The Food We Eat and The Cat Who Eats With Us: Plaid Pantry

Last night Rachel and I attended the fourth annual InterNation Celebration produced by the Beyond Borders Club of Whitman.

The MCs were, in proper Whitman fashion, horrendous. Usually this means they prepare a bunch of bad jokes and puns that illicit pity laughs and the exchange of confused looks. However that was not the case last night. Instead they emphasized how unprepared they were, as if that was a good bit, and made up rude jokes on the fly. They clearly had not bothered to learn how to pronounce the performers' names, the names of traditional instruments, and songs, or even the acts. They were very disappointing. I would have far preferred each act introduce itself. We would have wasted less time, and would not have been so offended.

Despite the poor work by the MCs, it was a fantastic show! The acts were diverse in country of origin, as well as content. It was a night filled with Chinese pop music, Gaelic song, Bollywood song, Mongolian soccer tricks, traditional dance from Thai Land, Brazil, Mexico, and other Latino countries, as well as Irish dancing, and the dance of the scimitar from the Ottoman Empire. There was performance on traditional Chinese instruments, such as the erhu, zither guzheng, and bawu, and even a ukulele ensemble. In the middle there was a fashion show of traditional dress from Vietnam, Rwanda, Bhutan, Indonesia, China, Mongolia, Venezuela, Brazil, Nepal, and Thailand. And the show ended with a multicultural dance by the hosts of the evening, the Beyond Borders Club. There are so many talented students at Whitman, and I really appreciated them all sharing their culture with us last night!

Rachel, Marisa, and I have doing our own InterNation Celebration through food. In the last week we have visited France, Thai Land, Switzerland (did you know that fondue was popularized by the Swiss Cheese Union as a way of increasing cheese consumption?), America's South, and Italy (twice!).

Ratatouille over Cous Cous (recipe from Food Network chef Tyler Florence)

Thai Curry with Thai Iced Tea

Biscuits and Gravy with Potatoes O'Brien

Eggplant Involtini - a recipe Rachel found; super delicious and pretty easy!

We had some left over sweet red bean paste from making zongzi a couple weeks ago, so Rachel found a recipe that uses red bean paste as a filling for sweet rolls. Aren't they cute?