An Oriental-Inspired Cookout

Now that it's starting to get warm out, Jody and I decided to have a little oriental-inspired cookout. We spent a good couple of weeks coming up with fun ideas and pulling together Asian decor. It was one of our more "affordable" parties, but definitely required lots of work and time to put things together. It was a really fun evening with close friends.. Unfortunately, it stunk that a good handful of people cancelled at the last second. Oh well, more food for us!

We wanted to use a color combination we haven't used before, but somehow, we ended up pulling lots of aquas, reds and golds. We hit a mini jackpot at a thrift store and refinished some candle and tealight holders with gold paint and as usual, vases were covered with paper, tulle and ribbon. We used plenty floating candles and even submerged some stems of silk orchids in water. Inspired by Asian cherry blossoms, Jody and I worked hard looking for branches and putting together an amazing new DIY project with unused pink and white napkins I already had, a pair of scissors and lots of hot glue. Jody actually did most of the work on them.. They turned out a-maze-ing.

For our main food table, we included more cherry blossoms and candles. To bring in more color, we used some inspired, paper prints hung and connected by antique-brass chain.

We played around with a several ideas before deciding to do this fun, Asian-inspired garland. We started by cutting 3x3 and 4x4 square pieces of paper. Each piece was spiral-cut, twisted and glued, totally resembling Asian characters.

Everyone brought something to share.. The food was pretty awesome.

{Homemade} Marinated Korean Kalbi

Potstickers with Teriyaki Sauce

Vegetarian Egg Rolls with {homemade} Raspberry Sweet & Sour Sauce

{Homemade} Peanut Butter Noodles

Pork Fried Rice

{Homemade} Spicy Cucumber Kimchi

Japanese Pocky Sticks

 

{Homemade} Chinese Chews

Fortune Cookies (of course.)

Paul, the Grillmaster

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Inspiration:
Our cherry blossom trees were an original DIY, but were inspired by Martha Stewart's Cherry Blossom DIY.

Music:
The playlist I made up for the party wasn't necessarily all Asian music, but just a few good songs inspired by Asian (and a even a little Indian) culture. Check out our playlist featuring Moby, Thievery Corporation, Radiohead, the incredible music from the Brokedown Palace Soundtrack and more.

xo