Out for Hot Pot

     Last night Terry and I ventured out of our plain folks' part of the city, taking a taxi  halfway up Victoria Peak to the Mid-Levels.  We'd been invited for hot pot at the spacious and lovely apartment of a gregarious American business acquaintance of Terry's and his Chinese-American wife.  Our hosts did a great job introducing us to hot pot-- Chinese fondue--which is popular here during the winter months.
      Before we sat down, we were instructed to pick up the bowl at our place, step over to a side table, and put together our personal dipping sauce for all the things we'd be cooking.  "With hot pot it's all about the sauce," Jim said, "and if you don't like your meal tonight, it'll be your own fault!"  So we each concocted combinations of various jarred chilies, chili oil, sesame oil, several kinds of Chinese barbecue sauce and, unbelievably, Skippy peanut butter, the supposed secret to a great hot pot sauce, according to Jim.  Terry also broke one of the fresh quail eggs into his sauce, a Taiwanese touch we were told.  (Quite a delicious addition, he said.)
     Terry's business partner and his wife were part of the group, as well, which made 6 of us sitting around the table with 2 steaming hot pots of seasoned chicken broth.  On each end of the table was a heaped tray of fresh vegetables:  chinese cabbage, choy, several kinds of mushrooms, daikon radish, fresh water chestnuts (what a treat) and lotus root.  There were also platters of very thin strips of sliced beef, lamb and chicken, and bowls of scallops, prawns and tofu.   We each had 2 sets of chopsticks, a wooden set for putting food into the hot pot and removing it, and another lacquered set for eating.  I made the mistake of putting my first strip of beef on my plate before putting it in the pot, which prompted the hosts to clarify that raw food was to go directly in the pot, only cooked food should go on our plates (yoo hoo...a little common sense, Kathy...).  At that point someone told the story of a friend who contracted an infection from contaminated hot pot food and nearly had to have a liver transplant.  After hearing that, I spent a few minutes focused a little anxiously on the area on my plate where the raw beef had been, hoping that the juice from some hot vegetables would soon de-contaminate it.
     We had a delicious time of it, dropping ingredients into the pots, stirring, retrieving, and dipping away in our sauces.  The pickled accompaniments on the table were tasty, too, mostly Japanese pickled vegetables we were told, one dark green finely ground one with sesame seeds, another that was chunks of radish, and my favorite, burdock root.  There was also a dish of sliced yellow pickles that the hosts said their family called puo puo, so-named for the person who made them--this is "grandmother" in Cantonese.
     Dinner conversation was wide-ranging and interesting.  Someone had ribbed the host about his collection of books about bananas, so that story had to be told; the host had lived in Nicaragua and had done his thesis on how the political situation changed the banana market there.  Terry's business partner and his wife came from South Africa for jobs in Hong Kong 20 years ago, just before the first democratic election when the African National Congress came into power.  He's an Afrikaner who went to boarding school and was quite naughty, according to his wife, though we only heard about the time he "borrowed" the headmaster's car.  His wife's father ran away from home in New Zealand at age 14 and jumped on a ship, not knowing that it was headed for South Africa, where he ended up working 16 hours a day to put himself through school and eventually starting a business.  The host's Chinese-American wife commented on her mother's distaste for religion because most Chinese religion is focused on getting something--success, good fortune, riches and the like.  The other 2 couples both are busy with their young kids, especially getting them to soccer and rugby practice.  Playing fields are in short supply in Hong Kong, which adds more complicating factors to the shuttling.  The hosts said that their daughter practices south of here on the old Stanley Fort grounds, the former British barracks.  The Chinese People's Liberation Army has been housed at Stanley Fort since the handover to China in 1997.  Lately there's been concern about security, so every vehicle arriving for soccer practice has been stopped and searched by the PLA before being allowed to enter the grounds.
     All in all, it was a much more lively Saturday night than usual for us.  And my liver is feeling fine so far, thank you.  Here, I'll slap it a few times for good measure...