Mid Autumn Festival

Yesterday was the mid autumn festival, so Anqi invited us over for a potluck dinner. I prepared hot and sticky ribs, one of the recent winners in my Great Dinner Tournament, still in its first round.

I arrived just as people were setting up for dinner (I will tell any later arrivals that it is certainly not true that we found ourselves 80% of the way through eating one of the dishes while setting up and ate the rest to hide the evidence). We were at International House, so it was an international crowd: the majority from China and Japan and others from places scattered around the world.

People seemed to like my dish: in fact it got a round of applause when the lid was taken off. I thought this was pretty good, until Keigo's chicken received a standing ovation. I guess people are enthusiastic about their food!

It was nice to meet new people: many of them new grad students who have just moved into International House. I stayed there for two nights, on my very first trip to Chicago in 2009 (before I started the blog). And the food was delicious, especially Anqi's dish (easy to identify from the shiitake mushrooms).

After eating and chatting, we headed out to the front porch to watch the eclipse. Lunar eclipses are never quite as interesting as solar, but the clouds had cleared and we had a good view of the darkened moon. I was surprised how easily visible it was, due to light refracted through the atmosphere.

We spectated for a while, then headed inside to pack up and head home. I think potluck or similar dinners with an intersecting crowd happen pretty frequently at I-House: I'll have to make sure I attend some!