International Food Festival

Last night we held the first ever International Food Festival in our neighborhood.  I love our neighborhood and all the unique opportunities we have for making friends, experiencing different cultures, and just doing fun (FREE) things without even having to drive anywhere.

We got to try a lot of different foods last night.  We had Indian and Nepali food, Iraqi, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Italian, and more.  I'm not sure the lasagna John made was authentically Italian but it's the kind I prefer!  My Italian grandmothers didn't ever make lasagna that I can remember.  They made lots of soups, eggplant parmesan, tons of vegetables and of course loved to have bread, bread, bread with every meal.  And pizzelles!  Wow, how I love pizzelles and wish I had my grandmother's old iron pizzelle maker.

My favorite food at the Food Festival was the Samosas from Nepal made by our neighbor, Babitra.  Samosas are little turnovers stuffed with meat, beans, potatoes, whatever.  They were a little spicy but definitely in a very, very good way.  John loved the spring rolls made by Esai (sp?) who I think said she is from Japan, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.  They were made with a really super thin (thinner than paper) dough and stuffed with a colorful array of veggies and I think what John said was crab (or lobster?) meat.  There were two amazing sauces to dip them in which John said were incredible and spicy, even for him.  But he loved it!

Josiah stayed entertained by Miss Margeaux's dog.  Pets aren't allowed in our neighborhood, but we have three sweet blind ladies living here that all have seeing eye dogs.  And this has been my kids' sole exposure to dogs, for the most part.  Josiah climbed right on Margeaux's lap and petted that dog, laughing at her (hysterically like he does with babies) until the dog licked him and he flipped out!  But after a few minutes he got used to it and was right there again.  Then he had a free piano lesson with Miss Easai (see facebook for a video of that).

What did Maryn do?  She ran around like a wild banshee, scooping up food whenever it pleased her (mostly cheese puffs and brownies).  :)

I am always surprised more people don't come to these events.  What on earth else do they have to do that could be better than what I just described?  Not only free food, but pleasant company and the opportunity to make more friends!