Adventurous Eating

I am not an adventurous eater. While I wouldn't call myself a picky eater because I like a lot of different things, I don't venture out of my comfort zone very often to try new things. Especially if they contain one or more ingredients that I don't like. But last night I did.

Caviar  (Photo source)

Ward and I went to a dinner at a friend's house. We thought we were going to a casual open house, but as it turns out we went to a traditional Russian birthday dinner for our friend. I say traditional, but I'm not sure. When I was in the Russian club in college, our traditional dinner was borscht and a doughnut. This was a little different. There were 30 people there and there were more dishes than there were people. We sat down to a beautifully spread table with copious choices, many of which, we weren't sure what they were. The mostly Russian crowd tried to help us as we were handed one dish after another. There were many kinds of sushi, beet dishes, salads, pate, scalloped potatoes, beef and mushrooms, meat and cheese platters, and fish, fish, fish. Everywhere you look, another fish dish. And did I mention caviar?

Ward and I and the couple of other uneducated eaters, sampled this and that until we were getting pretty full. Then one of the informed diners said that this was only the cold course--like hors d'oeuvres. The hot course was still to come. What?!! Our eyes bugged out of our head and got almost as big as our stomachs were at that point. If we'd known earlier, we would have paced ourselves a little better. But more steaming dishes of salmon, chicken, beef (tongue), pork, and vegetables came out of the kitchen to fill our plates. I had to pass on some of this because I only had so much room. However, Ward was enjoying it all.  He leaned over at one point and said that this reminded him of when we were in Japan. (That's a story for another day.)

Then the food slowed down. We wondered if there would be a dessert. We thought maybe when there was this much food in the main meal, they don't have a dessert. However, later, several kinds of cake, fruits and chocolates came out. And during the whole evening, there were many toasts made to the birthday host, who was running around coordinating everything. (Remarkably, the host put almost all of this together herself. She said that shopping for it took the longest.)

So when the evening was over, I was still walking around astonished because I couldn't imagine how someone puts together a meal like that in an average size kitchen.  I was also pleased with myself for going out of my comfort zone and trying so many new things especially since I don't like fish.  But the lure to try caviar for the first time was all the motivation I needed. I've had it now, so you can sign me up for the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", but you better do it quick, because I didn't like it. Too fishy. :)

(I wish that I had gotten some pictures because each dish was beautifully served, but whipping out a camera at someone's dinner table seemed rude.)