From Grits to Chopsticks

I have the privilege of eating lunch with students on a regular basis.  In order to avoid getting stuck in a rut, I always ask the students to select the location and the food.  Here are some recent photos of different foods and students this semester:

My noodles – a little less spicy than everyone else’s:

In one of our school cafes:

Selecting vegetables to include in a small “casserole” dish:

The finished casseroles: 

In a “fast food” restaurant (think McDonald’s, Chinese style): 

Hot pot – a boiling cauldron of chicken soup for cooking a variety of veggies: 

Sometimes, the meat from a hot pot isn’t spicy enough and needs a good dunking in pepper sauce:

Chinese dumplings, usually made with pork and leeks.  A student told me that he was once banished to the corner of a classroom after eating these while drinking a coke (projectile bad breath):

Perhaps you noticed a shortage of guys in these lunch pictures.  The reason for this is pretty obvious when you look at one of my classes:This was a holiday make-up class with 12 absentees – mostly girls.