Yesterday was a pretty busy day.

My nephew Matthew and his family slept over on the way up to visit my sister . We all had a lovely breakfast and they were off.

No sooner did they leave when my niece Laura called and said that she and her son and step daughter were going to chinatown for dim sum and would I like to join them.

Although I never had dim sum I don’t miss a chance to see Laura so of course I went.

We got to the restaurant and I have to admit I paused when I saw that the restaurant only got a “B” in hygiene.

Then I remembered that David always says that I’d have to clean for an hour to up the rating of my kitchen to a “B” and I relaxed.

It was really interesting.The waiters walk around and you point at what you want and they place it on your table.

Laura and Scott were really happy that we were practically the only non asians in the place. Me, not so much. The ambience suggested adventurous eating while the last chinese meal I had was egg drop soup and chicken chow mein. If I want to live dangerously I might have an egg roll.

So you think that if you ask the right question you will get something that won’t scare you. It’s easy to not order feet of any kind but you want them to be specific when it comes to anything in a dumpling.

Here’s the rub. They lie.

Either that or I’ve learned to speak Chinese because clearly the meaning of “vegetarian” is Chinese for “vegetables mixed with unnamed meat or fish, starfish included”

Those three were popping shit in their mouths without giving it a thought. They obviously don’t know me at all because they even tried encouraging me to eat one thing after I clearly heard them saying that though they couldn’t place the meat or the jellied stuff in the dumpling, it sure was good.

Lucky I love being with them so much.

And the day ended with me being invited to celebrate Allan Schwartzberg’s birthday with them, their beautiful and talented daughter, Nicole, her boyfriend and some friends.

The wine was flowing, the food was delicious, everyone was laughing a lot and Nicole picked up the whole check even though it was one of those hip downtown restaurants where the wait staff dresses better than you do.

And they were successful at it even though I was wearing my dressy black and it wasn’t easy to outshine me!

Maybe that’s because when I got home I realized my sweater was on inside out.