Spaghetti

Several weeks ago I was invited to my new friend, Connie's house to cook dinner. It took me quite some time to come up with a dish I can cook, never mind the fact that there are no ovens in China and my only utensil is a pair of chopsticks.

I sought my classmates' advice, and then reached out to the long-time foreigners to see if they had any suggestions. After much discussion, it was decided that I would make spaghetti. I could doctor up the sauce and make meatballs, which would make the meal sufficiently authentic.

My first challenge was to find a place that sells the needed ingredients. So far I haven't found a spaghetti aisle in Trust Mart, nor have I seen any ground beef.

I finally settled on making a trip to Sabrina's, a western food store. It's rumored to be expensive and not have a good variety of products- just enough to satisfy that craving.

I trekked out to the store and bought the supplies: canned spaghetti sauce, noodles, canned parmesan cheese, a can of black olives, wine, and some chorizo sausage. I thought the sausage was a good touch. There was still no ground beef, but the sausage would add a good kick to the meal. The Chinese people I know all complain that western food is too bland for their tastes.

The next day I loaded the supplies into my backpack and took off on my bike for Connie's apartment. She had told me that it would only be a group of about a half dozen. I bought more supplies than I could possibly need, but it turned out well as the group was double in size of my estimate.

After an hour of playing and losing at majiang, Connie announced that it was time for me to cook. I had warned her of my lack of cooking abilities, but she just brushed my hesitancy aside and once again pushed me into the kitchen. Connie's friend and husband were both in the kitchen trying to help me find the needed pans and utensils. It took a while to find a pan that fit. I pulled the sausage out of the fridge, looked behind me and noticed for the first time that a crowd had gathered. Connie's friend asked me several times what she could do to help. Honestly, I would have been happy to have the kitchen to myself, but I didn't want to be rude so I started assigning tasks to my assistants. Connie's friend was to cook the meat, while her husband was going to watch the noodles.

I opened the sausage and let it slide into the pan. I picked up the pair of chopsticks, and tried to seperate the sausage into small pieces. It wasn't working, and soon I saw the reason why. This was real sausage: strings and intestines. I reached in the pan and pulled the half cooked sausage out. I still needed to pull the strings of the ends of the links. I was still having a hard time seperating the meat. I picked up one of the links, and with my thumb and forefinger squeezed the meat out into the pan. SLUUUURRRRPPP!Fortunately for me, Chinese people don't eat sausage. Hopefully, they had no idea how badly I was butchering this process.

I struggled through cutting the onion and tomato with a meat cleaver and tossed it into the pan. As soon as everything was ready to go, Connie's husband grabbed the pan of noodles, and I grabbed the pan of sauce and carefully walked out to the dining room.

On the table in the dining room sat half a dozen Chinese dishes. The spaghetti was too big for the table, so it was placed on a stool in the corner of the room. We all sat looking at each other until someone finally took their rice bowl and passed it to Connie's husband. Using his chopsticks, he scooped up some spaghetti and passed it back. One by one, each person at the table tried the spaghetti, and you know what? They all liked it! (Hard to believe, ain't it?)