Pigeon Wings and Outsourcing

Andy is not necessary an adventurous food connoisseur and he would be pleased to limit his experiences of subtlety and oral exoticism. However, his new role in China requires significant socializing and this implies sharing meals with clients. He often finds himself seated at a shaky round table where large platters of food are placed in the middle of the table on a Lazy Susan. There are normally ten to twelve dishes and rice is only served as filler after the principal dishes are finished. As such, he needs to remain calm through meals featuring sea slugs, turtle shells, jelly fish, seaweed, duck tongues, chicken feet, pig’s brains, duck webs, or pigeon wings. It is unfortunate that he cannot minimize the harsh tastes and unknown textures with a healthy portion of rice but claims that, as long as he is never again served donkey penis (the golden coin) or cow testicles, he can survive any meal.

Since he is a foreigner, the Chinese host rotates the Lazy Susan towards him each time a new dish is served, encouraging him to take the first serving. All eyes are on him as he calmly smiles, serves himself a dubious body part, and takes a bite. Of course, since ignorance is bliss, he rarely asks about a dish. However, he is developing a wipe-your-mouth-and-hide-the-bite-in-your-napkin strategy. He is also starting to eat before attending a meal because said dubious body parts are served with large quantities of Chinese white wine (a misnomer since it is 45% proof). He was not prepared the first time he attended such a meal and found himself in a near unconscious drunken state seated on a street corner calling me to tell me that “I lost my tie and if I die, know that I always did and will always love you.” Of course, he has no recollection of this conversation.

With this in mind, it was such a pleasure to find ourselves relishing a Lebanese meal at the home of May and Serge yesterday evening. She had invited me, Andy, Cristina and her husband Inigo for dinner. As she brought the dishes into the dining room, the smells wafting through the air, all conversation came to a standstill and for the next twenty minutes one could hear no more than an occasional murmur of content. Cristina was justified in serving herself a fourth helping of food since she was pregnant but what was my excuse?

The three ladies have been trying to develop a business idea and the husbands asked us about our plan. We are still at the team building stage (we meet for lunch or pedicures) but intend to take our idea to the strategy development stage (we will meet for coffee, a more serious activity) shortly. We may need to eliminate the pedicure option because the saloon ladies are quite started when we flash our pens and notebooks in the midst of their foot massages. Until we succeed in launching a profitable business I suppose we will continue to outsource expenditures (graciously allow our husbands to subsidize our food and coffee intake).