nyny

getting cultured

This fall I've added two new culturally-enriching additions to my schedule: World Wednesdays & Astoria Around the World.

World Wednesdays is something my roommate Faith and I have started doing. We're making our way through The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World. This book lists every country in alphabetical order, and comes complete with pictures and lists of major cities, common experiences, cultural highlights, etc. Also included for each country is a song to listen to, a book to read, and a movie to watch in order to really get a good feel for that particular country. So, Faith and I are making our way through the book by watching the recommended movie for each nation. We've got Afghanistan (we took a culturally appropriate -sort of- pic for this one) and Albania under our belts. Next up is Algeria.


Astoria Around the World, on the other hand, is a monthly dinner group comprised of 8-10 friends who all live in this same little corner of New York City. Each month we pick a different country as the theme for our dinner party. Everyone brings a dish typical of that country, and dressing as a local is encouraged. We kicked it off with Caribbean night, which included jerk chicken, coconut rice, coconut chicken with mango sauce, a banana-mango crumble, and pina coladas, among other things. Last night was French night. The French flag was waving proudly above a delectable spread of bread, cheese, and wine, of course, as well as herb-ricotta chicken, lentil soup, mussels in champagne sauce, and crepes. It was soooo good.

I can't wait until German night next month!! If you have any good German recipes, send them my way.

posted by becka @ 9:12 PM