When a big shared meal is required, I tend to cook Mexican or Indian because it's so easy to put lots of different dishes together on the table, and it all works. Geoff Scott's Puerco pibil and tacos dorados have inspired me to add a few new dishes to the Mexican repertoire and I am finally going to start making my own tortillas. See Geoff's complete Mexican cookup here. For Diwali on Wednesday, we've filled bite.co.nz with everything you need to be able to cook Indian every day of the week.
When heading out for a big, shared meal I quite often go Chinese so I can feast on favourite dishes that I don't make at home. I am not sure why I don't make them at home, because, as Ray demonstrates in his Hong Kong feature, it's not hard - there's no Hong Kong trip required, just one to the Asian grocer (and large supermarkets have most of what's required for dishes such as braised eggplant with pork, miso and brown rice these days).
It is officially feasting season so prepare yourself, the weeks ahead will see Bite full of parties, parties, parties and Christmas and it's shaping up to be our most delicious festive season ever.
