of food and friendship

it goes without saying that good food and friendship are part of the beauty to be enjoyed and savored. that for me is often the most tangible reminder of the beautiful that God has implanted in my soul.

tonight was a great celebration of both. the evening started off with a farewell dinner for gina, who is moving back to the states with her husband and children after several years in shanghai. gina (also a fellow blogger) is someone i don't get to see often but i always enjoy my times with her. she is always quick to flash a radiant smile, and i find her to be encouraging, caring, funny and so, so genuine.

twelve of us gathered in a cozy back table at whisk and feasted on pasta, pizza and chocolate...lots of chocolate. i had a late lunch so wasn't terribly hungry, and i opted to spend my calories on a deliciously smooth and rich chocolate mousse. my friend phyllis ordered churros, which are basically spanish doughnuts, and they came with this delightful setup:


i love the tiny whisk to stir up the chocolate sauce as it melts!

the women at this dinner are all very lovely, but i confess, i sort of feel disconnected when i'm with them sometimes. they're all married (i was the only single), most of them have kids, so their worlds revolve around diapers and feedings, playtimes in the park, naps, homework and school...and whatever else women are focused on when they have kids. i spend my time working, attending parties and openings, hanging out with artists and musicians and other creatively inclined folks (who are for the most part single)....and i take care of a cat. i have a few close friends in the group that i get to see quite a bit of, and we always have a lot to talk about. but when we're all together like this...i honestly feel like i'm grasping for conversation topics sometimes.

the beauty, though, lies in the fact that my friendship with these women extends beyond similar circumstances. though we may be in different seasons of life with different priorities and stresses, there is still a connection, a commonality of heart and love for this city and the people who dwell here. there is a common desire to do good and see goodness grow here. there is concerted effort to love others well.

after the dinner, i met up with gallerists from around shanghai for drinks. this is a monthly (realistically, more like every other month) gathering, and someone from the group of gallerists usually rallies everyone to meet up. he/she makes the arrangement for some restaurant/bar to give us a discount on drinks. there's probably about 40-50 people on the email list, and turnout varies at each gathering. tonight was a nice turnout - about 30 of us sipping wine and chit chatting on the patio at cotton's, enjoying the rare coolness of a spring shanghai evening.

i admit, i was reluctant to join these gatherings at first. i assumed it would be a cloud of pretension: interest in conversation as a thin veneer covering self-promotion. i couldn't have been more wrong. i found these gatherings to be very casual and stimulating, with very fascinating people genuinely interested in getting to know one another. it's a wonderfully diverse group: a french woman who is a leading world expert on street art; a german woman single-handedly running a city-wide art map that covers all local exhibition openings; a british man who started his own gallery in china after working for years in auction houses in london, to name a few.

and we don't just talk about art. tonight, conversations i had ranged from the effects of globalization and modernization on shanghai to chinese humor vs. british humor, the two big T taboos in china (tibet and taiwan) to the possibility of learning true objective history.

two very different groups of friends, very different conversation topics. but at the end of the day, both serve as beautiful reminders of our need to be connected, to celebrate and simply converse about the things that matter.


cups of coffee: 3

mood: pensive