure everyone had something to snack on and something to drink that I forgot to take pictures of my food. But lucky for me, there were some leftovers. Here’s what was on the menu:
Appetizer: Chips and guacamole (Brenda has requested my guacamole so often that whenever she’s coming over for dinner now, I just automatically add it to the menu)
Entree: Two types of tamales: cactus/queso fresco (vegetarian) and chicken/tomatillo with yellow rice and refried beans on the side
Dessert: Flourless chocolate/chili cake with rum-flavored whipped cream.
Here are a couple of pictures:
The aforementioned tamales.
Full disclosure: I made these a couple of days later because I’m tweaking the recipe, but they’re essentially the same cakes.
Jeff and Reshma brought this wine, a Terra Noble Gran Reserva Carmenère, and it was divine. I’m not a wine connoisseur by any means — I know that I like wine, and that sometimes I’m given terrible wine that I don’t like, and that it’s usually a chardonnay, but I don’t really know much about it. When I took the first sip of this, though, I said, “Oh wow, this tastes like bacon.” And any wine that tastes like bacon is a-okay in my book.
Overall, I was pleased with how everything turned out. I’m such a perfectionist, though. After a dinner party, I’m always nitpicking myself, and thinking of ways I could have done things better.
I’m having a Sri Lankan-themed dinner party in a few weeks, which I’m psyched about because Sri Lankan food is my favorite food of all. If you live in the NYC metro area, and haven’t had Sri Lankan food, go to Sigiri — it’s cheap, byob, and delicious. Once it gets warmer, I’m going to be doing a Staten Island Sri Lankan food tour, because Anthony Bourdain says the Sri Lankan food out there is amazing and if he says it, it must be true. (It’s not just Anthony Bourdain — Staten Island is known for their Sri Lankan food.) And I’ll remember to take pictures on both occasions. Hopefully.
And finally, a word about comments. I’ve been getting inundated with spam and have tried out a few different things to make it stop. If you have any problems leaving comments, please let me know and I’ll do some more tweaking.
