The Party

We are busy at this house. My son turns twenty. I can’t believe that he is now twenty years old. Where has all the time gone? Wasn’t it only last week that we brought him home from China? I remember the trip well. It was just after Thanksgiving when we met him for the first time. And when we returned to the United States, it was cold and snowy at Denver’s airport. We were tired and friends of ours met us there and drove us home to Nebraska. What a special time that was too. And now, he is no longer a teenager, but a young man in college. So how are we celebrating this monumental day?

When my son turned eighteen, he wanted to invite a few close friends over for a meal that he had prepared and cooked. He cooked Chinese food, and his friends loved it. There were few leftovers that day. So, when I asked him how he wanted to celebrate his twentieth birthday, I thought he would go out with friends, or spend the day shopping and eating in a restaurant. But no! He wanted to invite a few friends over and cook Chinese food for them.

We live in a different house than when he turned eighteen. We have a real dining room now, an actual one, and not a table in the kitchen as before. We both love that feature of our old 1918 home. And so, he asked me if he could invite a few friends over and cook Chinese food. Of course, I said yes with one condition. He would do all the prep work (and there’s a lot of that) and let me do the cooking so that he could sit at the table with his friends. At first, he wasn’t sure he wanted me to do that, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

We decided together to serve this meal as a Chinese banquet. They are different than the way Americans have banquets. In America, you are served one plate of food and perhaps a dessert at the end of the meal. The Chinese really know how to party. When you go to one of their banquets, you will be served one dish at a time. You will sit there and enjoy leisure time while waiting for the next dish. It will take time, and you will probably stuff yourself on the first few dishes and be too full for the last few, that is, if you aren’t careful to pace yourself. I wanted to cook the dishes that my son prepared so that he could sit with his friends at the table and enjoy the meal with them. Many of the dishes of food he planned would be made the day before. A lot of the prep work was done one to two days before. He has done most of the work and all I did was bring it all together and serve it. We have a few decorations too. My son hung festive Chinese lanterns in the dining room and around the living room. They will add to the mood of the meal, I think.

My son created the menu and has done the shopping. He even made a special trip to Lincoln, Nebraska to go shopping at a couple of Chinese grocery stores. He bought meat and egg custard buns to steam. He bought egg tarts we can bake for dessert. He bought canned lychee to serve at the end of the meal. He bought shrimp dumplings to be steamed and served. He bought all his favorite dishes that we could make at the last minute. He also has made char sui, a special pork that is basically a slice of Chinese barbecued meat. He loves the stuff, and we make it often. He made fried rice and egg drop soup. Of course, we had noodles, lots of them and he made fried tofu for his friends to taste. There are a lot more dishes of food we served. But I can guarantee you that it is all tasty and his friends are in for a treat!

One trick I learned many years ago when I was doing a lot of Chinese cooking for friends and family is to have one dish served for each person attending the banquet. So, if you have six people coming for dinner, you have six main course dishes of food. This will not include appetizer plates, soup, or the traditional fruit served at the end of the meal. The variety of foods makes the guests feel comfortable. If they don’t like a certain food, they won’t go hungry because something different will be coming. Eventually, they will find something they like to eat. It also makes for a lot more work than a traditional American-style banquet. However, I like this way of dining with friends. You have their attention for several hours rather than the eat-and-run attitude in America.

When planning on who to invite, my son was talking to his sister and nieces, and he mentioned that maybe seven people would be coming. His oldest niece is eleven, and she blurted out, “You mean you have seven friends?” Her mother chided her for being rude, but in all reality, I think she thought the same thing. Now that we are ready to party, the final guest list of those who responded that they would be coming is twelve! Add my son and that is thirteen! WoW! Now, any Chinese hostess will tell you that having thirteen guests at the table brings bad luck, so I am including myself as a guest. After all, I will be in the kitchen tasting every dish before it is served to be certain it tastes good. Fourteen people who like my son will be attending his special twentieth party. I am just hoping that more who were invited but didn’t respond that they were coming don’t show up! I only have fourteen rice bowls, but we can always use the American bowls if we need to. We will have plenty of chopsticks and forks, so no worries there! The table holds ten comfortably, so we added a card table and made it the head table at one end!

As you are reading this, the banquet probably hasn’t happened yet. I mean, this blog is posted on Tuesday night in Nebraska and the banquet is on Wednesday night. So, there is a lot of do or did in this writing. Now you know why! I am so excited for my son to celebrate with people who like being his friends. Some of the people attending will be friends he went to high school with. Others will be college friends. And some will be people who he went to high school with but plays games online with and knows mostly from there. Our house will be full and I’m pretty sure they will all have a good time. One friend asked how long the meal would last as they might have plans for later in the evening. My son asked me the question and I told him to tell them the meal will probably take about three hours. That’s how long most of my Chinese banquet home meals take. He told everyone that they could come at five and food would be served at six. If they can’t make it until six that would be fine too. What a special way to celebrate turning twenty years old.

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest.  Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. Luke 22:23-27, (New International Version or NIV).

Jesus taught His disciples and us today that serving others is better than being a king who gets served by others. Why would this be? When a king has a banquet people attend because they gain something from the king. They are given bragging rights, prestige, power over others, and all sorts of things. But the servers are humble and simply do their job well.  Jesus teaches us to be servants, humble in nature, and in places to help others. My son has a servant’s heart. I think his group of friends shows that. To have so many wanting to come to celebrate with him is a testament to his kindness and generosity. Some of his friends need to know that there are others who care. They work in delis and wash dishes or cook in local restaurants. Yet, my son treats them as well as his college friends. That is why he is liked by so many. We all can learn from Jesus about serving others. All of us.

Until next time…Katherine