First of all I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!

We have been busy, but it was very good indeed.

I have discovered something and wanted to share it with you all. I was at my brother and sister-in-laws house for Chinese food for Christmas Eve dinner. We decided for fun that we would all eat with chop sticks. I have never ate with chop sticks before so it took me a bit to get onto it. Well, everyone else was complaining, but I LOVED IT!!! It is perfect for a bandster!!! Small bites, by the time you get more food together you have long since eaten the last bite. No golf balling, no waiting for food to go down, lots of time to figure out if your full. No wonder Asian people are thin. So I brought home 8 sets of sticks. I think I'm going to eat with them always, they are perfect!!!

Interesting, in the land of Oz you call it Dim Sims and up here in the Great White North we call it Dim Sum.... You are so lucky that you can get them in any take away.

(Speaking of the Great White North (which is what we sometimes call Canada), thanks to global warming or whatever it is still very green where I live. No snow, eh.)

And yep, pot stickers are dim sum, Argon. As for the chow mein biz, I have had both dishes passed off to me as chow mein but I think that one is actually lo mein.

Cloe: your chopsticks idea is brilliant! I went to the Chinese buffet restaurant last night with my husband and the Chinese family. I ate slowly and I did not PB! This was a relief. My hostess was concerned that I was not eating enough and thus didn't like the food. I had to reassure her that I did and I went back for seconds. It was a good thing that the plates were normal size and not the huge platters that are now the fashion in many Toronto restaurants. The dessert thing was made easier because they served a lot of different fruits along with the usual cakes, etc.

Andrew, you are too funny! I never thought of using one chop stick - I'll have to try it!

Janice