Dinner With Friends
Dinner With Friends is our series of after-hours, family-style dinners. These dinners are designed to bring guests together around a shared meal and to incorporate inspiration from the broader food world around us.
Waffle Night in Celebration of Ghetto Gastro
Waffle Night is a celebration of Ghetto Gastro and their cookbook Black Power Kitchen. Ghetto Gastro is a culinary collective based out of The Bronx that takes a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on visual arts, music, fashion, and social activism. They use food as a medium to connect cultures and open borders. Their recipes are “reflective of [their] style and sensibility, offering recipes that emerge from long-standing traditions but with a Ghetto Gastro nod.”
Through our menu below and this celebratory dinner, we hope to bring some of their flavor and voice to you. Waffles have become something of a signature dish since they launched their book at The Met last winter. So here we are… Waffle Night in celebration of Ghetto Gastro!
Weather permitting, this dinner will take place outside on our patio. Otherwise, it will be inside the cafe.
Please take a look at the menu and purchase tickets for dinner below. A portion of all proceeds from the event will be donated to The Free Food Fridge in the spirit of Ghetto Gastro’s mission to foster community through food and nourish the world.
Additionally, if you’re interested in further supporting food access and community in The Capital Region, we would encourage you to consider donating or volunteering with one of these incredible organizations:
WAFFLE Night Menu
Please note: The below menu is not gluten-free or vegetarian. It contains major allergens including: wheat, eggs, soy, and coconut. We are not able to offer substitutions. If the menu below does not meet your dietary requirements, please consider one of our other events!
Beverage: Limonada de Coco
“On a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, a group of Afro Colombian women welcomed us in the square with a beautiful ceremony featuring traditional dancing and freshly made limonada de coco, a nonalcoholic lime-and-coconut smoothie.” — page 160
Course 1: Salad
Mixed greens, watermelon, and a Ghetto Gastro’s ginger-lime dressing.
Course 2: Black Power Waffle & Twerk Chicken
Our main course features Ghetto Gastro’s signature Black Power Waffle topped with their Twerk & Jerk chicken in a play on chicken and waffles.
Black Power Waffles: “We pay homage to the Black Panther Party’s ground-breaking community-based free breakfast program, which inspired the federally run version launched in the 1970s and still in place throughout the country today.” — Page 208
Twerk n Jerk Chicken: “Where Jamaicans go, so goes jerk. This style of cooking emerged from the mountainous regions of Jamaica where the Maroons established their secrete, impenetrable communities. … Twerk n Jerk is an homage to the traditional method. We’ve brought this recipe from the Bronx to the world: London, Paris, and Venice.” — Page 103
Course 3: Ice Cream, Spicy Sovereign Syrup, and Ginger Crumble
Dessert features vanilla ice cream topped with Ghetto Gastro’s Sovereign Syrup and ginger crumble from their apple pie recipe.
Spicy Sovereign Syrup: “A little advice: always add spice. We’ve teamed up with the flavor family at Fly By Jing to create Spicy Sovereign Syrup. Representative of the Global South, the latest twist on our all-natural syrup fuses Chengdu’s explosive fire flavors and a delicate touch of our good-on-everything sweetness.” — Product description on their website
Note from Ghetto Gastro’s apple pie recipe: “This is an ambitious preparation for beginner cooks, but that “traditional” apple pie isn’t who we are. Remixing the apple pie challenges who gets to write the official American narrative. It’s also a beautiful dessert that can provide a sense of comfort. Eat up.” — Page 160
Inspiration
This menu takes inspiration, including full recipes, from Ghetto Gastro’s cookbook Black Power Kitchen. It also features their Spicy Sovereign Syrup, which is available for purchase on their website and at Arthur’s.
Lear more about Ghetto Gastro here:
@ghettogastro on Instagram
“Meet the Culinary Collective Ghetto Gastro” by Interview Magazine
“Ghetto Gastro’s Black Power Kitchen is This Year’s Most Important Cookbook” by Vogue
