Dinner Party

Mike and I think we have figured out which Chinese Charcoal to buy, so we held a small, informal, “dinner party” and invited all of our American cohorts (Jonathan, Ronnie, Joel, Joann, and Donna) this past Saturday night. We also invited our Chinese Administrative Associate (Lillian) who, along with all of her normal work duties, also has to manage us, our 2 drivers, hotel reservations for the support teams, help straighten out apartment problems, schedule housekeepers, organize fresh water delivery, teach us how to work our Chinese appliances, pay the phone, cable, internet bills, translate for us by phone if we need to talk to anybody at a store or somewhere, and in general be our “Girl Friday” for all of the things we don’t know how to do, or read, or write. She wanted to bring a friend which, of course, was no problem. So we had a total of 9 people in this little space and had to cook 9 steaks on that little grill…that was a bit problematic, but we did OK.
Our housekeeper (our 2nd housekeeper, by the way; the 1st one quit this week, but that's another story.) had been here, so the place was clean. We have bought some plants to help the sterile décor, but then decided since were having 4 ladies join us, we should get some cut flowers. Once again, I am certain the store keeper had a good laugh as 2 guys walk in to buy a large arrangement of cut flowers then had to negotiate a vase to put them in. But they made the apartment look good and we figured we could divide them up to all the ladies at the end of the evening.
After they laughed at our limited kitchen tools, supplies, and spices, Lillian just took over the kitchen and began prepping what she brought; a cold beef/vegetable appetizer (delicious!), fresh fruit (peach, pineapple, mango, etc) which she cut up to make a fruit salad mixed with yogurt (also delicious) and finally a Lotus root. Lotus root is the root from a type of water flower and looks like a potato, so we decided to slice, marinate in EVOO, salt/pepper and put it on the grill. Lillian’s friend (Chee Chee – I’m sure that is the wrong spelling, but correct phonetics) thought we were grilling them wrong, so she took over the grill and cooked. At that moment, we knew she was comfortable around the foreigners. But I admit – I have never seen a woman work a grill in high heels and a skirt before!
I marinated the steaks (T-Bones and Rib Eyes) and cooked those. Mike set up a buffet, and everyone ate like kings.
After dinner, Lillian started to clean the kitchen, but Mike and I wouldn’t let her and we did the cleaning. As we worked, she called her friend and they both stood in the doorway watching in complete amazement. They said “Chinese men don’t do this!”
Everyone left around 08:30 PM and as they were leaving they would only take one flower each. So as I write this, the aroma of fresh flowers has completely filled the apartment; which is fine with me!

We keep trying to incorporate a little West into the East and maybe we'll get there, but we still had to pre-cut the steaks into chopstick friendly pieces (one, because they prefer it that way, and two, well, we don't have any decent steak knives).

And as a hint to"Jane from Texas" who is moving into these same Shangahi Gardens next summer - bring your own steak knives!