Vietnamese Dinner Party

I worked at a cookbook store recently. It was a very short career, my shortest ever in fact, but it helped me figure out that no matter what happens in the future, I am definitely not made to work the retail environment. Luckily, as much as I dreaded going to work everyday, my love of cookbooks never diminished. In fact, it may have increased.

I already had quite a collection of cookbooks and, in a mere two month period, twelve more books were added to it. That may sound excessive but I have already cooked and baked my way through more than forty recipes. Some cookbooks are meant for everyday use, with nice photos and recipes you can't wait to make on any rainy weekday evening. Other cookbooks are absolutely gorgeous, with incredible food photography and stories that transport you to another country to explore the flavours, regions and stories that make it so unique. Luke Nguyen's The Songs of Sapa is one of them. Its recipes and tales make you want to get to know the people of Vietnam and embark on a culinary adventure similar to the one the author shares throughout the book.

As the recipes are traditionally Vietnamese and some exotic ingredients and spices are often used to create the dishes, I wouldn't qualify this book as the source of the average Tuesday night dinner at our house. But I had to have it anyway, even though I was unsure if I would ever use it. I took it home a month or so ago, read all the stories and vowed to actually cook from it. So I found the perfect excuse to try as many recipes as I could from it and invited eight people for dinner for a Vietnamese feast. I took it from pretty coffeetable book to useful kitchen cookbook, complete with stains and wrinkled pages and I am so glad I did.

The first thought that came to mind after we decided we were going to host a Vietnamese dinner was that I wanted to set and decorate the table for a Vietnamese dinner; it's the best part! We had our friends over the night before Halloween so gold-painted pumpkins seemed appropriate and I added banana leaves and anything silver or bamboo I could find in my house. I know that I am becoming more and more of a Martha Stewart wannabe as I get older, so my hope is that it amuses you and that you won't laugh at me too much because I really do start looking forward to setting the table days before the event. Ok, you can laugh at me now.

The Menu

Kohlrabi salad with mango, green papaya and roasted peanuts

Prawns in coconut milk

Red curry fish cakes

Lemongrass beef on a stick with creamy hoisin sauce

Sticky jasmine rice

Vegetables & bean sprouts with garlic chives

Lime and cardamom sorbet over papaya

Tapioca pudding with lime and mango

Salted peanut butter cookies

Oatmeal chocolate cookies

Our friends are the best dinner guests. Not only do they always go out of their way to bring wine that pairs perfectly with our menus, but they are always so grateful that they make us feel like the rockstars of dinner parties. We sometimes get fabulous thank you cards in the mail and the occasional bag of cookies on our front porch, a token of gratitude that only makes us want to have more parties.

I could see that this Vietnamese evening might trigger a series of themed dinner parties. We could pick a cookbook, preferably one that is full of foreign food and spices that I am not familiar with, invite ten or so people over, cook and bake a dozen recipes from it and decorate the room accordingly to create a beautiful vibe and have a great time. Sounds perfect to me. I think our next event might be a Turkish dinner. Or maybe Spanish Tapas. Why not have a Greek dinner or cook Japanese Izakaya? It's nice to spice things up, cook something different and use all sorts of ingredients that you have never even heard of before. Creating a nice atmosphere is also equally, if not more fun and, if your friends are anything like mine, they will be up for all sorts of different themes and eat everything you serve them. I can't recommend it enough. Have a great week.