Spanish Tapas in Cincinnati

I've been too busy to write about them before, but there were two significant events in June before we left to sell our house in Spain. The first was that we "catered" an afternoon of tapas at our new home here on June 7; the second was that we "catered" an evening of Danish smørrebrød the following week.

Both these events were sponsored by my first sister and brother-in-law as fundraisers for their church fellowship. Both had been planned for months--the seats were auctioned off at the church last October--and the dates had been carefully selected to avoid any foreseen conflicts with the four hosts involved. The first change was that both the sponsor-host and the caterer-hosts moved house between the auction and the event. As the time neared, we all decided that it would be easiest to handle the food preparations and serving at our new home, and that gave us the motivation to get things organized for entertaining after our move, as well as help in doing it! Perhaps not knowing the guests in advance removed some of the tension from first-time entertaining, too.

For the record, here (below) is the menu for the tapas festival, the first event.

Taste of St. John’s

An Afternoon of Tapas

Sunday, June 7, 2015

“Bienvenidos”

Cava

Endibias (endive with tuna filling)

Tortilla Española (Spanish “omelet” with potatoes, spinach, and onion)

Olives

Almonds

Queso manchego (Manchego cheese) and jamón serrano (serrano ham)

At the Table

Cóctel de Gambas (shrimp cocktail)

Barras de pan (Bread)

Albóndigas (Meatballs) en salsa con guisantes (peas)

Patatas alioli (Potatoes with garlic mayonnaise)

Gazpacho

The quintessential Spanish summertime soup

Paella Valenciana

with chicken and chorizo

Sobremesa (Afterwards)

Dulces (sweets) y café

From my point of view it was a good party. I had fun planning a diverse but representative menu, canvassing food stores throughout Cincinnati for the right ingredients, and working with my sister on the project. There were no culinary disasters. The guests said they had a good time, and the conversation flowed. There were enough left-overs to spread around the next day, but not too many. That was a good thing, because by then we were on to Denmark...!