Dinner at Home

It’s no secret that my mom is an absolutely amazing cook. She’s known to singlehandedly create elaborate feasts that feed over 50 people (that’s why my favorite holidays are Thanksgiving and Christmas because we always have people over for both holidays!) My mom recently came to visit and met a new friend in Chinatown; they were both looking for walnuts and her new friend, Herta, knew where to get better quality nuts and sesame seeds. We invited Herta over for dinner and my mom prepared quite a meal for Herta, David, Laura, Ken, and me.

Our New York apartment has a small kitchen (a fraction of the size of our kitchen in North Carolina…which is also quite small) and I don’t have as many supplies and gadgets as my mom, but she somehow managed to create a great meal that wow-ed everyone. We started off with sticky rice (one of my favorites):

Sticky rice with pork and mushrooms takes a while to prepare because you have to soak both the mushrooms and the rice (and on top of that, I don’t even have a working rice maker!) Next, we had stuffed eggplant:

Pork mixed with green onions and spices stuffed between Japanese eggplant that’s pan fried and then marinated with soy sauce. Ken asked me if I could cook like my mom because he loved the eggplant and ended up having three pieces.

Next, a cold dish that is one of my favorites is marinated beef with cucumbers:

A side of sauteed asparagus with garlic:

Peking duck (I picked this up from Chinatown…and no one ended up eating any!):

And one large piece of salmon that I forgot to photograph but is in our group photo:

We had a wonderful dinner and Herta told us great stories about New York and Europe (she moved to New York many years ago and had wonderful stories about the restaurants and fun experiences she’s had). David and I love having dinner parties at our place and I’m sad that we’re not living together next year…hopefully we’ll be close to each other so we can still have dinner together!