On the Homefront: Mexican Flag Day Table

From Taringa!

February went by in a flurry of celebrations, with many holidays as well as birthdays.  We pretty much ran the gamut of culinary flavors during the month, with one notable exception, namely Mexican food!  We have an excellent local Mexican restaurant in close proximity to our small rural town, so I started looking for excuses to celebrate with Mexican cuisine.  One of the many Dalmatian calendars in our home mentioned that February 24th was "Dia de la Bandera".  A quick Google search informed me that this translated as Flag Day in Mexico, and a reason to party was found!  While we planned to eat at the restaurant itself, I decided to set our table appropriately just in case the weather forced us to eat at home.  Since the Mexican flag (shown above) has color blocks of green, white, and red, my table was set with color blocks in the same color scheme (the green does not photograph well, for some reason, so you will have to use your imagination a bit as you look at the images).

Dark green velvet placemat; square white dinner plate from HomeGoods last year; red Waechtersbach bowl from Pier 1 years ago; stainless steel flatware; red napkin; clear water and stemmed beverage glasses.

A large red bowl for tortilla chips, small green bowls for salsa, and small
red bowls for guacamole.

The Mexican coat of arms in the central white portion of the flag
represents an Aztec legend concerning the location of their capital city
Tenochtitlan (Mexico City's current location) at a site where an eagle
holding a serpent was seen perched on a prickly pear cactus.  I had no
eagle or prickly pear, but I did have some cactus candle holders and a cute
little red ceramic hen, so they stood in for the originals (I guess the tall
white candle would have played the part of the serpent!).

The weather stayed decent enough for us to eat at the restaurant, but we could easily have gotten our order to go and eaten at home if necessary.

Mexican Flag Day Menu:

Tortilla Chips/Salsa and Guacamole

Chicken Enchiladas Verdes

Camarones al Chipotle/Corn Tortillas

Mexican Rice

Refried Beans with Cheese

Sopapillas/Honey and Chocolate Sauce

The sopapillas
(from Facebook)

Of course a bowl of chocolates was on the table, this time just red foil-wrapped milk chocolate Lindt Lindor truffles in a white bowl on a dark green placemat (and yes, I admit I have been recycling those truffles on the past few tables recently):

Even though my sweet little red ceramic hen is only marginally significant for this table, I couldn't resist including her, as she is a recent purchase from HomeGoods and one of my favorite decorative pieces right now!

I would have posted this table sooner, but the weather has been atrocious recently so I wasn't able to take any photographs until a couple of days ago.  We did have a great meal for Mexico's Flag Day, though, and got to support another local business in the process.  Now on to the next holiday, and a new tablescape!