A Fiesta

Sunday,September 9,2012



Last night my niece, Sam, and I made a “Mexican Fiesta” dinner for my daughter, Rachel, to celebrate her birthday. Sam was the decorator – lots of candles, color, lanterns, and an extravagance of flowers in yellow, salmon, pink, fuchsia and cream, bought for a song at our local Produce Junction. The table was set with a striped cloth in yellow, blue, red and green with bright yellow napkins and a pitcher filled with a fat bunch of sunflowers, the stems cut short. We started with icy margaritas to accompany guacamole, crudités and a spicy roasted peanut and pumpkin seed mix I roasted till the nuts were glazed with the chili powder. On to dinner. Chicken Mole, Enchiladas Suisse, filled with roasted vegetables, sitting on and coated with a sauce of roasted tomatillos, garlic, onions, chiles and spices, enriched with cream – luscious. The rolled up enchiladas were then topped with grated  Monterey Jack cheese and baked. Also on the serving counter seared corn and green chiles lavished with a sprinkling of chopped cilantro - and yellow rice. The birthday cake was a seven-layer chocolate  concoction filled and topped with a rich bittersweet  chocolate ganache, finished with a sprinklong of chocolate curls. It was an evening of love, laughter and celebration with family.