Mexican International Dinner

The Monday prior to the Mexican International Dinner, Sarah Acton, the Spanish teacher at Tapestry Charter's high school, passed away suddenly while in Costa Rica leading a class trip. 

I had connected with Sarah several weeks before and she was excited to come help with the Mexican International Dinner which was originally set for April 13th.

She was going to invite the students that were traveling with her to the dinner event when they returned from Costa Rica. 

I moved the dinner to May 11th to give some breathing room and alter the plans for the dinner. All of the proceeds of the evening's monetary donations went towards the Sarah Acton Scholarship Fund at the Tapestry Charter School.

Thank you to the crew from Lloyd Taco Trucks for their donation to the dinner! 

There were also cricket lollipops, books from West Side Stories, and pretty neat t-shirts as door prizes.

I set up an altar with items I've collected from Mexico.

Jessica Folckemer, Olmsted's Spanish teacher, loaned a large box of really marvelous stuff to help decorate and educate!

The menu for the evening included:

"Grillos" (fried tiny crickets) with "nopalitos" (sweet slivered inner cactus) served in a red sauce (from Lloyd Taco Trucks) then rolled up in tiny corn tortillas with a stone limed corn avocado paste on top. 

Vegetarian slivered sweet potatoes quick pan fried and served drizzled with raw honey. 

Vegan freshly ground corn pudding, sweetened with aloe vera and cactus juice liquor, and steamed in corn husks. Vegan Ix'ni salsa with fresh tortillas chips.

Vegetarian Chaya cream soup. 

Vegan chocolate sorbet and a vegetarian spiced hot corn/chocolate drink, called atole, served with fresh chili powder and vanilla bean paste.

Did you know that crickets, on average, taste vaguely like a cross between a shrimp and an almond, and are highly nutritious: when dried, they rival beef pound-for-pound when it comes to protein, and far exceed it in calcium and iron. They are remarkably sustainable to raise, requiring so many times fewer resources than most livestock that it's like comparing an S.U.V. to a bicycle.

The most surprising part was how much the crickets tasted like toasted almonds! There were no leftovers, and nearly everyone tasted at least one. Some, like my eldest daughter Sam, couldn't get enough of them.

There were three piñatas and so much loot that everyone walked away with full bellies, fists full of candy, and an experience unlike any they had ever encountered.

Over 160 pounds of food was raised and $230 was donated to the scholarship. It was such a fun evening that I will never forget!



Thanks to everyone who donated their time, money, school supplies, and more to making yet another international dinner such a HUGE hit!

Six Nations International Dinner

June 23rd was our last International Dinner for the 2011/2012 year. Folks had been asking for a Native dinner and I thought it would be a great way to end the year.

This dinner celebrated the Six Nations: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca & Tuscarora.  The evening's contributions came to 170 pounds, with the total from the four dinners equalling 428 pounds, exceeding last year's total of 412 pounds from six dinners!

My friends Stephanie and Sam helped me prepare for this dinner by connecting me with all sorts of extraordinary people, information, resources, music and concepts. Things I had never thought of before because of ignorance, because of the lack of true information.

As it was to be an especially busy weekend I had difficulty securing someone to share. I was fortunate though to connect with Allan Jamieson Sr. and his son of Neto Hatinakwe Onkwehowe.

I explained to them how important it was to have a representative, saying,

"I've had bands come who showed off their unique instruments and then played a few round and I'd like to keep doing that since those moments were and are so well loved."

They were eager to help! Allan Jamieson Jr. came with wampum, a headdress, maps, a water drum and so many other things. He sang, told stories and shared the rich history of the peoples of the Six Nations.

Over 48 people gathered for this final dinner. The food and company was amazing and I was astounded by the questions and comments.

The menu included:


Three Sisters Soup (vegan) - white Indian corn, green beans, butternut squash, veggie stock, light roux







Corn Soup - (4) pork hock, salt pork, kidney beans, Indian corn, water

Wild rice with maple syrup, blueberries and strawberries (vegan)











Scon (vegan) - fry bread - With homemade strawberry preserves

Corn Bread (vegan) - Polenta style with kidney beans, poached in maple syrup

Strawberry drink (vegan) - Hulled, sliced, mashed with water and organic raw sugar

Roasted Venison - With blueberries sauce salt and pepper

We also featured the strawberry. A medicine plant. We had it in drink form, hulled and cut fresh, in rice and as homemade preserves. The strawberries were donated by friends Dave and Michael, Kate and Kevin, and the Lexington Co-op!

I had Stephanie, her aunt Cindy and another good friend Kate, help me in the kitchen and I was thankful for the many hands and happy voices!










Here is Allan sharing the story of Mary Jemison.

Here he shares a New Women's Shuffle song and a story of how the Bear Clan became keepers of the knowledge of medicinal plants.

I want to extend my special heartfelt gratitude to Allan and his father, Stephanie and her Aunt Cindy, Sam Hill and his mother Lois for contributing to the success of this dinner. Without their willingness to speak on their heritage, personal experiences and to share their unique perspectives, this would not have been possible.

I also want to thank all of you who continue to come to these with an open mind and a ready hand and heart!

I will be continuing these dinners next year. The line up will be: Austria, Japan, India, France, Greece and Mexico.

Swedish International Dinner

Our Swedish International Dinner was the biggest yet with over One Hundred and Twenty Five Pounds of Food Donated, much of which was sustainably and organically and some was even locally sourced!

We ended up with thirty-nine people, some who were immigrants, first and second generation Swedes. My friend Martha Malkiewicz led a number of folk dance regulars through their paces with a jaunty Swedish children's dance that moved faster and faster as the song went on. My good friend Joan Goldberg shared stories that centered on the Iron Nail (a type of Stone Soup tale) and shared a bit of history of storytelling, how the stories stay generally the same regardless of the country, just darker in their telling the farther north you head.

It took me two days to make 55 Rose Hip Semla, and only 8 came home afterwards! Folks brought pepparkakor, quiche, cold apple and cucumber salad, salt potatoes, warm red cabbage, red wine glogg, and pickled slivered cucumbers.

I served over 300 kottbullar (traditional meatballs), potatoes with lingonberries, salmiak crusted pork loin, traditional Black Currant Glogg and an ice sorbet glogg, two loaves of cardamon bread, sweet gingered carrots, butter roasted slivered fennel, and lemon and dill stuffed grouper. Do you know how many bones there are in that fish? I don't know either, I lost count. But people were very sweet about it.

 

 Skål!

Perogie Making Workshop

So the first workshop is coming up and I am so excited and nervous! I've been going over the blog post from the January 24th International Dinner that took place last year where Bob and I made what felt like a million perogies!

The first class on February 19th is full up, and then some! The 26th class is filling up fast. Folks are already asking for a third class, though I'm not certain where I'm going to squeeze that one in with the Swedish International Dinner coming up, Menu for the Future group meetings, and there are grant applications waiting to be finished for SOLE of Buffalo....busy busy busy!