July 15th - Sruthi, Angie, and Pragati

After a quick trip home for my Dad's birthday, we returned to have Sruthi Vissa and her roommate Pragati (I hope I'm spelling her name right - she told me the correct spelling, and I'm afraid that I've forgotten!), and Angie Willey over for dinner. Sruthi and Angie are both 2nd-year students in my department at Emory, and as it turns out, Pragati works with my friend Kalpana who I've known since high school at Yerkes. Small world!

I describe the menu for the night as pan-Asian influenced. It's not really the cuisine of any one particular place, but is more reflective of how the ingredients are arranged at the International Farmers' Market - Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, etc. all in one section. We had pork satay with fresh vegetable pickles; cold sesame noodles; fried squid, papaya, and frisée salad with spicy-sour dressing; and spice-rubbed chicken with kumquat-lemongrass dressing. The menu called for passion-fruit martinis, but I couldn't find any passion fruit nectar at the International Farmers' Market (IFM, for short). The alternative was papaya pineapple martinis, which after a few batches of sampling the fruit nectar to vodka ratio, I think I finally struck a balance. Of all of the food made so far, I have to highly recommend the salad with spicy-sour dressing - tres bien! Dessert for the evening was a delicious apple pie and "cookies and cream" ice cream.

I have no idea why I planned such a meat-heavy menu, but luckily the salad, noodles, and vegetable pickles were all vegan, so I could accomodate the dietary needs of one of the guests without much effort. I really do try to offer a variety of foods when I design the menu, but just a reminder... if you have specific dietary needs, please let me know. I am happy to accomodate you! One other note for those of you in Atlanta - I love the International Farmers' Market (http://internationalfarmersmarket.com). I have been able to offer a much more interesting array of food, and beside the passion fruit nectar problem, I haven't had any problems finding a lot of specialty food items. The IFM also has a fantastic wine selection, divided by country or other place of origin, and their prices are consistently less than any other grocery store. Just a little advertisment for one of my favorite places!

Finally, I'm sorry that I keep forgetting to take pictures of people. I know that's infinitely more interesting than the food, alas.... I'll try harder.