Cedar Ridge Chinese Chili ? ? ?

Hi Everyone,

Oh, hilarious story--I think it beats one of Brian's mission stories, actually, but I won't tell you which one yet or you'll know the end from the beginning.

It's called Chinese Chili... because I really think that this recipe could win something at the annual Cedar Ridge Chili cookoff? :)

Oh, by the way, please thank Sister Landis and the ward for the amazing Tulsa postcards! I'm so excited to show them to people. No one ever knows where Oklahoma is! It will be so great! I use our family picture a lot in contacting so I think this will be really neat. I have the best ward ever.

So our last week together, Sister B and I were making lunch on Tuesday and we were REALLY hungry. We didn't get to eat until about two o'clock (and we hadn't eaten breakfast because on Monday we had two chang-outs so we were not feeling well on Tuesday morning).

We decided to make water spinach-pork-tofu-lime-chili-garlic soup (cook the pork in water, pull it out, cook the noodles in the pork water, take them out, cook the spinach in the pork nooodle water, then add everything back in with tofu, lime juice, garlic and chili pepper flakes). We were SO EXCITED TO EAT.

Then Sister B said, "Hey, Sister Darcey? I think there's a bug in here." I didn't even really pay attention because there are bugs in MOST of the stuff we eat --purposefully--and if we don't like it, we usually just pull it out and keep eating.

However, as we started poking around, it turned out there were more like HUNDREDS of bugs in our delicious soup. They were red... uh oh. We pulled out the chili pepper flakes (that we'd found in our apartment cupboard and brought with us to the church to make lunch) and dumped them onto a white plate. Oh, sick. The chili pepper flakes were moving. What we'd thought was damp-ish chilli pepper flakes in clumps was actually thousands of tiny beetles swarming, feeding, birthing, all other nastiness, in the chili pepper jar.

The best part of the story? We dumped the first plate's contents into the toilet, we added some water to the soup, and strained off the beetles that floated to the surface and then...

THEN WE STILL ATE IT. We didn't even ask each other if we should eat it, actually... we were just that hungry!!! The best part may have been the reaction of our zone leader, Elder Welling, who just about barfed after hearing the story.

SO far, no ill side effects, either. Chili pepper beetles are probably a delicacy somewhere in the world, right? We decided to call it Creepy Crawly Chinese Chili... I really think it would win something at the annual Cedar Ridge Chili cookoff? :)

Oh, and here is a lame joke for Brian that a member (YM) came up with in English class (he's so funny): Which ice cream makes your mouth like a desert? DRYERS! (Hey, don't make too much fun of it, English is his second language!!)

My love, Sister Dia Darcey

P.S. Another important survival tip in China: Never look at a construction worker below the chest. Learning a LOT about male anatomy here... YUCK.