Cooking with Chen

Sounds like a made for TV cooking show, huh?

I hope all of you had a very happy New Year!

So, the Internet problem is still very much a problem and I am braving the Internet cafes once again. Filling my lungs with second hand smoke.

So, we had a pretty low key New Years this year. Matt and I both had to work. Night classes. Ugh. I really like my night class and it was definitely my favorite to teach, but on New Year's Eve? Well, we only had about 12 students total show up between the two of us so we combined classes and taught them a little about New Year's traditions in the US, sang Auld Lang Syne, and then I did a totally related ASL unit (was rolling my eyes while typing that because I was teaching Sign Language in an oral English class). So, a regular potpourri of lessons for the last class. My students were excited to see Matt in action though and his class pretty much couldn't care less too see me. But I'm used to that.

Um, yeah.

For the actual New Year's Day we went to our waiban, Chen's house to make dumplings. So, a bunch of us caught the bus to head out to the Chen pad for some serious jiaozi production. The bus dropped us off on a street somewhere in the vicinity of Chen's apartment. She drew us a map. But, unfortunately the map was basically useless. It is about on par with if I were to direct you to my apartment in Beijing and drew you a map of China with a dot, representing my house in the eastern part kinda near the water. Yeah, accurate it was not. Luckily we ran into someone Dr. Buck knew from the university who just happened to be heading out to Chen's for the jiaozi fiesta.

All of the filling had been pre-made, so our tasks was to put it into the wrappers. Chen demoed how to properly fill and seal the little wrappers and we all took it in and thought, "hey, that ain't hard!"

Round One (ding!): I put about a teaspoon into a wrapper and went to seal the edges - I managed to flute the edges all fancy like, but had to scrap some of the filling. Matt? Well, let's just say that he got a, "that's interesting" type comment from Chen followed by some chortling. Adam? Chen just looked at it and laughed. Dr. Buck? Let's just say that it was okay, but not quite up to Chinese snuff.

Round Two (ding!): I am able to fill a little faster and Chen compliments me on my dumpling form. Matt? Overfills and gets dumpling goo on the table. Adam? Chen laughs at his dumpling creatures. Dr. Buck? Did he compete in the second round?

Round Three (ding!): Chen announces that it looks as if I am the only one to pass dumpling 101. Matt hasn't given up, he is determined to learn how to do this. Adam is eating dumplings. Dr. Buck? Was this when he opened the wine?

Anyhow, it was fun! I think all of my years of mandu making has refined my mad dumpling wrapping skills. Yay me!

After a great dinner prepared by Chen, we all sat around and played cards. As many of you know, I hate games. Always have and probably, for the most part, always will. So, a nice friendly game of cards is like a razor blade to the eyeballs to me. So, the first game is a team game and my team did well, I think. The second game was called something like "pig" and was similar to hearts (or so I'm told). I didn't get any pigs which was good and Matt was the first to pig out which was bad. But what was funny was how Chen was playing. She was sitting next to Dr. Buck and was 'helping' him play cards. She would point out something and tell him to do this or that and then chuckle as she deposited a bunch of cards. Ah yes, our waiban was cheating up a storm and loving every minute of it!

We wound up hanging with Chen until about 11PM before we all piled in a cab and headed back to USTB. All in all a nice evening. Even if we did have to play cards.