From Chinatown to China: Hong Konukkah

Last night I had my first real dinner party here in Hong Kong. Even though Hanukkah has come and passed this year, I thought it would be fun to have some friends over for a holiday feast. Knowing that it would be difficult to obtain any Hanukkah related paraphernalia here in Hong Kong, I did a lot of pre-shopping when I was home in the states. I got everything from dreidels to menorah cookies cutters to decorations.

As many of you know I am a novice when it comes to cooking. I have no problem following a recipe but I just don't get any satisfaction in standing on my feet in a cramped kitchen slaving over food that I don't really enjoy eating anyway! I figured I would give it a shot. How hard could it be to cook a meal for 8?

The hardest task was learning how to use the old style oven in my apartment. I still couldn't explain how it works or even how to turn it on. As you know temperature here is measured in Celsius so once again I had to put my expert mathematical skills to work in converting each recipe from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Thankfully there's an app for that!

The oven is the size of a small child. You can really only fit one tray of food in there at a time, so your timing of each dish has to be perfect. Thankfully, my wonderful mom helped me create a time line to ensure that all the food would be cooked and still hot when served. After a few reheats, everything was just that!

Food shopping in Hong Kong can be a real schlep. I was able to get everything I needed (except peanut butter chips) but it took stops at 5 different grocery stores to get all the ingredients (not to mention the 4 trips I sent D on after I thought I had all the ingredients I needed!)

Well all that hard work paid off for the dinner party was a total success. Friends left with full stomachs and doggies bags of food to enjoy during the upcoming week. I had pulled of a multi course gourmet and had 7 happy customers. Well at least no one has called yet to tell me they were up all night with food poisoning!