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Dinner Guests

Before we moved to China, my dream life was to stay home and make dinner for my neighbors.  If asked of a place I'd like to travel, I would usually comment that I would rather have a kitchen remodel than seeing far away places.  That is because I have come to really enjoy having people over for dinner and a kitchen remodel would make that much easier on me--which I cared more about than seeing the world. (It also illustrates my extremely low need for adventure to be happy.) Thankfully I have been able to continue that hobby in China. It is a bit more of a challenge here because of an even smaller kitchen capacity, lack of ingredients and my concern about feeding Chinese people food they might actually like.  For my personal records here are dinners I have photos of.
Tina and James (our liaison for our landlady)
Sherry, Talia & Stella (Tom's co workers; and Stella tutors me in Chinese)
Penny (one of my Chinese teachers)
Melissa's cousin (someone from CCID branch asked us to have her cousin who lives in our city over for dinner.)
Ann (Black Peony owner) and her son. (Black Peony produces denim for Lee, Gap and American Eagle)
Grace and Jake Huskinson  CCID branch members
Jacky, Daisy and Cynthia (Jacky is a coworker who has done SO much for us)
Tessa's Kung Fu friends
The Wu's.  I met them in a store which led to many meals with them.
Thayse (a Brazilian friend) (this was a lunch; Tom was at work)
Pascua-Yu family:  Julynda, Jerwin, Dea and Ka'an  Suzhou Branch members
Maureen Blackman CCID branch member
Hongju and her husband Fang Li Suzhou Branch members
Brad Johnson Suzhou Branch members (some weird setting on my phone got clicked!! Weird, weird photo.)
Mineo Hattori Suzhou Branch member 
What do I make?  Here is a list of a few things that I can remember:  spaghetti, pizza, Mediterranean, Chicken Tikka Masala, BLTs, fish tacos, grilled cheese, nachos supreme, different salads.  Desserts are quite limited; our go-tos are dark chocolate pudding, creme brulee, molten chocolate cake and cookies.  Chinese people don't really like desserts, so I have to be careful to not make really sweet things and ingredients for desserts are so much harder to get.  
I often serve raw vegetables in dip. Most people haven't had raw vegetables like we eat in the US (including people from other countries besides China).  It is very weird for them.  But I still serve them because they are healthy and it is a safe food they likely will eat if they don't like other food on the menu.  The people that try them usually like them a fair amount.
The bottom line:  I'm very thankful to be able to still continue my hobby of inviting people to dinner.  It makes me very happy. 

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