England vs. USA with food to celebrate

Saturday England played against the USA in the World Cup. To celebrate our friend FDG (Frequent Dinner Guest) , who is English, came over for dinner and I cooked a dinner to represent both nations. Since I was going to have to cook to separate dishes I tried to keep it as simple as possible both because of time and so I wouldn't have to run around hunting ingredients. So the dishes I choose to cook were Hamburgers for the Americans (of course) and individual servings Shepherd's Pie for England. Shepherd's pie is traditionally made with ground lamb and if it is cooked with ground (minced) beef it is called Cottage pie. Well that's at least what I thought and read on several sites. But our friend FDG is English and he said that his Mum called it Shepherd's pie, so that's what I'll call it. I'll have a recipe for the Shepherd's pie soon in another post, in the meantime just enjoy the photos. Wait till you see what FDG brought for dessert ( representing a neutral country ) .....







And now for the dessert that stole the spotlight, Fresh homemade Tiramisu made by FDG and let me tell you this Tiramisu was one of the best Tiramisu I've ever had!


It was creamy, lightly sweetened with a hint of the alcohol but it did not over power the other flavors whatsoever.


The cake he used was spongy and soaked up the alcohol very nicely without becoming to soggy ( which I hate). He based the Tiramisu on Gordon Ramsey's recipe but made some delicious adjustments to the recipe. Who knew he was such a great cook, He can bring dessert any time :)
England and the USA may have tied the game but our "neutral" dessert won the diner spotlight!

I also have these beautiful paintings that I found on Vanity Fair 's site. They have a long article about the 2010 World Cup teams and along with the article are murals for the competing teams. The murals were created for ESPN by the AM I COLLECTIVE a group of artists based in South Africa. Truly magnificent works of art that you must take a look at , even if you are not a Football (Soccer) fan. Of course Mexico's is on the top of my list.

Mexico: El Tri (The Three-Colored)

USA: The Yanks (for my American husband)

AM I COLLECTIVE

England: The Three Lions (for our friend FDG , including "Shrek" lol)

To see all 32 beautiful murals visit Vanity Fair here.