cuatro de mayo

Our Cinco de Mayo celebratory dinner came a day early last night. Wow what a dinner! After a week of Spring Fever forcing us (forcing us, yeah right) out the door to a different restaurant each night, I have to tell you all about this meal we finally cooked. Wait, was there actual heat involved? Oh yes, the beans. And I did heat the corn tortillas.

Back to the meal. First, my new table design, in honor of Cuatro de Mayo. I made the tablecloth. It looks like blades of grass. I am living my index page. Design seeps into the darndest places. I meant to take a picture of the food too, but quite frankly we were hungry. It was one of those great meals where you can make endless flavor combinations. Yum.

We had ceviche! My husband made it two days before, after watching 3 different cooking shows this weekend. He is good at cross-referencing. His with salmon, red onion, cilantro, jalapenos, and fresh orange, lime and lemon juice, plus other secret tastes. And I made black bean dip with lime, coriander powder, coriander pods and Indian coriander sauce (don't you agree that Mexican and Indian spices overlap quite a bit?), guacamole with some lime, tomato, scallion and a dash of plain yogurt to give it a little creamy quality and pico de gallo. We had chips and freshly warmed corn tortillas to scoop up the yum. It was so good!

Happy Cinco de Mayo today!



Some table details ~ I layered the tablecloth, to keep it cleaner longer, and to tone down the graphic print a little, with white butcher paper and sheer plastic polkadot placemats. The white-on-white looks neat. Woodgrain placemats (actually wood) pick up the woodgrain (actually plastic) divided chip dish. Green "olives" napkins from IKEA pick up the tablecloth, sod coasters, green votives and lucky bamboo. The red melamine plates are good luck, and we are back to Chinese again. I can never stray very far from the Far East can I? Hey wait, these are the colors of the Mexican flag! You see, I can't help being East-meets-West.