If Only I Had a Hope Chest to Bust Open*

Apparently my friends Amy and Joe own china. I have not noticed this because although I eat dinner at their house at least twice a month I am lucky if they so much as provide me with a spork. I am also lucky if I do not physically have to cook the meal myself but I can’t really complain about this since cooking meals for other people and basking in the “you’re such a talented chef!” accolades is what nearly 20% of my self esteem is based on (25% my job, 10% feeling superior to former high school classmates, 15% cute outfits, 20% people commenting on my blog, 10% boys smiling at me on the subway). Despite my paper plate meals I never should have questioned the thoroughness of Amy and Joe’s wedding registry, of course they have china! Married couples are required to own china because it is very likely that once you achieve matrimonial status you will be asked to host a state dinner. Many couples leave the chapel only to find that the president himself will be escorting them from the ceremony to the reception and he demands a nice plate.

I am single and therefore have never experienced the joy of forcing all of my friends to purchase overpriced kitchenware however I am constantly feeding people due not only to ego related needs but also because of an unrestrained mothering gene and the desire to eat really fattening food that I would never be able to justify were I supping alone. Sadly, my dishes are crap. All of my "silver"ware was purchased at a thrift store which I know sounds pretty sketchy but seriously it was $.10/piece and the frugal grandma who lives in my soul just could not resist. My collection of mismatched plates comes to us via Target the bowls are from Ikea and the large majority of my glassware was procured from an establishment in Tijuana Mexico that I will refer to as a market mostly because using a more accurate term may implicate me in a variety of cross border crimes.

Despite my inability to land a man I have still been forced to start referring to myself as an adult. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons (full price movie tickets, expectation that I purchase my own toilet paper, denied access to ball pits) but one of the most trying is that people will soon start expecting me to have things like matching towels and different glasses for red and white wine. Since I see no registry related opportunities on the horizon it seems possible that I may be forced to use up valuable space on my Christmas list for this kind of crap. Somehow I doubt that a 600 thread count sheet set will bring me much comfort when I’m jonesing for a round of Mario Kart. As a society can we establish some sort of “I ain’t getting married soon enough to meet the material qualifications of adult hood” buy out rule? I propose that under this rule everyone who is single at age 30 gets to register as if he or she were getting married and all of their friends and acquaintances have to buy them shit no questions asked. In return singles will forgo gifts should we ever decide to cross over to the world of joint tax returns.

I received $150 in Crate and Barrel gift cards for Christmas and since I don’t foresee my friends and family stepping up with a “Congratz on being single!” gift of plates I should probably use these to outfit my cupboards (and ultimately the top of my coffee table where all guests are forced to eat while sitting on the floor because I don’t really have any place to keep a dinning room table but that’s a whole different set of complaints) with adult-like plates. In an effort to be practical about my dish ware choices I have been trying to convince myself to purchase plain white plates and bowls but I haven’t yet done this because it smack of boredom. Much as I have a hard time purchasing a plain black sweater (New Yorker or not) when a bright pink version is available I feel completely broken by the idea of white plates. If I buy the boringest of dinner ware in the universe can a willingness to wear khakis be far behind? I have even tried to bribe myself with permission to purchase a fun set of salad/dessert plates to go with my boring white dishes but I’m still hesitantly poking around the Crate and Barrel website cursing the overpriced offerings and hoping that a more interesting plain white option might suddenly appear (and, ideally not cost $8000 which seems wholly unlikely given C&Bs inflated sense of self worth).

Here’s a related conundrum: Why do all dish ware sets come with mugs? I have no need for matching mugs. Do married people drink a lot more hot beverages? Is this preparation for the coffee drinking required by being a new parent?

* Does anyone else find the term "Hope Chest" decidedly hopeless? Why not just call it a "Good Luck Miss Ugly Pants Chest"?

Slurping My Way Through Chinatown

I love a good theme. Mix tapes containing only songs with cities as their title. Costume parties where everyone has to dress as their favorite rock star. I’m always in. And today? A Chinatown soup dumpling crawl. This afternoon of theme based gluttony was sponsored by a coworker who, earlier this year (during a time of much warmer weather), also brought me the Chinatown pan fried dumpling crawl. He is fast becoming my favorite person.

For those of you not living in an area with a thriving Chinese community might I recommend moving? Because seriously you people are missing out. Soup dumplings are a dollop of meat filling (usually pork) floating in a sea of rich broth encased inside of a thick dumpling wrapper. They are amazing. During our romp around Chinatown there was much talk (between the slurping and moaning in pleasure) about just how they get the broth tucked away in the belly of the dumpling (a more ethnic and perhaps higher brow version of the “how do they get the crème in the twinkie?” debate) and the most likely answer seemed to involve a cube of frozen broth instead of a stock filled syringe but Wikipedia claims that both hypothesizes wrong. Apparently the broth is the result of a meat gelatin alone which when heated melts into a satisfying greasy sauce -- this might not sound appetizing but does explain the richness (and also exactly why the broth drippings were so quick to congeal on my plate). I promise that if you eat a soup dumpling you will not find that last sentence anything other than delicious.

The first stop on the soup dumpling crawl was the overflow location for New York’s most famous soup dumpling-ary Joe’s Shanghai, Joe’s Ginger at 25 Pell. We were brought 2 orders of traditional pork soup dumplings and one order of a pork and crab combo both of which were lovely though there were some incidences of perhaps less than well done pork.

Our next stop at Goodies at 1 East Broadway offered the most impressive showing for soup dumpling variety and we took full advantage ordering FIVE types of dumplings. Sadly when the bamboo baskets arrived at the table all of the dumplings had such a uniform look that we were unable to distinguish the three delight from the seafood until the broth hit our tongues. No matter since all were also uniformly scrumptious. Goodies also brought us a bowl full of fortune cookies at the end of our second stop on the dumpling-fest via which I received this notification.

By 2pm Shanghai café at 100 Mott was so packed that we elected to take our dumplings on the road. And so the crawl ended with the 9 of us munching on pork and pork and crab dumplings in Columbus Park. The broth in the Shanghai dumplings was by far the most flavorful and gently sucking it from our its doughy pocket while sitting under a clear November sky was a wonderful way to end a long American weekend that honors gluttony.

I love turkey and mashed potatoes and most of all stuffing but this year I am thankful to reside in the land of exotic edible delights. God bless New York City.