Is it a Burns’ Supper if there’s nae Haggis?

We’ve been too busy to order our haggis from the Scottish Meat Pie Company in Dixon. We’ve also been too busy to organize a few friends for a Burns’ Supper.

Bit we canna let January 25th go uncelebrated. We’ll tak a dram for sure. There’s an unopened bottle of 12-year-old The Macallan waiting for the occasion. We’ll recite a poem, probably my favorite, “Tam o’ Shanter” and listen to a cd of Burns’ songs.

Happy 249th Birthday, Rabbie!

Slainthe Bha!

Cultural Faux Pas

Richard and I enjoy our weekly Japanese lunch at Yammy Sushi in El Cerrito Plaza. We always order the lunch combination, which is presented with a mound of rice. I don’t like rice so much and I absentmindedly stuck the chopsticks into the rice to ‘hold’ them.

I noticed that the waitress looked upset and she eventually came to the table three times to ask if I was ok. She didn’t ask, as waitresses usually do, if the food was ok, but only if I was ok!

Richard and I talked about it on the way home and concluded that her consternation was related to my putting the chopsticks in my rice and that, perhaps, it was an offensive gesture.

As soon as we got home, I googled “Chopsticks stuck in rice.”

The response was http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2039.html

Now I know that chopsticks are only stuck into rice at funerals.

I will never do that again and I will apologise to the waitress for my mistake and lack of understanding.

We live in a culturally diverse area. We Bay Area residents can learn a lot from each other.

Dining aprons

If you see me in a restaurant wearing an apron, please don’t ask me to bring you the menu. I’m not part of the staff.
I’m wearing an apron to protect my clothes from the spills and splashes from soup, wine and general food bits.
The napkins the restaurants provide are inadequate protection and the paper napkins shred in seconds.
I wish I were not a clumsy diner, but I am, so I decided to bring an apron when I eat out. Richard wears a matching apron.
We wore them, earlier this year, when we had lunch with friends from New York. They eat heartily. They complained about the inevitable food splashes and decided that they would also wear “dining aprons!”
We order them from chefwear.com.
We usually order the classic bib aprons in black, but stripes are cool too.
But even after all that protection, how did I get that stain on my shirt?