Easter dinner at home

Easter Sunday: Christ is risen!!! (He is risen, indeed.  Alleluia!)

   While there is no LCMS church here in Gwangju, I attempted to go to Catholic mass for Easter.  The service was all in Korean, among other issues... let's just say I had my own devotions at home and watched some LCMS stuff online.

Easter  means many things, and one of them is FOOD.  I decided to co-host an Easter dinner with my friend, Anna for our foreigner friends.  We did it mostly "American style" with a bit of a Korean twist...

 These are the eggs I dyed for our decorations.  Hey, it just doesn't seem like Easter without dyed eggs.  These are not the ones my students did - I did these on my own at home.  My favorite is the colorful one towards the lower middle-right of this picture.  (SE) Of course, it was the last one I did - when I finally figured out how to deal with the brown eggs.  Ha.

 The table set up.  Anna pulled out all the stops - even napkins and matching wooden chopsticks. (They are much easier to use.)  Oooh, fancy.  The bag seen here was for me - from the Easter Bunny, of course.  Tee he he.  I LOVED that it had Korean stationary and a new purple pen marker.  Hooray.

 More of the dyed eggs. We did not hunt them, but we did have a bit of egg salad that week...

 The silly boys in the kitchen.  Monte was a HUGE help with dishes though - so we don't care of they are a bit silly.

 Before dinner: I was cutting cucumbers for the salad.  Anna was making lemon curd.  I was a bit sick, still; and we were both pretty tired. Someone came by the kitchen to take a picture of the cooks and we were both like, "Oh, no.  No no.  No pictures." Then the camera was lifted - and we both posed all smiley for the picture.  Ha.  SO Korean!!

 There were many people coming to dinner - which meant LOTS of cucumbers and onion chopping for the cucumber salad.  This was a perfect tasty treat for Easter dinner - a bit of a Greek dish (minus the black olives and tomatoes, of course!) - light and summery and delicious.  A delightful salad!  Yummy.

 Chelsea is from Texas.  She knew to get gussied up for Easter dinner - she put on a dress and make up.  Hooray.  She has many skills, most of them not in the kitchen - so her big accomplishment of the day was to plate the bread.  Nice work, Chelsea!

 Anna, putting food on the table.  I don't think she wanted her picture taken right then.  Oops.

 Food on the table!  Roasted mini potatoes, pork tenderloin, cucumber salad, french bread, cold macaroni salad (we did have one vegetarian join us), green olives, candy... yum yum yummy!

 Anna with her boyfriend, Benedict.

 Mmmm, potatoes!

 Chelsea, Anna, and Hannah.  I actually did have on a spring-ish yellow, white, and green dress for Easter.  Anna had bright pastels on, as well.  However, we covered them up with aprons as we prepared dinner.  Yes, Anna brought old Starbucks aprons all the way to Korea!  Ha.  They are very useful, and comfortable.
 You really have to earn the black ones, so it makes sense that she would still be using them.

Desert.  Mini bunt cakes.  We did coconut ones and lemon ones.  Delicious!

 Group shot: Monte, Chelsea, Mano, Jessie, Hannah, Anna, and Benedict.  Interesting bunch.

 Gabby girls: Jessie, Hannah, and Chelsea.  Yes, for those of you who were there and remember - that is the same dress I wore to my college graduation in December of 2005.  Hooray.

 Easter dinner feast.  Yes, I still missed lamb and asparagus (and the company) of the 

Burger household - but I guess I couldn't be that "spoiled" forever!

 Eating dinner.  Oh yes, we were a wild bunch.  I don't know why Will looks ill.

 The guys enjoying din din.

Monte and Chelsea.  I had placed Easter stickers by each plate - and someone decided that
everyone who wanted to eat had to put theirs on.  Yes, we all miss our childhoods a bit.
Of course - that is why we are teachers, right?

    Delicious Easter dinner with good friends.  It was a time of good food and better fellowship.  After dinner, a few people had to scatter, but some of us stayed to play cards.  It is really interesting to teach Spoons to people literally from all over the world.  The concept of musical chairs is NOT international.  Let's just say that, after the first practice round, my favorite comment was hearing someone from Tanzania say, "Wait.  There aren't enough spoons.  We need another one."  Yes, I nearly burst a rib laughing.  Good times.

  Happy Easter!