Pan-Asian Tapas Party and Cooking Demonstration, a Delicious Success!

OFFTA took a culinary tour of Asia at Pam and Howard Hatayama’s home last Saturday. At our Pan-Asian house party, we learned how to make sushi and mochi from Japan, pot stickers from China, vegetable and shrimp pancakes from Korea, grilled chicken skewers with sauces from Indonesia and Vietnam, vegetarian yakisoba noodles from Japan, and ginataang bilo-bilo, a coconut and rice ball dessert from the Philippines. We even learned how to do Japanese ikebana (flower arranging)! As if that wasn’t enough, we had a potpourri of asian-inspired desserts including Lemongrass cookies, sesame cookies, and black rice pudding.

Thanks to our volunteers who donated their time, cooking talents and all the food! Our volunteers, Louise Owling, Betsy Lim, Tina and Jerry Lowden, Liz Rebensdorf, Chisato Fujikawa, Richard and Chiho Solomon, and Howard and Pam Hatayama made the event made the event enjoyable for everyone on that glorious sunny Saturday. Plus OFFTA made more money to fund hands-on art education for underserved Oakland Public School children K-12.

Would you like to help us put together a house party? It’s a way for us to gather a small group of volunteers and invite 15-20 people over to enjoy the party and raise funds for our programs. If you love to cook, or have a home that can accommodate a small, but friendly group, or if you have an idea for a unique way to have fun, let us know. We’ll match up the ideas with the cooks and volunteers, and the venue, then market it. You don’t need to do it all, just the piece that is your forte! Contact Genni at genni@oaklandfundforthearts.org if you’d like to be involved in one of these fun events.

For more photos, visit our Smugmug page.