Fun, competition, and deliciousness at the International Dinner

December 07, 2009 | Observer Staff | Comments 0

By Masha Bolotinskaya

Andre Castillo, Daniel Balson and Erin Kelley of the Middle East table watch ominously as the votes are tallied for Best International Dinner.

The SAIS International Dinner traditionally takes place at a time when all students are crazy with the onset of finals. However counterintuitive, the dinner does provide much needed reprieve for the stressed and helps raise money for a great cause: the summer internship fund.

Thanks to the SAIS summer internship fund, this author took advantage of a wonderful opportunity and spent her summer working for Freedom House in lovely Budapest, Hungary. Had this dinner not taken place in December 2008, this author and many others would have needed to say no to meaningful and fascinating professional internship opportunities, because these positions did not provide any financial compensation.

Students organize all the food at the SAIS international dinner; some food comes from ocal restaurants, while other students choose to share their culinary talents with fellow classmates. This year, the students did not just partake in the culinary feast, but got a chance to vote for their favorite cooking teams; the prize consisted of a golden SAIS apron. Who won? More about that a little later.

The China Club wowed SAIS with fine fare from a local restaurant and a variety of homemade dumplings. The veggie dumplings with fresh basil were especially delicious. The table featuring a group of Japanese people and Japan lovers made the most of their highly limited budget ($50) and presented an impressive array of omigiri (rice bowl) and a variety of Japanese snacks. The Thai Club served their delicious food with in front of lovely images from Thailand, helpfully supplied by the local Thai embassy. They served up a storm of Thai iced tea, green curry chicken, fried fish, fried rice, crab, and egg omelet. The Korea Club had their food catered. The club organizers displayed a wide variety of foods that both included the favorite bulgogie (Korean BBQ), two types of kimchi, jon (different types of beef), egg battered and fried veggies, as well as jap che (sweet potatoes and starched noodles). While the Russia table served vodka shots and caviar, the Southeast Asia table provided pilau, dal, samosas, aloo tikk, pavbhai kebab, and ramsalai all made from scratch.

However, the table of the Middle East Department emerged as the crowd favorite. Halva, Baklava, Fesenjoon (chicken in pomegranate and almond sauce), Tepsi Beitinjan (eggplant, tomatoes, and beef), dolma (stuffed grape leaves), rice, hummus, and babaganoush. Happy students just kept coming back for more and more food. Their loyalty to the Middle East table came through with the overwhelming number of little blue tickets. No, the ME did not have to pull a Karzai, (or an Asad, Ahmadinejad, or a Mubarak, for that matter) and stuff the ballot box, it appears the golden apron was won fair and square. Congratulations team Middle East you served up a delicious and abundant feast!

Masha Bolotinskaya is a second year M.A. candidate in Middle East and Russia and Eurasia Studies.