Saturday night we played pirates. It all began with me suggesting dinner and a movie with some of my friends here. However, Isaac, intrigued by the Pirateer game I toted along from the US (that one’s for you Chris, Katrien, and Mike), decided we should have a game night instead. The emails about the event details kept going around among our crew, and next thing I knew we had an entire pirate-themed evening planned – food, drink, and gaming. This also included dressing up. Now I’m a big fan of Pirateer, but I’ve never gotten this nutty with the whole theme.
The menu consisted of West Indies chicken, coconut shrimp, asparagus “rafts” for the gril (on skewers), pirate hummous and veggies, corn and plantain fritters, grilled pineapple, spiced rum, and my white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake!
The food was as amazing as it sounds, and it was a great excuse for me to bake for the first time overseas. This may sound like an easy task, but when you’re dealing with different measurements, different baking temperatures, and change in altitudes, it’s quite a mess. Then, trying to find local ingredients to match things you could easily find back home in the Safeway or Whole Foods groceries…Let’s just say a cheesecake that should have cost about $15 USD to make cost nearly $55 what with the cost of Philly cream cheese (nearly $7 for 200 grams twice over) and the 1.5 kilo bag of white chocolate chips that set me back nearly $30 – what can I say, it was the only size they came in!
Luckily my cake turned out nicely despite all the variables involved, and the rest of the food was incredible. We dressed up in eye shadow and bandanas, Sabrina carried a sword, Isaac had a Kikoy on his head, and Luca even used tinfoil to cover a tooth. I managed to safety pin a bird that made sound effects to my shoulder – every good pirate needs a parrot! .Unfortunately, no photos of me that evening, but hopefully I’ll have a few of the food forthcoming.
After all that build-up, everyone seemed to really enjoy the game [and the rum]. The amount of pirate-speak alone was enough to make the two males completely hoarse. Yarrrrrrrrr.
