Unforseen Trend

So I didn't anticipate that the beginning of 2009 would include the trends of eating "dinner" at 2 or 3 pm and include the ingestion of sea animals with their heads still attached, but that's exactly what seems to be happening, if today is any indication.

We were invited to a New Year's party that started at 2 pm today. We arrived exceedingly hungry, having eaten nothing but a couple of pieces of doughnut mid-morning. Our hosts were ready for us with platters of

*sushi
*grilled whole mackerel
*cucumber salad with crab
*rice
*pot stickers

The mackerel is what looked super delicious to me! Though I really like to cook, there are a few things I haven't mastered and one of them is "large chunks of meat". Whole fish fall under that category in my mind; so though I like them, I have never prepared one at home. The rest of my family ate some or all of things listed above (except Koji who didn't eat at all because he was so busy playing) but all I ate was most of an entire good sized mackerel (but not the head) and some cucumber salad. Best of all, the host had bought a whole case of mackerel and didn't mind giving me two more (don't worry, they are already grilled) to bring home. Hmm. Maybe breakfast tomorrow?

Beverages and desserts: Aogu drank
*soju
*yogurt flavored drink ("Yoglife"?!) for me and the kids, and small pieces of
*apple pie
*seven layer bar
*chocolate almond cookie

Brother, this posting what we ate for dinner might also become a diet tool for me because I'm a little embarrassed to admit that at 6 pm we went to another friend's house for a visit and continued eating dessert. At least we didn't eat dinner again, I guess. Oh, the kids did actually, they had some
*pad see iew, which they mainly ate to get the
*ice cream and
*leftover coconut cake that I had made as a "practice run" for my Grandma's birthday party and then frozen. I actually wanted to make mini layer cakes for everyone, a la this post at Bakerella so I took my biscuit cutters, the cake, some chocolate frosting and coconut with me to the friends' house and then spent most of the evening fiddling with it. My friend kept apologizing, saying that I was working too hard making dessert for them, but I thought it was really fun!