All Worlds Come Together

We love a multi-cultural evening, one held at an iconic heritage museum, for a great cause that promotes cross-cultural understanding and one where Entertaining Company and The Storied Table get to participate and collaborate with Chicago’s cultural leaders – that makes our day. We feel really good about that kind of work and truly love to see our EC staff hard at work in that kind of environment. On May 17, we enjoyed exactly that kind of evening at the Mosaic Gala where all of our worlds came together and we could present a creative dinner to feed all these 250 lovely people.  Among others, we enjoyed seeing our friend and Executive Director of the Chicago Cultural Alliance, Emily Reusswig and Anu Behari who leads another cultural organization we support, Eye on India.

For the Mosaic Gala, we designed a Mediterranean menu that was inspired by the venue, the National Hellenic Museum, and our recent trip to Athens where we got to indulge in the culture’s food first hand! After spending hours researching the best food in Athens, reading blogs by Greek cuisine foodies, and being right next to the Athens Central Market, we came back to our kitchen with piles of paper, images and food ideas we couldn’t wait to try at an EC event.  For instance, we were amazed at all the different types of grains the local market had to offer and decided to use some of those grains in our menu. For the Mosaic Gala dinner, we choose to use Amaranth to create a Griddle Cake with Shaved Lamb and Tzatziki Sauce; instead of an expected traditional Greek Salad, we started out the night with a pre-set Dakos Salad which originates from Crete. Multiple layers of heirloom tomatoes, fluffy feta cheese, caper-berries, pickled pepperoncini, fresh oregano and Greek olive oil created a pretty plate which also created a pretty pre-set table as guests came into the dining room from cocktails. We next followed with a simple and delicious villager lemon brine chicken with our version of Horta, greens, and smoked potato with currants. The evening ended with dessert which was a rose soaked semolina cake with honeyed walnuts, spiced granola, and fresh berries – there were no dirty plates in the room!

We cannot wait to embark on more travel adventures and continue sharing cross-cultural food discoveries at Galas and special events throughout the year.

Cheers to Chicago and our city of ethnic neighborhoods!