good wine, good food, and great friends

I have this friend, Hitesh, who I've known since I was 15. We met randomly at a local youth group event and grew to be really good friends. He's truly brilliant...he finished five majors in the amount of time it took me to barely finish one, and one day he'll make a really great lawyer...or doctor...or anything really, just as soon as he picks something :) Hitesh and I have a hard time matching schedules, especially during classes, so we decided to get together when the semester ended. His last exam was friday, so I invited him over to dinner friday night.

For the last couple weeks, I've been spending a lot of time with my cousin, Yogi, and another old friend, Push. The two of them have gone into real estate together and are doing absolutely fabulously. Who knew that my childhood partner in crime would turn out to be such a convincingly knowledgeable businessman? Anyhow, the two of them are very sweet and tend to pick up tabs and bills when we're out, which is great because I love spending time with them and wouldn't be able to quite as much otherwise, given that academia (while "rewarding") just doesn't pay well. So I invited them to dinner as well, partially as a thank you and partially because, well, we usually hang out on friday nights.

Now the great thing about living in the same town your entire life is that everyone knows everyone else, especially within ethnic communities, and especially when you all go to college together. Yogi, Push, and Hitesh were all in the same fraternity in college, so they all know eachother quite well. In addition, my roommate, Sonya, went to college with us and knows everyont, too. So of course she was invited. Slowly the list of dinner guests grew until there were 8 of us.

I decided that an event with more guests than chairs definitely deserved truly engaging culinary endeavor on my part....so I enlisted the help of my dear friend Tracey (you probably know her from her blog, Cooking Ameristyle>) and learned an awesome new trick: how to cook a whole chicken!

All in all, between prep time and actual cooking time, hours were spent in the kitchen, but in the end it was definitely worth it. It's not everyday that you get to do something fun for your friends!

The entire menu was:
hors d'oeuvres: hummus, pita chips, olives stuffed with garlic, and mini dill pickles.
appetizer: tomato and goat cheese stacks, drizzled with a balsamic reduction and garnished with a sprig of cuban basil.
main course: oregano roasted chicken with roasted vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions, fennel, and multicolored peppers).
dessert: mango sorbet with fresh blueberries.