"Chinese Women Don't Cook"

That's what Gloria told me. It is, she says, directly related to why they have such small kitchens. Cause or effect, I am not sure.

So I think I might be Chinese, after all. Last night I was planning on cooking. I had taken chicken out of the freezer early in the day. I was in the kitchen, poised to begin whipping up a marinade (I.e., opening the McCormick package) when the telephone rang. It was Eric telling me that people from the States are here and a bunch of them were planning to go out to dinner. At least one guy was bringing his wife and kids so, did we want to go? Gee I would love to but it would mean I couldn't cook, again. I kept that thought to myself and somewhat promptly agreed to go out, again.

The venue was a Dim Sum restaurant. Eric and I had tried it before and, like everything else here, I had not liked it. So before we left I let the kids eat some cereal in order that they would not be starving and thus complaining the entire time. However, surprisingly, we all loved the food! I tried 2 of the 3 appetizers - bean sprouts and some sort of spicy cucumber - and thought they were both very good. I realized that I am open to trying vegetables more than meat because I don't have to worry about what it really might be. I forced the kids to try the bean sprouts. Anna didn't like them at all, but Ethan said they were okay. (Surprise!) He didn't want to eat more than the bite I had forced, but I was okay with that. Soon the dim sum began rolling out: shrimp and vegetable, pork, pork and vegetable, chicken, sticky rice. The kids favorite BY FAR was the pork. I don't know if they liked any of the others but they tried them and that, in my family, is a huge milestone. Next came shrimp fried rice and some extremely spicy wontons - pork and shrimp. Anna ate as many of the shrimp from the fried rice as I would allow (we had to share with everyone else at the table or she probably could have eaten all of them.) Ethan ate some of the rice. I ate several of the spicy shrimp wontons. Wow! Our family was at a "real" Chinese restaurant and we were all eating!

Any day now we'll be eating Stinky Tofu. No, I don't think so.