Zimbabwe (Happy Zimbabwean Ugly UN Xmas Sweater Dinner Party!)

And a Happy New Year!  Last Dinner of the year is dedicated to Zimbabwe.  Joined August 25th, 1980.  First country since Switzerland that I've been to!  Embarrassed to say, while we were there we mostly ate burgers and pizza...

Per Jenny's suggestion, I focused on finding a dessert recipe... or 3.  Needless to say, I had a lot of baking to do Saturday morning, and more than I had anticipated.  Cookies went as expected.  Glaze is like crack it's so good.  Mapopo ended up okay, though not the consistency I expected.  If you had any loose cavities they would be gone after eating that sticky deliciousness.  Candy cake however, was the bane of my existence.

First time I mixed the batter a did a giant baking no-no (I know better!) and I tried to mix cold butter in with the liquids.  What a chunky disaster.  I kept adding sugar and flour thinking it would smooth out.  It didn't.

Second time I mixed the batter I misread the recipe and added the sugar for the frosting to he batter as well.  It was dense, but I was also getting fed up so I tried to bake it anyway...

... unsuccessfully.

So I mixed it for a 3rd time.  The bake went well, right up until I burnt them again.

When I arrived at Amber's I was overwhelmed by the festive sweaters.  Though I did not get the memo about them being dog themed...

"Dachshund Through the Snow"

"Pugly Xmas Sweater"

 As you would expect, many of our African main courses were full of peanut butter and delicious.

In order to help digestion, Jenny and Amber had the forethought to print out some Christmas Charades.  Turns out most of us had never even played any sort of charades.  How to charades candy cane without making a lewd jesture, I do not know.

Then, dessert!  If you are choosing one of the recipes, the sweet potato cookies are the real winner of the evening.  (And that glaze!)

The only thing left to say is Happy Zimbabwean Ugly UN Xmas Sweater Dinner Party!

(Celebrated December 8th, 2018)

St. Vincent & The Grenadines (the dough boy got bushwacked)

Chantelle and David popped their UN dinner hosting cherry on St. Vincent & the Grenadines.  This Caribbean island nation joined the UN on September 16th, 1980.  Nothing like some tropical food in the middle of rainy October!

Jenny and Amber were fresh back from their yearly jaunt to Nashville, TN, where they discovered a tantalizing drink called a Bushwacker.  Think Wendy's frosty but with the potential of being as much as 75% alcohol.  Jenny's contribution was going to be some home made Bushwackers, so I made sure not to be DD that night.  (Fyi, DD means "designated driver".  Not "drunk driver" or "designated drunk" like my parents thought when I was first recalling this evening to them.)

After finishing rolling my dumplings and stuffing my cucumbers I was off to dinner.  (Can't have a good blog post without a food related innuendo.)

Don't remember what we ate.
Don't remember what we talked about.
Don't remember why I made a note in my phone, and I quote, "I touched your bun (and not the dough boy)".
I think I got bushwacked.  Though I don't know what I was expecting after three of them.

I leave you with the only reason we could remember as much of the evening as we did.  The few photos we took that night!

(Celebrated October 27th, 2018)