Mary's Dinner Club Stories - Chinese Dinner

by Mary Anglberger - I am Austrian - got here last August (on my own, am not married, have no children) to change professionally after almost 20 years of travelling the globe, teaching English.

My Dinner Clubs have really become the highlight of my week - I love planning/shopping/trying things out during the week and I always look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Usually we go out dancing after dinner which is also more fun in a group.

With the 'balcony season‘  finally being over for good, we had our welcome drinks in the living room – still enough space – just right to get the guests talking. There were four new guests and three ‘regulars’ which meant I had the luxury of being an ‘almost guest’ myself. Once again, lovely, interesting people and yet again… a new nationality: Portuguese-South African.

We started off with ‘uncooperative’ but tasty spring rolls (they decided to stick to everything in their way) followed by sweet & sour soup with tofu and bamboo shoots.

The main course was chicken Chop suey….Chop suey (Chinese: 杂碎; pinyin: zá suì; literally "assorted pieces"). As so often I decided the recipe I was using was not ‘the way I think it should be’ and so I extended the time for marinating the chicken in ginger, garlic, soy sauce, rice wine and sugar by several hours…. a fantastic if I may say so –  it was really yummy.

After several breaks for more chatting, clearing tables, changing seats…. we reached dessert. Homemade fortune cookies – these too they were not absolutely perfect as all of the batters I had tried did one ‘funny thing’ or another but they were deliciously sweet and ‘almondy’. And of course the fortunes inside were great fun and everyone had several cookies/fortunes….. the most unlikely one: ‘You will be hungry soon, order take-out now’.

This time one guest had ‘broken the rules’ in a most pleasant way and had brought a bottle of Commandaria…… we ended up moving the tables together….. staying ‘way past everyone’s bedtime’, having a fabulous time. Thank you everyone we must do that again soon!

I am already looking forward to another cozy evening this Saturday when the theme will be  Thanksgiving and guest speaker, life coach Carol Page, will talk about self-awareness for singles. See facebook for details but hurry, it’s almost fully booked. http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=216940608377984