Tapas Night!

This past Sunday night, the dining hall of MIH was transformed into a Spanish Tapas Restaurant, complete with candlelight, Latino music, and a full spread of tapas (finger foods).  Audrey, our hostess, came up with the idea for this event after spending several months of this past year living in Spain.  Danny Gingrich, one of our ESL teachers, contributed a great cookbook full of tapas recipes that some of his students from the summer term mailed to him, all the way from Spain!

We chose some of our favorite recipes (although most of them we'd never made before!), including Shrimp Ceviche, Patatas Bravas, Breaded Mushrooms, Fried Telapia in Batter, and Tortilla de Patata.  For dessert, we feasted on alfajores - delicious little sandwich cookies that were filled with a rich, creamy dulce de leche (caramel made from milk).  The kitchen was full of activity from 2 pm until 5pm, when we served the meal.  A special thanks to our awesome residents who helped us to pull this off!  Camila, Valerio, Olga ... you guys rock!

Running on true Spanish time, Laura Metzler welcomed the group of students and friends of MIH around 5:15pm.  There were many good conversations and a LOT of amazing food to follow, as well as several hours of games in the living room.  Apples to Apples and Mikado (aka "Pick up Sticks") proved to be the favorites.  Another element that added a twist of fun to the evening, was the fact that we were actually allowed to eat in the living room for a night!  Nothing like suspending a house rule every now and then to spice up community life  =) 

Again, a huge thank you to everyone who helped make this evening a success. What a great way to start off the spring semester!  We look forward to many more opportunities like this, as we connect with each other and with our community.