Not normally one to shill for Amazon, but that brilliant buffet ice tray is available from them
http://www.amazon.com/Tropical-Inflatab ... ink+cooler

There are also ones as cheap as $6 if you're willing to skip the flowers and palm trees

Okay, here are some pictures of the Little Tiki Hut build. There are a lot of people missing from the photos, but you get a sense of what was accomplished.



LTH Picnic 2015

LTH Picnic 2015

LTH Picnic 2015

LTH Picnic 2015

LTH Picnic 2015

LTH Picnic 2015

LTH Picnic 2015

LTH Picnic 2015

Yesterday was yet another great "best day of the year". I couldn't believe how effortlessly the tiki bar came together, which is a testament to what great friends we have, and what ambitious people LTHers can be all around. With so many people offering a hand, I felt like I hardly ended up doing much, and the bar was erected and decorated in less than an hour.

The food all around was awesome, way too many favorites to list them all, and as Ronnie pointed out, better every year. Some favorites for me were the Chinese garlic braised pork belly from bluepig, eggrolls from BR, the crispy fried wontons from petite_gourmande, the temple destoryer from mbh, the Chili Colorado from jefe, and the Takoyaki from attrill, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a handful. It should be against the hypothetical rules to award a hypothetical best of show award to your own wife, but if I were to be honest it would have to go to Teresa and her Macanese egg custard tarts. She is typically an expert baker, but she outdid herself with those.

Thanks everyone for bringing your best, and keeping this community awesome!

mamagotcha wrote:There were SO many wonderful things, but I cannot stop thinking about Swingbossa's Vaghareli Makai. Is it the David Leibovitz recipe? I think I need to make more...

Thank you, and the credit goes to hellodali for finding the recipe (yes, the David Lebovitz one). I will be making that again, with other vegetables too.

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2015/09/va ... rn-recipe/

One of my favorite days of the year, and maybe I'm still hungover (with food coma) but I swear the quality and variety of the food just keeps getting better. I really appreciate the diversity and quality of offerings -- so many people obviously laboring for days to put out (or seek out) fantastic food. On that note, so many countries represented in food offerings (and so many delicious items I've never tried before). And to all those who don't cook but are kind enough to bring food from the south side and outer burbs from places I never visit or don't get to visit as often, thank you from the bottom of my heart. All in all, just one fantastic bite after another. Really, the quality was astonishing.

As for dinner tonight, I had quite the feast: shoelessone's chicken tikka masala (you really sold yourself short - really terrific flavor . . . and loved your wife's Thai salty coconut dessert - right up my alley! Welcome to LTH!!) and gastro gnome's awesome vegetable stew.

And I really enjoyed participating in the tiki hut. I'm sorry but there is nowhere else in Chicago where you can get tiki food and cocktails this good - no joke. I just couldn't believe how good it all was (not to mention the design - I too loved the blow up ice pool with boudreaulicious' wonderful, floating salads/poke). Thanks for the compliments on the egg rolls and cake. I took pictures of both (and a picture of one of the famous tiki bartenders) so here you go:


BBQ pork and shrimp egg rolls frying




Egg roll interior




My coconut-pandan cake




Interior of coconut cake




Bartender mbh and friend

laikom wrote:Yesterday was yet another great "best day of the year". I couldn't believe how effortlessly the tiki bar came together, which is a testament to what great friends we have, and what ambitious people LTHers can be all around. With so many people offering a hand, I felt like I hardly ended up doing much, and the bar was erected and decorated in less than an hour.

Thanks everyone for bringing your best, and keeping this community awesome!

Laikom said beautifully what I was feeling, the ease and effortlessness of making the tiki bar happen made me understand what a special community formed on LTH. I worked with people I've met before and people I just met, all were a wonderful group. We exchanged emails, spreadsheets (thanks laikiom and boudreaulicious), and ideas online and then just hoped everyone would show up and come through and they did. Octarine, thank you for a last minute tool delivery and Atrill thanks for scrounging alleys for wood and making our lovely table tops. Alex, tylerjwatkins, kevin, laikom, boudreaulicious, fifille and Cathy2, you all showed up early to make the tiki hut and the pavilion space special for the picnic, thank you, and thank you to all the amazing cooks, I didn't get to try all you food, but what I did try was amazing. The gazpacho in aspic, BR's egg rolls and cake, jimswside's chicken, Tyler's char siu ribs, boudreaulicious's poke, Artill's takoyaki, Octarine's bo ssam, glennpann's yearly delivery of Uncle John's sausages, jazz food's artful presentation of glorious vegetables that alway tastes as good as it looks and Sue F's bobotie and accompanying chutney. There were others dishes I loved, but I'm still full and my memory is hazy from tiki drinks so please know that I probably tried your dish and loved it, but the overload hit me. BURP!

Here's a link to the Marcus Samuelsson Bobotie and Mango Sambal recipes, from a website not run by Louisa and Monica
http://www.chewingthefat.us.com/2012/06 ... lsson.html

I used one large green mango - the sambal calls for two mangos to make about 2.5 cups, which probably means the little yellow ones.
The dutch oven had 1.5x the bobotie recipe. I used a half-dozen coals underneath the dutch oven and a similar number above for about 20 minutes, then doubled the coals on top to brown up the custard.

Once again, the picnic was one of the true highlights of summer for me. Kudos to Laikom & team for the Little Tiki Hut, which was lots of fun and produced some great bites. BR's egg rolls, jimswside's huli huli chicken, the poke and lamb ribs immediately come to mind.

Little Tiki Hut




Young Max Gets Into the Tiki Spirit


But if you never made it past the Tiki Hut, you missed the best part of the picnic. The main pavilion featured a veritable Groaning Board of delights...actually three Groaning Boards, to be exact.















There was some great grub to be had in the pavilion. From Ronnie Suburban's Colonel Newsome ham, to Jazzfood's market driven creation, to tips & links from Uncle John's (and some really great stuff in between), there was a little something for everyone regardless of taste or eating proclivity. I came away stuffed and didn't eat anything else until the next evening.

Of course, one of the best things about the picnic is being able to catch up with old and new online friends in person and to share some food.





Thank you to all of the cooks who provided such an amazing spread of treats for us all to enjoy. Cathy once again did a great job wrangling all of the details, including the last minute negotiations with the Forest Preserve District to get us into our usual spot. I am already looking forward to next year.

Was there a Trump pinata? I'd like to see a picture of that.

Wow. What an archive we have here @ LTHF.
In checking posts by Kenji, who died around this time, I was thus reminded that my own dad died a month later.
Just what did I bring here? I can't recall. I suspect it was cans of a craft beer.

Hi,

BrendanR and I attended Kenji's funeral. I was looking forward to meeting him at the picnic, so his death days earlier was particularly sad.

Regards,
Cathy2