When the lights go out

This weekend a friend of mine from college came to visit. We seem prone to international cooking adventures. Like the time I visited her in Philly and we went into a cooking boutique store and I bought cannoli tubes on the spur of the moment and made cannoli that evening. Or last winter when she got snowed in at our house and randomly had hot dried red peppers from her family's garden that summer in her car, as well as some packaged Indian food and we made an Indian flat bread and a really tasty chicken dish that I can't remember where I found the recipe for.

So, I figured that this time well Deborah was here we would make dumplings since I still had wrappers in the freezer and we would try out the recipe for green onion pancakes I've been wanting to try. We started chopping and mixing, with Jonathan and Daniel helping out. Another friend came by and helped to, so before long we had 50 dumplings all ready to be boiled and a bowl of dough resting before we fried it.

My Dad came in just then, carrying our computer that has been at the repair shop. He set it on the table, wiped it's screen, and the lights went out. And stayed out. We lit a few candles and hoped it would come back on, but it didn't. We decided to start a game, so we all sat around the table, lit by 4 candles and played "werewolf". (for those of you who haven't played werewolf, I'm told it's somewhat like mafia, which I haven't played, or a more complicated version of wink murder, which I have played). Kai Wei didn't quite understand the rules despite my *ahem* marvellous explanation in Chinese, but he did enjoy accusing people of being the "bu hao ren" (literally "not good person" and my attempt at describing werewolves, but since he kept calling them that, I'm assuming it is probably about the Chinese equivalent of "bad guy").

Meanwhile, the lights stayed out and it got darker, and later, and we got hungrier and we had 50 dumplings just waiting to be cooked. So, we did what any hungry family would do- pulled out the camping gear. My Dad went in search of his backpacking stove, and briefly set the tile floor on fire when some of the gas spilled out. Of course, that got everyone's attention andall the little boys came as close as we would let them, Kai Wei shouting "bar-b-que!" (He learned that word in Taiwan- I wonder why?)

Bar-b-que!


So, we cooked our dumplings in a tiny pot over the camp stove on the floor. Kai Wei and Daniel kept watch and warned me every time the water boiled so I could add more cold water in.




We had to call and order out some Chinese food since 50 dumplings and 5 green onion pancakes is not really enough food for 10 people.

Searching the phonebook by candlelight


My Dad hooked up the generator and gave us some electric light to cook by. While the dumplings were cooking Deborah and Michael got the green onion pancakes ready to cook and then Jonathan and Deborah fried them up.




We switched the generator from the light to the microwave once the food was cooked since by the time our take-out order made it home our food was cold. We finally had our feast complete around 8 o'clock. Even Kai Wei agreed that the dumplings were delicious (and he didn't even add pepper! He did however, object to the very American version of Lo Mein from the local Chinese restaurant).