All about the night that was..

As promised, here is a picture of the outfit I wore to the charity ball on Saturday night:

Dress: Holly Dress (Review); Shoes: Halt, patent black (Wittner); Bag: Tuxedo clutch, patent black (Mimco);
Earrings: Bird branch (emoceans)

I know it's not really 'black tie', but the sateen-ish finish of the fabric makes it dressy enough (says my Review stylist) and I knew I was going to buy this dress anyway, so why not hit two birds with one stone, right? I am going through a (rather long) polka-dot phase at the moment, so this dress adds nicely to my collection of spotty skirts!

The theme:


As mentioned in my last post, the theme this year was African culture. I was surprised with the amount of effort that was put into this event; it seemed much grander than the annual ball held by a different hospital, which I also attend. I must have missed quite a bit of entertainment during the pre-event drinks, because I arrived late, but when I walked into the venue, there were big black cat like things slinking around on the carpet.. On tentatively closing in on the distance between us, I realised they were people dressed up as cougars, or whatever you call those big black felines. I didn't get to take a photo with them, but apparently they were stalking people and freaking them out a bit, haha. During the night, there were also some people dressed as hunters, roaming around the ballroom. There were really big solid fake African animals scattered outside and inside the ballroom, which was a nice touch, and they made the event seem all the more authentic by having actual African 'guards', dressed in traditional wear, at the doors. That was very unexpected. I wonder if they're all sponsored/volunteered too? Surely the hospital wouldn't use money to employ that many people just for entertainment purposes?

The whole plaza ballroom was transformed to match the theme, with lots of greenery, banners of animals, bright colourful lights, a red carpet leading down to the dance floor at the very end of the room, and African-inspired table decor.

The ballroom

Plastic rhinos!

Twin candles on the turntables with bold leopard prints

Mercedes-Benz was obviously one of the sponsors of the event

Some of the silent auction items

The entertainment:


There were performances by African choirs and drummers, a fire performance, 'The Accidents' (nopes, I don't know who they are either; I think they're just event singers), raffles, a live auction...

The African choir

Fire performances by the Phoenix Fire Tribe

The dance floor and 'The Accidents'

The food:

The food was definitely the highlight of the night for me. It was my first time trying African cuisine and I didn't know what to expect.

The entrees were all cold, no thanks to the fact that they were all already on the table on arrival. I'm not sure if it's because the food was supposed to be served cold, or if they just had a case of bad food-serving management. Nonetheless, my entree was quite pleasant-tasting.

I tried all the dishes on offer in the table buffet for mains, and was quite pleasantly surprised by the strong flavours, similar to what we find in Middle-Eastern food. Someone who works with me, who is of African background, mentioned to me before, in our talk about African food, that a lot of cooking techniques used by other cultural cuisines, such as the Portugese chicken-cooking method (like what we get at Nandos, I suppose), are borrowed from Africa. Perhaps this explains the similarities in flavours? My favourite dish was the beef stew, because I adored the heady aromas of the strong spices used. My friend, on the other hand, didn't eat a great deal of what was on her plate, because she apparently had a dislike for such strong flavours. I liked the meat dishes better than the vegetarian ones, just because I found them a bit on the dry side; although, the ball of mashed swede was quite palatable. Interestingly, swedes are not an African vegetable, but originates from Sweden (hence it's name, I suppose?) and is quite popular in colder European countries, according to Google.

My tofu dessert was quite an interesting taste experience. I was a bit scared to try it, even though I've had tofu in both savoury and sweet dishes before (in Chinese desserts). It turned out to be a fantastic little dessert that I savoured to the last spoonful. Okay, so maybe I get a little over-excited when I taste new food, but just trust me that it doesn't taste as horrible as it sounds. As you can see in the pictures below, it's a parfait-like dessert comprised of alternating layers of tofu, caramelised crushed peanuts, and a chocolate mousse/chocolate fudge sauce (can't really tell if it's mousse or just the chocolate sauce plus tofu taste), with a base of biscuit crumbs. The tofu didn't really have a taste and I don't think they actually sweetened it; not like it was necessary anyway. It acts as a nice little buffer to balance the sweetness of the other elements in the dish. My only complaint would be that perhaps they should have used actual bits of cookies at the bottom as opposed to a loose, fine powdery crumb, which has the risk of being aspirated, and made me cough a bit. My friend had the pudding, which she found was overly sweet.

Entree: Chermoula Spiced Fish with melegueta pepper, okra, capsicum and West African dressing (Ghana)

Entree: (alternate drop) Ethiopian Berber Beef Fillet with raisins, saffron and tomato salad with papaya dressing (Ethiopia)

Mains: Table buffet consisting of Beninese Beef Stew (a beef curry with African spices (Benin)), Ashanti Chicken (fillets of chicken with sweet potatoes (West Africa)), Dahomey Fish Stew (fried fish with palm oil, tomatoes and chillies (West Africa)), Ghana Jolly Rice (Basmati rice with onions (Ghana)), Akkra Funfun (vegetarian dish of boiled white beans, inions and pepper (Nigeria)), Fufu (mashed swede (Central Africa))

Dessert: Tofu Peanut Butter Mousse (South Africa)

Dessert: (alternate drop) Malva Pudding (a sweet pudding with apricot jam (South Africa))

Tea served with chocolates

The event left me with an appreciation of African cuisine and has encouraged me to be more open-minded about trying out different foods, even if they may not be visually appealing. I believe that food, especially good food, can break down all sorts of language and cultural barriers and tie people together.  It is also a good medium through which to start learning about a culture. Don't you agree that sometimes food speaks better than words do?

Then there is, of course, the whole purpose of the event - to fundraise for important equipment and medical research at the hospital, which has the largest neonatal intensive care unit and cancer care service in the state. I'm not sure if I heard right, but I think they announced that about half a million was raised from the event, which is quite a remarkable effort. Of course we know that there will never be 'enough' funds for ongoing medical research and public hospital support, so here's to more fun and food-filled charity events in the future! I hope that this post has encouraged you, too, to consider attending one of these good-cause events organised by your local hospital foundation :)