Wonton Day

I am blessed to be good friends with two Susans, one in Massachusetts and one here in Costa Rica. Both are very good cooks. Which is a good thing, because I never really learned to cook, but I sure do like to eat.

My local friend Susan, a dietician in her former Canadian life, who lives here in Santa Ana and works on my street, has been wanting to go to Super Sony, the oriental food store in San Jose. Last week we planned our menu so we'd know which ingredients to buy. We were going to make wontons for Susan's favorite wonton soup, plus fried wontons, and spring rolls, fresh and fried, which are my favorites from Vietnamese cuisine.

This past Sunday was Wonton Day. I picked Susan up around 1:00pm. We stopped at PriceSmart, the big box store to stock up on food and stuff, before we headed into the city. On Sundays I can park on the street right in front of the little supermarket instead of parking in the paid lot a block away.

We took our time going up and down the aisles. There was food there I had never seen before and didn't know what to do with. Susan knew just what we needed to get, and an hour later we left. We had to stop at a regular supermarket to pick up ground chicken and fresh bean sprouts, and while we were there, we realized we hadn't eaten lunch, so we got some good junk food to tide us over - cookies, chips, all good stuff.

About 4pm we got back to my place and dug in. I had no idea what to do, so I was Susan's eager assistant. She had me chop vegetables for the spring rolls, while she did, um, I don't know what she did. I was busy putting on music, pouring us drinks, and blowing a whistle into the phone when Jose called.

He called four times and I decided I had had it. I called the police and they came within five minutes. I showed them the restraining order and the phone log I've been keeping, and begged them to make him stop calling me. I played the saved messages so they could hear how he was harassing me. But they said they couldn't do anything about his phone calls. If he got within 500 meters, about 1/3 mile, of me, I could call the police and they would pick him up. So the police left, and Susan and I got back to work in the kitchen. She has been very supportive of me during this difficult period. Jose has been bothering her, too. We both just wish he would go away.

Next up was making wontons. We laid out the wrappers and put a little of the chicken mixture in them, then rolled them halfway, turned them around and brought their little arms together.



Then we fried them.



Then we ate them, but there's no picture of that. The next day Susan came over for lunch and we made wonton soup and ate more fried wontons and spring rolls and more fresh spring rolls. Mmm mmm good!