The All-American Slurp

The first time our family was invited to dinner in america, we disgraced ourselves while eating celery. We had immigrated to this country to China, during our early days here, we had a hard time with American table manners.

In China, we never ate celery raw or any other kind of vegetable raw. We always had to disinfect the vegetables in boiling water first. When were presented with our first tray, the raw celery caught us unprepared.

We had been invited to dinner by our neighbors, the Gleasons. After arriving at the house, we shook hands with our hosts and packed ourselves into sofa. As our family of four sat stiffly in a row, my young brother and I stole glances at our parents for a clue as to what to do next.

Mrs. Gleason offered the relish tray to mother. The tray looked pretty with its tiny red dishes, curly sticks of carrot, and long, slender stalkspf pale of green celery.

Mother picked up one of the green stalks, and father followed suit. Then I picked up a stalk, and my brother did, too. So there we sat, each with stalk of celery in our right hand.

Most Chinese don't care a dairy products and in those days I wasn't ever ready ro drink fresh milk. Sour cream sounded perfectly revolting. Our family shook our heads in unison.

Mrs. Gleason went off with the relish tray to the other guests and we carefully watched to see what they did. Every one seemed to eat the raw vegetables quiet happily.

Mother took a bite of her celery. I took a bite and then my brother. It was more than good it was delicious. Raw celery has a slight sparkle a zingy taste that you don't get in cooked celery. When Mrs. Gleason came arround with the relish tray, we each took another stalk of celery, except my brother. He took two.

There was only one problem, long string ran through the stalks and they got caught in my teeth. When I help my mother in the kitchen, I always pull the string out before slicing celery.

Suddenly I realized that there was a dead silence except for our zipping. Looking up, I saw that the eyes of everyone in the room were on our family.

I began to relax. The Gleason's dinner party wasn't so different from a Chinese mealafter all. My mother also puts everything on the table and hopes for the best.