One of my favorite things to do is cook delicious meals with friends. I love sharing the challenge and fun of the activity with other people, as well as learning new techniques and recipes to try.

Following is a collection of some of my favorite meals that I have made:

The Italian Food Day

On a lazy weekend day in the fall of 2020, I put together an ambitious meal plan for my friends and I of Italian recipes (from Italia by Jo Seagar) that would take an entire day to execute. For the late morning snack, we made raisin biscotti to accompany cappuccinos.

Comprising the appetizer was a light and sweet watermelon, rockmelon, and rocket salad served alongside fig-olive tapenade for spreading on bread. Following this was main course: spinach, ricotta, and goat cheese ravioli with an additional dollop of marinara. This being the first time I had made ravioli, some of them ended up being “open-faced” ravioli - not quite as visually neat, but delicious all the same.

Farinata

Recently, I had the privilege to enjoy a meal at what is now my favorite restaurant in Denver: Tavernetta, an Italian restaurant that, “…brings [the] la dolce vita style to Denver…” - la dolce vita being an Italian phrase meaning the good life. Though the whole meal was worth writing home about, their lemon ricotta farinata stood out to me the most with its relative simplicity and use of a variety of greens and mushrooms alongside the lemon ricotta. For those unfamiliar with farinata (as was I until visiting Tavernetta), farinata is an unleavened crêpe made from chickpea flour. I resolved to recreate the recipe the next day - albeit with a few modifications as I could not easily find the edible flora and ramps that Tavernetta opted to use in the garnish and filling, respectively.

Though the Tavernetta chef I spoke to made no mention of using leavening in their recipe, I have been unable to recreate a crêpe of similar lightness to Tavernetta’s without it. The experimentation continues…

Leek Fritters

What to do when your internship ends and college has yet to resume? My answer: make leek fritters. The fritters recipe came from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, which includes a recommended sauce for topping made from yoghurt, sour cream, lime juice, parsley, and cilantro. Deciding to spend a majority of the day in the kitchen, I also made as a side dish homemade pitas to serve as a vessel for the red pepper and walnut spread. The pita and spread served as the starting point for this meal’s planning, with the leek fritters standing in as a kind of substitute for the falafel or kofta I would normally associate with accompanying pita. Though not a typical combination of foods as far as I’m aware, it was certainly enjoyable.

Causa

One of the first meals I had when I visited Peru was ceviche causa; I immediately fell in love. Causa is a popular Peruvian dish in which multiple salad-like layers are stacked to form a cylinder, with the layers typically being made of mashed potatoes, avocado, and meat (most commonly, fish). The causa I made was topped with chicken and served alongside potatoes with uchucuta (Andean green herb and chile) sauce. And, of course, the obligatory pisco sour.

When deciding to serve potatoes as a side to a potato-based dish, I was still under the recent impression of the enormous variety and abundance of potatoes in Peruvian cuisine; in hindsight, I would remake the causa with a side other than potatoes (it was a very potato-y meal).