Posts Tagged: World Cup Cafe

One Spring, when the boys were 3 & 5, we invented a “game” where we would spin a globe and cook dinner from a random country. The boys made theme-appropriate menus and decorations and helped cook. When Allan got home, he had to guess where we were. We called it “World Café Night” and ultimately put together a sort of “cookbook” of favorites from the whole project. Years later, we read about our friend Jeff’s excellent World Cup of Food project, wherein he and his then-girlfriend/now-wife combed L.A. for restaurants and take-out counters that could serve them up 32 meals, one for each country in World Cup contention.

Four years ago, we combined these two ideas into the World Cup Café project. Our goal: cook something from each of the countries participating in the World Cup during the run-up to the start of competition. It took a lot of internet research and a little help from our friends, we nearly destroyed our kitchen, and we didn’t quite make our deadline (but we came close)! Of course, as our boys were involved, the whole thing became a competition and all dishes received scores (adjusted to compensate for the obvious dessert-bias). As in the World Cup itself, many results were predictable, but there was the occasional surprise (most notably the unexpected triumph of Montenegrin Kacamak or Fatty Porridge which sounds nasty in either language but is, in fact, delicious).

Anyway, we’re at it again. We’re working through the 8 qualifying groups, in any order that strikes us, cooking meals with at least one dish from each country in the group. And, yes, we welcome the participation of friends (especially those bearing food from countries we know little about)! So let us know when you’ll be whipping up your best Slovenian dish and come on over…