Day after Thanksgiving @ Casa Lim

We had our wedding party (well... most of them) over at our house for dinner... which we spend 7 hours cooking 8 dishes. We were slow but hey... it was worth it...

We invited (from the left upper row), Marti Page (yes... we just met her last night at her mum's house for thanksgiving), Carolyn Barnett (from the left lower row), Rajeev Chitamoor, Mark Vischer and Angela Sur (whom I must say was the most prolific crab attacker last night).

We had previously promised Raj that we would have him over for some authentic Singaporean Chilli Crab so... we decided to put to action our vow. We had the crabs live and violently active in a bucket which we had to wrestle prudently out of the plastic bags they were grabing onto. We bought them at 3pm so that it would be fresh. To see them bath in an "onsen" of herbs and chicken broth was ... well... OK... so we did have some sadistic fun in going at them. We cooked 4 crabs. 2 in the Singaporean Chilli Crab style and 2 in the black pepper style. (Thanks to Mummy Lim's Belacan chilli that she smuggled into the USA).

This night marked the FIRST time Ms. Page and Ms. Barnett had crab!!! WELL DONE LADIES... Marti even managed to crack open a whole claw with the meat intact.

Raj and Angela were the experts. Even Raj choked a little on the chilli. This is a big deal because Raj is Indian and I know that Indians have a super high tolerance for spicy food. Angela on the other hand was quietly but systematically finishing off the crab. She explained candidly that if there was crab at the family's dinner table, NOBODY would be talking as they would all be rushing to finish as many pieces as possible.

Crystal passionately prepared the Hainanese Chicken Rice as well. We got that done about 230pm. Danny Yim and Darci Wong came by at about 430pm for their late lunch. Danny was busy preparing for his sudden geographic relocation to Taiwan and had to leave before dinner. Sorry buddy... u missed out on the Chilli and Pepper crabs!

So... it was a tiring but rewarding day. The fellowship was sweet and the food... well... let's see what our guest had to say about that (if they comment on this blog).