it was a hootenanny, part 1

Friday night was the university's faculty/staff New Year party. I'd been told by some colleagues who have been here a few years that it is an event not to be missed, so Husband and I dutifully brought our gift for the gift exchange (turns out we were supposed to bring two gifts--who knew? yet another thing to do right next time), dressed in "colorful clothes" as specified on the informational memo, and arrived...an hour and a half too early.

The informational memo about this party is the most detailed piece of correspondence I've ever received from the university. The schedule was blocked out in half-hour increments beginning at 5:00pm and continuing through 11:00pm. Well, we didn't fall off the pomelo truck yesterday, so we knew better than to show up at 5 sharp. Since our fearless leader, the dean of the college, was scheduled to make a speech at 5:30, we figured he'd actually start speaking around 6 and that by showing up at 5:20 we'd be in plenty of time for the 5:00 activity. Smart, no?

No, as it turns out.

We arrived at 5:20 (20 minutes late, for those of you keeping score) and found workers setting up tables, 5 or 6 office assistants looking cheerful and handing out door prizes, and NO ONE ELSE. Yes, we were the first to arrive. By 6:30 some people had started to trickle in and the party started. It bore no resemblance to the detailed schedule we were given. One day we'll learn. (There was no speech by the dean at all.)

The dinner was in ten courses. TEN. Here is what was brought to our table (served family style):

• Dumplings, sausages, and cashews for appetizers.
• An extremely viscous soup made with what the Thai people described as "pork skin it is fried."
• A whole fish, fried and covered with a mildly spicy ginger sauce.
• What must have been an entire roasted duck (it was cut up, so it was hard to tell just how much of a duck we were eating).
• A Thai-style salad containing shrimp, squid, oysters, and the usual dressing (but not nearly as spicy as usual).
• Another whole fish, this one steamed and covered with a soy-based sauce.
• Fried rice.
• Tom yum goong--spicy lemon grass soup with shrimp.
  
• Dessert #1: a plate containing sticky rice and some sort of thing made of taro.
• Dessert #2: assorted fruits with chili sugar.

You'll note that we ate pig, fish, duck, shrimp, squid, oysters, another fish, some more shrimp, and whatever kind of ground up animal was in the dumplings and sausage (probably pork). The only non-meat-based dishes were the rice and the dessert, and there were no vegetables at all. This is typical Thai food, I've found. Lots of meat and rice, amazing sauces with plenty of things like lemon grass, chilis, ginger, and cilantro, but nothing at all that an American would think of as a vegetable.