Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanks to STI, I did not have to share all of my canned turkey with my fellow Westerners on Thanksgiving. Instead, they took us out for a feast that, though highlighted for its turkey offerings, was actually splendid for everything else it had. Smoked salmon, spectacular sashimi, roasted tenderloin, cheesy lasagna, meaty chili con carne, ... everything a vegan would despise. I eat like a vegan most of my days, even making my own oatmeal-and-soybean milk and foregoing yogurt. But, when the animals are already dead, artfully cooked, and paid for... well, I really do like meat and cheese, so I try to make their deaths (or tortured lives) worthwhile.




The bread selection was not as tasty as I hoped upon laying eyes on it (inspiring me yet more to find and make use of an oven ASAP), but the pumpkin soup was absolutely inspiring (I have been making my own variations of it every other night since) and I even tried to desserts.

One was especially good, and full of poppy seeds, but I have no idea what it was or how to copy it, so it will remain in my life only as a treasured memory of sweetness and nothing more.

My plates were each, to me, a piece of art. I love decorating my plates from buffets of food.



Although it was the sashimi (served along with some sushi) that most impressed me...
... it was the cheese that everyone else remembered:

To this day, my fellow Westerners talk about that cheese. Good cheese is hard to find in China, but, that night, a variety of delights were served on a single platter. While it was enjoyed immensely at the time by us all, I know for a fact that I was not the only one tempted to stick a wad of it in my back pocket and pretend it was my cell phone (reached in as though to turn it off when someone's nearby phone began to ring...). However, I remembered the story of how my mom's twin brothers once attempted to abscond with slats of butter from a fancy restaurant only to have their treasured booty melt in their shirt pockets, both foiling the ultimate goal of their criminal careers and advertising their deeds to the world. I try to learn from both the fortunes and misfortunes of others, so I applied the lesson and abstained from any cheese-lifting.
UPDATE: Since I was just in Shenzhen with two of my students, I was able to find and legally purchased 5 rounds of not-quite-Laughing-Cow cheese (mine is "Happy Cow" brand, or 快乐牛, and just as good to taste buds no longer accustomed to Western-made cheeses).