Wow, you guys. Just wow. I'm reading these over now. Back soon with my comments and a winner. And thank you all! So inspiring.

first, let's start off the evening well. homemade lemonade, with the fruit grown out back. you can have a shot of bourbon with it, if you so desire.

as an appetizer, you've got choices: a vegan taco soup, or french onion. also: the garden's in the backyard, pick any salad greens you can find to build your own.

for the entrees, you've (once again!) got choices: vegan pad thai, chicken gumbo, or a spinach-gruyere tart.

and dessert? that's the most important part. take your pick of red velvet cupcakes iced with white chocolate peanut butter, bread pudding, or sweet coconut rice.

and of course, if the weather is right, all of this must be eaten outside. preferably under torchlight.

OMG I'm going to have a difficult time choosing a winner! I'm getting drool on my keyboard just reading these.

I would whet everyone’s appetite upon arrival by serving an aperitif of spicy ginger beer laced with dark rum. This would get everyone in a good mood and get the conversation going.

appetizers:
jerk chicken wings
conch fritters

both served with a fresh homemade salsa [papaya, pineapple, tomatillos, cucumber, red onion, and jalapeno peppers (seeded and minced small), cilantro and lime juice]

entrees:
mahi mahi crusted with coconut and cornmeal and lightly sauteed
curried goat

sides:
shrimp mofongo
pigeon peas and rice
coconut bread

dessert:
gizzada
cassava pudding
mango sorbet

Whenever it is necessary to show one's deference to fey sensibilities, one must always remember to play it quaint; serving humbler fare does not risk offense and should, in effect, set one's guests at ease.

Prepare a variety of simple side dishes with either grains, fruits, or nuts as their base ingredients and accented by colourful vegetables. Save spiced meats for the main course - which should be served as a single preparation, like a centerpiece - and follow this with a procession of small, modest desserts, neither too plain nor too rich.

The specifics of such a meal are irrelevant; locals are acquainted with a broad range of cuisine in any bordertown, thus one stands to distinguish oneself by preparing the simplest of meals not with ambition but with open, relaxed and methodical attention.

The entree would be a chicken skin left on an crisped in very hot pan then braised with onion whole garlic, carrots and potato in a broth of Red Stripe. With this I would serve a habanero spiced rice and johnny cakes made with rich molasses.
Desert would be a mixture of fruits I could scavenge spiced with cinnamon, doused in lemon and honey.

An evening of friends... starting with...
Jamaican style coffee or tea
Jerk spiced tempeh: Tempeh* cutlet marinated in Jamaican spices and grilled with a side of Jamaican Jerk sauce with black pepper, chili powder, ginger, thyme, allspice.
Served with Bammy (Cassava Bread) and Pawpaw Chutney
Stew Peas
Spicy Eggplant
Steamed Cabbage
Stewed Tomatoes
If you have room left...for Dessert: Sweet Potato Pone &/or Banana Bread
And when we are full I will gather our friends with their drums, marimba, guitars, banjo, and all of our voices for after dinner fun with Home brewed Ginger beer flowing freely.

*though I'm no longer vegetarian, many of my friends are, and meat can be expensive! If one of us caught a fish, I'd substitute or add blackened fish as well.

Ah, well. I'm vegan, so this makes the menu adaptability to Bordertown ingredients more challenging. Still, always up for a challenge, I'd start with an appetizer of Braised Fiddleheads. For those who don't know, those are the small curled sprouts of ferns that grow along river and streambanks in the spring. Now is the perfect time to harvest them, and after par-boiling and braising, they taste much like peas, with a little more texture. Seasoned with chives (also in abundance along the riverbank and in the old gardens in Bordertown) they are a lovely seasonal salad.

The main dish I'd offer is a spring asparagus and baby artichoke calzone. The crust is made from hard red winter wheat that grows on the extreme northern border, and it makes a lovely crunchy crust. The white "pizza" sauce is made from roasted garlic and southern almond milk. A few very dear dried Italian tomatoes from over the Border on the other side add just the right amount of tartness. The cheese is made from almonds, grown in the abundant almond groves to the south (extremely tasty).

I have a stash of oregano and basil from the Other Side. Although basil grows well in Bordertown, the dragons are very possessive of it, so I always prefer to use my own.

For dessert, I would serve a lovely sugared blueberry cake. It's an old family recipe, and since blueberries are so abundant in the wild woods around Bordertown at all times of the year, it's easy to have fresh local ingredients. It's a fluffy cake with loads of berries and a crunchy topping of melted sugar.

Hope you like my offerings, because I'm thinking of opening a vegan café in Bordertown soon.

Feiflin's Café, named for one of my best half-elvish friends and supporters.

A Dinner ala Jardin Sauvages, on the occasion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Realm's Visit to Little Tooth.

Starter:

A salad of wild herbs; daylily buds and petals, lamb's quarter, live-forever, plantain (the kind that grows in your lawn, not the banana), daisy fronds, and fiddle head ferns. Garnished with rose petals, violets, and a squash blossom. Wild ginger vinaigrette as dressing.

Main course:

Chicken, grilled, served with a Caribbean inspired sauce made with wild ginger and garlic and honey from Pitcairn Island (that's where the money went this month).
Boiled cattails, shoots and heads with a lightly salted milkweed sauce
Wild chanterelles, grilled with the chicken, and stuffed with pesto made from mustard garlic
Grilled squash blossoms, seasoned with just a touch of salt

Dessert:

Wild strawberries and raspberries served in a sweet milkweed sauce
Served over shortbread seasoned with dried wild bolette mushrooms and sweet clover.

For the squeemish, wild wintergreen ice cream, straight up.

With the exception of the honey, all ingredients came from out back, or from vacant lots around my place. Well, ok, the mushrooms came from a little further away, but I can't tell you exactly where, Chancellor or no.

Let's see no money, but a lot of creativity. So how about, Soup- Goat soup with curry. main dish- steamed fish with avacodo slices and jerk seasoning,black beans and rice, sliced plantaines on the side. For deseret- Coconut drop cookies with rum and raisin coconut ice cream. To drink- Ginger beer.