Dumpling Fest!

Well the dumpling cooking lesson/eating contest went down last Tuesday as scheduled, and it turned out to be one of the most fun evenings that I've had here.  There's no way that retelling the story can convey how just plain crazy it was or how much we laughed, but I'll try. 

I'm not really sure why the night was so entertaining.  I suppose it was some combination of the excessive heat generated by the cooking, the haphazardness of our ill-equipped kitchen, some wine, a few crazy personalities, and a tad bit o' language barrier as well.  The last two kind of accompany one another, because the thought process of, "What did he say?  No, I must be misunderstanding.  No, I am NOT misunderstanding, the story is THAT crazy," makes all comments ten times funnier.  And boy, do we have some interesting people in the lab.  There is no way that their minds are wired the same as mine, because there is almost no continuity between anything I say and the comment that comes in response, ever.  But it makes every day that much more exciting. :)

Right, but dumplings.  Long story short, we actually ran out of dumplings (my bad, I did not buy enough meat), and I was given the victory out of courtesy when they let me eat the last dumpling, for a total of 16.  I know, I know, that's pretty weaksauce, but then again, the meal was augmented by a few last-minute additions, including freshly made Som Tam (Thai papaya salad), which I know now how prepare thanks to our Thai postdoc, durian cake, and egg tarts.  A rockin' good time overall, food and laughing, couldn't have asked for more.

Getting ready to slice the papayas for the som tam. There was a really cool technique for slicing them that involved just hacking grooves into the papaya and then scraping off the shavings. Except that our knives sucked.

  

Hooray, salad!

  

Folding dumplings

  

Mad dumpling style from our Korean postdoc

 

Shu Jing is our lab tech and she just giggles and speaks Singlish all day long, and even writes in Singlish. Case in point: one of her photo captions from the night was "hehe i duno how to fold la:P" regarding proper dumpling folding technique...

 

My winner's certificate.

Dumpling carnage