The Dinner Party

Today we hosted our first dinner party. Dustin's boss was in town for meetings, so we decided to do a home cooked meal for him, and invited another co-worker and his family to join us as well. A dinner party here is a little different from home, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I do not have my usual serving dishes or regular dishes. I had awhile back added on to my serving, but realized Monday night that I needed more plates for dessert and appetizers (there is no such thing as nice paper plates here). Secondly, our oven does not cook consistently, nor do we truly know how to use it properly, so cooking is always interesting. Finally, finding items here is usually a challenge.

So my morning was packed with heading first to the store we could walk to from our house. The boys and I bought some fresh ingredients there as well as some fresh flowers for the house. We then headed to the bakery near our house. Dustin and I decided the night before that I would just buy a cake for dessert as our oven is less than consistent and I forgot to bring with me cooling racks (good luck finding such a thing here in China). The bakery has everytime we have gone in, had a gorgeous black forest chocolate cake. Unfortunately, today they did not have any cakes at all. They had a book of cakes, but after my feeble attempts using my phone dictionary to trying to ask about the cakes and how long it would take to make one for me, I retreated in utter defeat. I decided I would have to come up with some other alternative that will be simple and taste good.

After getting home from those stores, Tom, our driver, was back from dropping Dustin and his boss off and he took us to the Carrefour. Thankfully, I was able to find most things (i.e.--dessert plates and appetizer plates, but no ice bucket) After running through the store as fast as I could and praying that Tom would keep up with me a little more (he was pushing Josh, but walked everywhere at his normal pace--he obviously could not tell from my attitude that I was in a rush), we finally got most of what we needed.

I stopped outside the Carrefour at a flower shop and bought two low arraingements for the table and just marveled at the price of them. I paid $30 total for two arrangements and an empty vase to use in my hall bath (I had bought some flowers earlier). In the US you would be lucky to get one arrangement made with carnations for this price and that would not include the vase. Each arrangement here had at least four to five red roses with other flowers mixed in. I was so excited about it and could not wait to see how the table would look with the flowers, and my white dishes and new dishes that have an Asian design to them.

I had Tom stop at the market I went to this morning, as I forgot to get fresh basil and it is the only place I know that carries it. I was quite proud that I told him where I wanted to go by telling him to take me to the newspaper store. He understood this because this is where he stops for us to buy the English paper.

We finally arrived home at 12:00 and I quickly got the boys fed and up to bed for naps. I then tackled the cleaning (our floors were disgusting), setting the table and getting all the food prepared. I was so excited about the table, as I was able to hide the burn marks (tables are not made well here, and the previous owner set something on the table and destroyed the finish in the shape of the bowl they put on the table). We had bought what we thought were placemats when we first moved here, but it turned out to be table runners. I used two sets of two on each side of the table to hide the marks and placed the arrangements between the two runners in the middle of the table. It turned out sort of striking with the dishes in white on top and I used my new dishes on top of that as salad plates.

God so blessed me today in preparing for this party, for the boys slept almost until everyone arrived and I was able to have everything ready except the last minute cooking before the guests arrived. This enabled me to know the food would be ready, but also to enjoy my guests as well.

It was a wonderful evening. The dinner came out great and I was able to bake lemon cheesecake cookies and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. They were simple and everyone enjoyed them.

It was a long day, but extremely satisfying. I truly love to entertain and it was a lot of fun to have our first dinner party here in China. It is also nice as tomorrow, for the boys and I, all we have to do is play and relax.