Vanuatu (Surprise UN Brunch Party!!!)

Vanuatu joined the UN September 16th, 1980.

Little did I know I would be celebrating it so soon.

We had some wine tasting in the calendar, and in order to get there on time I took a red eye in from Maryland, so when I was asked if I wanted to do a brunch that same weekend, my answer was no.  Gone the week before, no time to prep, nope, not gonna happen.

Did that stop my friends?  Nope.

Surprise UN Brunch Party Vanuatu!!!

Vanuatu is a Pacific Island Nation, so they eat a lot for fruits, fish, pig, and fowl, and is heavily influence by their surrounding countries.

Since I obviously did not have anything prepared, I help Amber cut some fruit with the help of YouTube since I have no idea how to prep Jackfruit.  Jackfruit, Lychee, Mango, Plums, Baby Bananas... Unfortunately, the Papaya didn't meet freshness standards so it had to go.

 

No too long for Jenny to get the banana pancakes done, so we got to dig in without (relatively) too much effort.

I think I'm addicted to Jackfruit now.

(Celebrated August 26th, 2018)

Belize (You better Belize it!)

Belize joined the UN September 25th, 1981.  Our first Central American Country!!!

My first step was to order some achiote paste, which from my reading was how many Central American countries often seasoned their dishes.  It's smelly, playdough consistency, and dyes everything red.  Your hands, plastic utensils, your counter, everything.

I chose to make Salbutes, which is very similar to Tostadas.  One of the ingredients was Stew Chicken, so I ended up making that as well.

As usual I spent the entire morning cooking.  While I was heating up some oil to fry the salbutes, I distracted myself with chopping up vegetables for the stew chicken, because if I didn't multitask I wasn't going to get it done.  Next thing I know, smoke is billowing out of the oil pan.  I move it off the heat but it continues to billow.  The fire alarm goes off as my small apartment quickly fills up with smoke.  I eventually can not longer breath, so I abandon my smoking oil and loud fire alarm to exit out the porch door with columns of smoke following me.  It must have been a sight.

A few quick trips into the inferno to turn on some fans, and 15min later I was able to get back to work, this time heating the oil to a lower temperature.

A few reasons let me to take an Uber to Iain and Laura's, out gracious host for this particular dinner.  (one of which was the banana daiquiri Iain was making.)  I arrived at Iain's five past six to find everyone already there.  A few minutes later I was lucky enough to witness the most hilarious preparation of a banana daiquiri ever.

It started with placing everything into a large cooking pot.  Step two was to take a hand mixer and futilely attempt to blend the ice with it.

After failing, everything was then transferred to a food processor after struggling to unstick the hardened honey form the hand mixer.  This was done in batches as the processor was too small to accommodate.

At this time we abandoned Iain to take a tour of the house, and when we got back we found him scooping the mess out with his hands because, and I quote, "we're all friends here."

I still had two servings.

A bit more cooking and dinner was served.

(Celebrated August 4th, 2018)