A Tapas (not topless) Party

For me, August finds the sun shining, my hands hands warm and my cooking far simpler. Along with the heat and heady light, August is also the month of my birth. When I was little this meant a party with cake, hats and party games that were meant to be fun. As much as icing, funny hats and the pin the tail on the donkey are still fun, this year something else seemed required.

In addition to mine, August is filled with the birthdays of many of my friends. In discussing birthday party planning with my fellow Leo, Lisa, we discovered that we were planning to invite many of the same people. Thus, we lit upon the idea of merging our respective dinner parties. Between the two of us, Lisa, who is also an excellent cook, provided massive amounts of sangria, her beatiful condo, lovely decorating sense and found all sorts of gorgeous fruit for the humid night. As for me, I mused upon a lovely dinner my uncles and I had at Harvest Vine a few years ago. At said dinner, my uncles and I were delighted by fried, unbattered jalapenos sprinkled with salt. Of course, we could not feed people simply on fruit and fried jalapenos. PFI (otherwise known as the best place to buy cheese, olives, pickled peppers and bulk spices in the state of Washington) would provide easy and fantastic tapas essentials in the form of their northern African mix olives, pickled peppers, blue d'averigne (which isn't Spanish but I LOVE) and manchego. (G sweetly aided in the the proceedings by making the necessary excursion to PFI during their limited business hours and the crazy downtown traffic on a Friday!) Aside from produce, I thought of the Moorish aspects of Spanish food. Rooting through recipies, I decided upon a recipe I had tried time and time again, potted garam-masala shrimp in phyllo cups, and a brand new recipie from epicurious with a spin of my own called cinnamon-crusted chicken. Sadly, I also note that I attempted to make chorizo-stuffed baguette as well, but, even though I attempted to render as much fat as possible from it, the chorizo fell out of the bottom of the loaf.

The party went beatifully! Somewhere around twenty five people came, enjoyed themselves, saw old friends and made some new ones, and consumed masses of food and drink.

Cinnamon Crusted Chicken

6 lbs Chicken Wings and/or Thighs

1/3 c Peanut Oil

1 c Cinnamon

1 tbls sugar

1 tsp cayenne (or more, if you would like it to be hotter)

1 tbls garam masala

1/4 c large-grained sea salt

1. Rub the chicken pieces with oil and set aside.

2. Mix together the cinnamon, sugar, cayenne and garam masala.

3. Thickly coat the chicken with the cinnamon mixture.

4. Place the chicken into containers or storage bags and refrigerate overnight.

5. An hour and a half before you would like to serve the chicken, preheat your oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

6. Distribute the chicken evenly over cookie sheets or jelly roll pans. Cook, turning approximately every ten minutes for 30 minutes or until the juices run clear.