Opening Ceremonies

A Day of Italian Dishes for the 2026 Winter Olympics

Happy 2026 Winter Olympics!

I’m so excited about the start of the Winter Games, so of I course I planned a day of Italian food for us to try in honor of Milano Cortina 2026. We started the day with a trio of homemade biscotti to enjoy with our coffee (or hot chocolate, as the case may be)…orange-cranberry, chocolate, and traditional flavored with anise.

For lunch, Chickadee and I enjoyed “Zuppa Pavese,” which is toasted bread swimming in beef broth and topped with an egg and parmesan cheese…super warming and delicious! We also made a light “Frullato di Frusta,” a slightly sweetened fruit smoothie.

I guess maybe I do bake bread? I sliced this Italian bread pretty well, too!

The star of tonight’s Olympics Opening Ceremonies dinner was Carbonnade à la Flamande, a delicious beef stew braised in beer:

I also made two side dishes to go with our Italian Feast…Insalata di Arance e Finocchi, an orange and fennel salad, and Radicchio in Padella, radicchio sautéed in garlic oil and drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

The best special meals include a special drink, and we really enjoyed a non-alcoholic limoncello spritz made with homemade lemon oleo saccharum:

I think this was one of the best Opening Ceremonies dinners I’ve made!

For dessert Chickadee and I baked a Crostata di Ricotta e Visciole, which is a Roman sour cherry and ricotta tart. The filling was very similar to a cannoli filling minus the chocolate chips, and spread over sour cherry jam.

I’m looking forward to immersing myself in winter sports and Italy for the next two weeks!

A French Feast for the Opening Ceremonies

Mesdames et Messieurs, la Cérémonie d’ouverture de Paris 2024!

Today is the Olympics Opening Ceremony I’ve been waiting for for eight years! While I enjoyed the Tokyo 2020(1) Games, it just wasn’t the same, and we all know it. But Paris 2024 is going to be the Olympics we all remember from pre-Covid days, and I can’t wait. Of course I planned a day full of French recipes to get us in the proper spirt, beginning with homemade croissants for breakfast, served with butter, Nutella, and homemade blueberry jam:

For lunch, I made Salade Niçoise. I liked it, but the best I can say for everybody else is that they found aspects of the salad they enjoyed. We did discover that we really like seven-and-a-half minute eggs, though!

For the soup course, I made Vichyssoise, which I thought was really interesting. The flavor was excellent, but it is a different experience eating cold soup!

I made the classic French dish, Bœuf Bourgignon, for dinner. It was A LOT of work, but really delicious!

We didn’t have champagne, but we did still have a toast to Paris 2024!

For dessert, Ladybug made macarons. I tried to help, but as it turns out, macarons are above my pay grade. She kindly let me help fill them, though. They’re so delicious, and we’re looking forward to making them again!

I have a few other French recipes I want to try over the next two weeks, but mostly, I’m just ready to watch the Olympic Games!!!

Tasty Tuesday–Dinner for the Opening Ceremonies

The Winter Olympics have arrived!

Do I feel good about the 2022 Olympics? Not especially. Am I going to watch, anyway? Of course. Can I still use this as a good opportunity for us to learn about another culture? Without a doubt!

I never do as much for the Winter Olympics as I do for the Summer Games, because it’s just so difficult to try to fit it in with everything else we’re doing at this time of year. But I did make a special dinner for the night of the Opening Ceremonies, starting with scallion pancakes served with a tasty rice vinegar-soy dipping sauce, which were definitely the hit of the evening!

We also had sticky ginger shrimp with scallion jasmine rice and bok choy with oyster sauce:

For dessert, I made don tot, which are egg custard tarts, and mango pudding:

I’m hoping to try a few new recipes before the end of Beijing 2022, and keep an eye out for a few fun craft projects, too!

A Japanese Feast for the Opening Ceremonies

It seemed at times like today would never come, but finally, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have begun! Whether or not they should be held no longer matters, because they’ve gone ahead, and as long as they Olympics are going on, I’m doing all of the things I meant to do last summer, starting with a special dinner for the Opening Ceremonies.

