Gimme Culture

Tonight I am hosting my very first Culture Night.

Last year my three surrogate sisters decided that they weren't brilliant enough by themselves and that they needed to share their own discoveries and insights and excitement with each other once a week during the summer.

Here was the template:

One person hosts. It is up to this person to choose a menu and to open her kitchen to the others. Once the menu is chosen and the ingredients are readied, the others join in helping to prepare the meal. The idea here is that everyone will now know how to prepare a different kind of meal from what they are accustomed to cooking. Usually this meal includes a salad, a main course, and dessert. It needn't be complicated or exotic, as long as it's tasty. And experimental cooking is also welcome.

One person chooses a book. A week in advance, a book is determined and each person obtains a copy of said book and reads it. This book becomes the heart of dinner table discussion.

The last person chooses a movie. After dinner and discussion of the week's book, the third person shows a film that she feels is important or just worth seeing.


Last year I was unable to participate most of the time because I was playing open mics almost three times a week and even if I was free on Wednesday nights (the usual time slot) I generally hadn't had enough time to read the book the week in advance.

This year it's different. I'm gonna share culture with my sisters and get some back.

I went above and beyond tonight. It's my first time hosting and I want to make a good impression.

Each place setting has a pair of chopsticks and a sachet of pomegranate oolong tea. My meal has a cantonese theme.

The first dish is a barbecue chicken lettuce wrap which is essentially chicken in hoisin sauce with water chestnuts and shitake mushrooms and ginger. This may be accompanied by slices of mandarin oranges if I have time to run back to the store.

The main course is chicken stir-fry with bamboo shoots, mung sprouts, water chestnuts, shitake mushrooms, and a traditional cantonese sauce that is incredibly sweet and tasty.

For dessert, homemade fortune cookies. I've never tried making them before but I hear it's fun. I'll serve them in a bowl of vanilla ice cream and garnish the dish with the chocolate-dipped pocky that I picked up at the Korean grocery last weekend.

Between each dish, I am serving some authentic Japanese sake. Last week I bought an antique wooden sake set and I've been dying to use it.

I don't know what the movie is tonight, but the book was "Freakonomics." I may comment on this book later. It did mention Stetson Kennedy in one chapter and although I was aware of him earlier because of his relationship with Woody Guthrie, I never looked into his history very much until after I read "Freakonomics." So now I'm reading his book "The Klan Unmasked."

See how much more cultured I am already?

Bring it on.