A Multicultural Dinner ~ Chinese, Mexican, Swedish, Norwegian, Romanian! In fact, The Pretty Much the Whole Damn World Was Represented!

My entire peony "crop."

So, Eme (our Chinese exchange student who now works at Microsoft) brought her mother (who is visiting from China) to dinner this evening.

Kim (who is staying with me) is a visiting nurse and pretty much did the whole dinner. Enchiladas, Spanish Rice, Guacamole. I did the black bean salsa with blue and yellow corn chips. We started with a nice bottle of wine and finished with a couple of bottles of three buck chuck Shiraz.

A lot of the world was represented. Chuck and his girlfriend Dana who is Canadian by way of Romania. I'm Norwegian, Scot and a little German. And, over dinner we found out that Kim's great-grandfather was Chinese. Whaaaaaat!

God, I love having dinner with friends. Conversation around the table is fascinating. Eme's mother is a charge nurse in China. So, through Eme's translation her mother and Kim got to swap stories which is how we found out that Kim's great-grandfather was Chinese and the towns people in their Mexican town didn't like him running around with Kim's soon to be great-grandmother. Utterly compelling story which ended in a lynching. Oh, dear God. Another reminder ~ everyone has an astonishing story.

The beginnings of Spanish rice

Anyway, it was wonderful.

After cleaning up the kitchen and loading the dishwasher, I started brining the wild salmon to get them in the smoker this weekend. Talk about pioneer woman.

A really, really nice day.

Homemade Enchiladas, Spanish Rice, Black Bean Salsa, Guacamole ~ Oh! Yum.

Kim's homemade guacamole

Enchiladas? You're going to need these.

Black Bean Salsa in papier mache bowl

Day 52 Everyday Grateful ~

Such a gorgeous sunny day. Warm, still, bright.

Friends over for dinner.

Happy!

The Joys of Stone Soup

Last year, we had a Chinese exchange student stay for the year. It's wonderful to see the world through the eyes of someone who is seeing America for the first time.

Over the past year, his mother and I have become friends. We've spoken on the phone many times. Her written English is practically perfect. Her spoken English is accented, but when she follows up our phone calls with an email, I see that her spoken English is perfect as well.

Of course, the main thing to keep in mind is that her English is a hell of a lot better than my Chinese!

As a surprise, I learned she was going to be in Seattle yesterday. She will be here for a few days, then she and her son are going to travel in the US on the way back to China.

Tonight, she is slumbering over.

To celebrate her visit, I invited a group of friends over for "Stone Soup." What is Stone Soup? It's whatever you have in the refrigerator and/or pantry. Because I hadn't been to the store this week, that is really all I had to offer.

My Stone Soup consisted of the following: I had one very large head of cauliflower, some onions, some garlic, some Parmesan cheese, a small container of artichokes and a bag of potatoes on the back porch. In other words ~ Stone Soup.

Oh, dear, it was wonderful! I sauteed the onions and garlic in olive oil, steamed the cauliflower, put it and the onions and garlic through the Cuisinart, threw it all back into the large pot with veggie broth, then grated some potatoes with their peels, added some freshly grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and voila! Delicious! Actually, really delicious.

My next door neighbor brought over a sourdough baguette. I put it in the oven at 150 degrees to warm. I had a bottle of red truly vin ordinaire. And, of course, my smoked wild salmon to crumble over the Stone Soup.

It was so wonderful.

Cat Stevens was on the speakers in the dining room. The Stone Soup was fresh and hot and flavorful. Who knew?

The company was sparkling and the conversation with animated. Everyone had a glass of red wine. Much laughing and talking and visiting. Toasts all around. Completely convivial. And, very international. How great is that?