We started with homemade pork gyoza and rayu. I’ve made the gyoza before, but making the rayu from scratch was a new experience!

The main course was spicy ramen/udon with ajitsuke tamago (ramen eggs). The broth was made with dashi, kimchi, soy sauce, leeks, garlic, miso, gochujang, and shiitake mushrooms. It was served over spicy chicken and bacon, and topped with nori, bean sprouts, and green onions.

For dessert, I made coffee jelly:

We waited a long time to have this meal, but I think it was worth the wait!

A Korean Feast for the Opening Ceremonies

The Opening Ceremonies of any Olympics are always reason for a feast!

I have been so excited all week, because I have been planning a Korean dinner to celebrate PyeongChang 2018. I spent a lot of time looking through the Korean cookbook I purchased just for this occasion, and choosing the things I wanted to cook for our Korean feast. When I finally came up with the menu, I realized there were quite a few ingredients in the meal that were new to us:

I had fun cooking all of the various components of our dinner…especially those that required me to work on my wok skills:

We had sweet potato starch noodles with stir-fried vegetables and beef (japchae), panfried tofu with spicy seasoning sauce (dububuchim-yangnyeomjang), and kimchi. I made everything except the kimchi, and originally, I had planned to make that, too, but I think I’ve watched too much Food Network, and it scared me a little!

It was a delicious dinner, and to my surprise, everyone enjoyed the tofu, which was probably the most foreign item on the menu!

For dessert, I had planned to make panfried sweet rice cakes with edible flowers (hwajeon) to go with the pear punch (baesuk) that has been steeping in the fridge all week. When I couldn’t find the necessary edible flowers, I bought a package of Korean rice cookies instead. But then Ladybug and I decided that mint leaves might work instead of the flowers, and you know what? They were delicious!

We had a really fun time trying out some very new-to-us Korean foods, and not only did I love cooking some new foods,  I was pleased with how much everyone enjoyed the things I made. We have a few other fun foods to try during the Olympics…I hope they’re as popular as tonight’s dinner!

A Brazilian Feast for the Opening Ceremonies

The Olympics always provide us with an opportunity to try some new recipes that reflect the food and culture of the host country. I decided to jump right in this year, and have our first Brazilian meal for the Opening Ceremony.

But before we get to dinner, there was first an Olympic snack this afternoon. We made Olympic “torches” again this year…pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate, and topped with red and yellow sugar crystals for the “flame.” I added some Olympics-themed Hershey Kisses that I bought on an impulse at the grocery store this week. I also made Brazilian lemonade (which is made with limes, not lemons…I have no idea why), which was a huge hit!

On to the dinner feast. I tried three new recipes. The main course was a Brazilian black bean stew, which also had ham, chorizo, sweet potatoes, and mango. I served it with Brazilian rice, which was cooked in a similar way to risotto, and had garlic and onion in it. We also had Pao de Queijo, which is a Brazilian cheese bread made with tapioca flour. I was a little worried that this meal would be a little too different for the children, but it was a huge hit!

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For dessert, I made a Pudim De Laranja, which is a Brazilian orange flan. I screwed up the caramel part a little bit, but it was still delicious!

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I have a few more recipes to try over the next few weeks…are you making anything special to celebrate the Olympics?

Dinner for the Opening Ceremonies

I went with a Russian theme for our dinner tonight…tonight’s menu included:

  • Beef stroganoff over egg noodles
  • Russian black bread
  • Pickled beets
  • Leinenkugel’s Big Eddy Russian Imperial Stout

For dessert (the real triumph of the evening), I made a Russian biscvit cake with a Ptichye Moloko filling, a whipped cream frosting, and a lovely chocolate drizzle:

We’ll still be having a tea party and a closing ceremonies dinner before the end of the Olympics…there’s more Russian cooking and baking yet to come!