I'll probably regret it in the morning.
Nov. 16th, 2002 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynToday I was supposed to show my friend Della the Newark Museum. We got there only to find the Museum was closed today thanks to a special exhibit of some sort that's opening up soon, so we turned around and went to a restaurant she knew instead. I'd never been to Chengdu 22 before, but she said it was good. We got there and she asked for the Chinese menu; after some discussion and my confirming yet again that I could eat spicy food, she ordered something she said had beef in it, plus an appetizer, and I ordered dumplings in spicy sauce and snow peas w/oyster mushrooms from the English menu. We figured we'd split them between us. The stuff arrived...
Her appetizer was some kind of spicy cold beef thing that included beef strips that looked like pastrami, plus beef strips that were white. She didn't know the word for where they came from on the cow, so I pointed at my stomach and said 'inside here?'. That got a yes, so I said it was probably tripe and tried some. Not as bad as my father would have me believe, but he only ever had it Italian style. The dumplings were good, too; Della approved of them. Then came the main meal. The snow peas were a nice bright green (my mom tends to overcook things until green veggies go olive - I try to do the stirfrying instead when I can) and the mushrooms looked ok, and I don't normally eat mushrooms. The beef, though, came in a big stoneware-looking crock and had slices of something celery looking in it (Della didn't know the English word)...
... under approximately 1/8 inch of red pepper flakes and seeds.
I ate. I did not sweat. I did not grab for my water, although I did eat more rice more quickly. I kept eating; dammit, I had to prove I could, I'd been saying as much for ages. And I managed. I mean, I felt parts of my tongue going numb after I accidentally picked up what I THOUGHT was a piece of beef and was pretty much just congealed pepper bits, but I managed.
I'm gonna regret it in the morning, I just know it, but that's okay. I pulled through tonight and lived to tell the tale.
Her appetizer was some kind of spicy cold beef thing that included beef strips that looked like pastrami, plus beef strips that were white. She didn't know the word for where they came from on the cow, so I pointed at my stomach and said 'inside here?'. That got a yes, so I said it was probably tripe and tried some. Not as bad as my father would have me believe, but he only ever had it Italian style. The dumplings were good, too; Della approved of them. Then came the main meal. The snow peas were a nice bright green (my mom tends to overcook things until green veggies go olive - I try to do the stirfrying instead when I can) and the mushrooms looked ok, and I don't normally eat mushrooms. The beef, though, came in a big stoneware-looking crock and had slices of something celery looking in it (Della didn't know the English word)...
... under approximately 1/8 inch of red pepper flakes and seeds.
I ate. I did not sweat. I did not grab for my water, although I did eat more rice more quickly. I kept eating; dammit, I had to prove I could, I'd been saying as much for ages. And I managed. I mean, I felt parts of my tongue going numb after I accidentally picked up what I THOUGHT was a piece of beef and was pretty much just congealed pepper bits, but I managed.
I'm gonna regret it in the morning, I just know it, but that's okay. I pulled through tonight and lived to tell the tale.
