We're doing a Tapas Potluck at my abode with an optional one hour hike in the Chestnut Hill area for potluckers. The potluck is for folks interested in cooking or bringing food for dinner. If you plan to drink, then bring some wine or beer or soda.

What is Tapas? It can be an appetizer or any tasty little thing.
The Long Explanation can be skipped.
Tapas are a Spanish type of appetizer... actually a bar snack - you nver really have a meal... you just keep snackin'. In Spain, in the daytime when you go to the pool, or beach, or at night time when you go out to have a drink at a bar, they serve little plates of interesting food - usually finger-food, but sometimes you need a fork, seldom a knife since the food is meant to be bitesized to pop in your mouth. The plates are the size of the plates you have that we used for the Tres Leches cake. And there is a HUGE assortment of interesting little goodies - maybe marinated mushrooms, or just a dish of olives, or boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and fried, or potatoes fried, or a potato omelet, or empanada (sort of a biscuit pizza), or a pile of sardines, or slices of sausage... the list goes on and on... Because the portion on the plate is diminutive there's an emphasis on FLAVOR and to some extent PRESENTATION. So a group of four people might order 3 plates to share. Each plate may serve one or two or three. When they are done they order some more and the night goes on... never really a meal, just a continuous sampling of whatever catches your interest whenever you feel hungry. You are doing your ordering right there at the bar and the assortment to choose from is right there in front of you - indicate what you want and the bartender puts it on a plate right then and there. Each bar has a different set of things that are served so you don't get the same thing everywhere, though there are a few items that are popular favorites. Now serving tapas to a crowd in your home probably means platters of finger-food rather than little plates, but that's not the way you'd do it at a Tapas Bar (a regular bar that also serves Tapas), so maybe you put the platters in the kitchen and bring out little plates to the seating area and just keep restocking the little plates in the kitchen, to get the proper Tapas atmosphere. You'll have to think about that. Maybe ask someone to bring extra small plates to use. Also, remember that Spanish food is not at all like Mexican food. It is European, and is not at all spicy... more Mediterranean or country French or Italian. Savory, not spicy.

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