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After lunch, we were drunk from plates full of Chinese dumplings and Korean kimchi

 

My wife’s friend and her kids visited us for lunch. We hadn’t seen them in a while.

The good thing: Dan, my wife, had enough time to make some of her handmade Northern Chinese-style dumplings.

There’s one word in Mandarin to describe the experience of dining on those dumplings: Haochi.

Or delicious. Very delicious. Wait-in-line kind of delicious.

By my estimate, my wife made enough dough and folded about 125 dumplings to fill our bellies.

If my wrapping skills were up to snuff, I would have joined in. But the ones I’ve wrapped in the past are nowhere as nice as the ones she makes.

Inside, she had stuffed some with pork and chives. Others had pork, cabbage and cilantro.

Haochi.

The day before, I stopped off at a Korean market in the neighborhood to buy some chives.

The store’s various kimchi offerings looked delicious. So, I bought a jar of spicy cabbage, seaweed salad and dried squid seasoned with a pepper sauce, sesame seed and sugar.

Haochi.

We had about a half bag of raw peanuts in the house. So, my wife gently pan fried them and tossed in some salt.

What a feast.

All we needed to bring back memories of my on-the-street, in-the-mountain visits to China was a chilly restaurant and a bottle of Tsingtao beer.

Oh yes, if you didn’t see, there is odorless kimchi if you’ve never been a fan of the garlic and chili aroma.

Also, after I took the photograph at the top of this post, my wife put two other plates full of dumplings down on the table.

Of course, I should thank her for making such a yummy lunch.