a dinner out

 But not at a restaurant!

Our graduate student - who is from India - was cooking for the international student club tonight, and invited us to come and have dinner with them. I went ahead and accepted, even though I am (a) a bit of a picky eater and (b) have some food sensitivities (but he asked, and I told him, and he responded that he'd leave the carrots he might have put in out). 

At first when I got home, I thought, "do I really want to go? I'm tired, I probably won't know anyone there, and I might be the only person over 30 who shows up." But then I decided I HAD RSVPd, and it's possible if not many people showed up, the student might be disappointed. So I went.

It turns out I wasn't the ONLY person over 30. Our horticulturalist (who is younger than me but older than the students) was there; she had served as sort of a sous-chef for him. And then my two youngest colleagues with their spouses in tow showed up (They are probably not OVER 30, but they're CLOSE TO 30). 

It was a simple meal - chicken biryani with raita, and a modified version of roti (the student said they were nontraditionally prepared; I think roti have to be cooked on the inside WALL of an oven and I think they made these on a griddle). Another Indian student - originally from a different region than our student - had made dessert, a sort of bread pudding with almonds, cinnamon, and condensed milk (she warned us "Indian desserts are often quite sweet for Westerners" and even though I generally don't like extremely sweet things, I liked this, partly because she put a lot of cinnamon in)..

 

I did take some of the raita even though it had raw onion (which I have to be a little careful with) because our student warned that "the biryani might be hot for some of you" but it really wasn't. It was seasoned well but it wasn't "mouth burning," it was just flavorful. But the raita was good on it, too. 

All of us from the department sat together and the horticulturalist did come and talk with us a little. So I wasn't all by myself, that was nice. I saw a few people I'd had in class in the past. All told there were maybe 20 people at the dinner. There was plenty of food and the student encouraged the other students to take leftovers (we held back; generally when there's food and students we prefer to let the students have first crack at it; a lot of our students are on tight budgets where having leftovers would be a bigger thing) 

 It was nice, though. It was quiet and sort of a peaceful meal, and I remembered that way, way back when I was an undergraduate I did occasionally hang out at the international student center with the international students, because in some ways I felt I fit in better with them than I did with the average undergraduate. And the international students were interesting people with different experiences to share - but also they often found out that people from other cultures had a lot in common. 

(I was thinking, but didn't mention - nearly every culture has some kind of flatbreads like the roti; of course in Mexican cooking there are tortillas and there's pita in Middle Eastern culture)

We hung around until slightly after 8. Most of the students had left and I got to thinking it might be good to go to let the folks still hanging around from the club clean up, so we walked out together.

But it was nice, a lot less awkward than I thought I'd be, and just a good break in the week.