This evening's activities, a would-be dinner party at a former classmate's house, were a real throw-back to the first year of grad school. Back in the day, we used to do "family dinner" nearly every Thursday night. We'd traipse over to Sidney-Pacific, the graduate dorms where many of our classmates lived at the time, around 7 or 8 pm, each of us bringing something to contribute. There were of course a couple of slackers who couldn't really cook and either showed up at the last minute or disappeared before clean-up, but in general everyone contribute at least a few beers. I was usually prep cook and a cleaner, mostly because I was very intimidated by all of the budding chefs in our class (full of foodies).
These days, I still cook very little, but in my soon-to-be-middle-age (well close enough, anyway), I have dabbled a bit more than I had at the ripe age of 22. I like to keep it simple, so I brought things to make corn bread and prepared it in the oven. Pretty easy and somehow turned out great.
The host of the party had decided to have us over because he is moving out soon and wanted to make use of the lovely apartment (and kitchen!) he currently has use of near South Station in Boston. Although in the end, his own dish was perfectly lovely, and several other people made various dishes that were also lovely, we started to panic of hunger when there were five people at a time in the kitchen making side dishes, so C. and I took a side trip down the street to Chinatown, where it is possible to purchase pretty much the most delicious dumplings known to the Bostonian man. Or woman. Or, mostly, grad student. More difficult to find coffee in the area at 8pm, but that can also be done at Chinatown's McDonald's. [Note to everyone: if you order iced coffee at a McDonald's, TELL THEM YOU WANT IT BLACK -- unless you want it to be more like a melted milkshake. But even creamed-and-sugared coffee is better than no coffee at all.]
