Last August, when we were driving home from our camping trip, one of the au pairs mentioned that she would like to go on a hike for one of our monthly au pair activities this fall. There happens to be a great place for hiking just a few short miles from my house, so I told the girls that we could meet up at my house and then head over to Blue Hills for an afternoon hike. Everyone seemed to like that idea.
There were 3 Chinese au pairs riding in my car. As we were talking about things that the au pairs enjoy doing with their host families, one of them mentioned that she loves to cook. Well, I love Chinese food. Stephanie told me she would be happy to show me how to cook some traditional Chinese dishes. That’s when I got the bright idea to combine these two things. We could meet up at my house, drive to Blue Hills for an invigorating hike, and then come back to my house to prepare some tasty Chinese dishes for everyone to enjoy.
This all sounded great, so I immediately sent out my Evite to the au pairs in my cluster. As always, I told them to feel free to invite a friend or two. I figured we would have about 10 or 15 people show up for the hike. As it turns out, we had about 25 guests RSVP for the hike and Chinese food get together. Yikes! That’s a lot of dumplings to prepare. I decided I should prepare some food ahead of time so that the hungry hikers would have something to fill their stomachs while we were busy cooking all of that Chinese food.
We would be making Chinese dumplings together and Stephanie, our Chinese chef for the evening, would also be preparing several main course meat and noodle dishes for us. I wanted to make something that would compliment what she was making. I went through my recipe books, and couldn’t find anything that sounded good. Then I remembered that Au Pair Sis has many interesting recipes on her Pinterest account, so I went there to find something that was easy to make, would feed the masses, could be prepared ahead of time, and had an Asian-inspired theme. I found a recipe for Coconut Chicken Soup that sounded like it just might do the trick. So, I prepared my soup and awaited the arrival of my au pair friends.
After everyone who was planning to hike arrived, we headed over to Blue Hills. Blue Hills Reservation is composed of 22 hills that stretch over 7,000 acres from Quincy to Dedham and Milton to Randolph. The tallest of the hills, Great Blue Hill is easily accessed from the Trailside Museum, which is about 4 miles from my house. We started our adventure at the Trailside Museum, up the Red Dot trail to Elliot Tower which is at the top of Great Blue Hill. The elevation is 635 feet which provides for a great view of the Boston city skyline. It also provides a great place to take pictures.
The hike up to Elliot Tower took about 30 minutes. So, you would expect the hike down to take maybe 20-25 minutes? Well, that sounds about right except we took the wrong trail. So, instead of the quick straight downhill hike, we took a long meandering hike that took us about an hour to complete. But that was okay because we were all having fun chatting and getting to know each other better.
When we finally arrived back at my house, the real fun began. Stephanie prepared the filling for our Chinese dumplings. Her “assistants” Lilly, JinJin, and Shirley demonstrated the finesse needed to properly stuff the filling between the dumpling wrappers. Ksenia, an au pair from Russia, made one small change to their recipe. In Russia, when families and friends are gathered for celebrations, Russian dumplings are a traditional dish. They are very similar to the Chinese dumplings, but the stuffing is a little different. One of their customs is to secretly hide a special treat inside one (or more) of the dumplings. The person who received the dumpling with the special surprise is said to have good luck! So, for fun, we hid some pieces of banana in a few of the dumplings. (The special ingredient can be just about anything–the point is to make the dumpling different than the rest.)
We had a lot of fun tasting all of the yummy dishes that Stephanie and her crew prepared for us. And it was interesting to see the various ways the au pairs from different countries liked to wrap their dumplings.
Our good friend, Lilly, was getting ready to return home to China later that week. So, we all enjoyed a special farewell cake. Lilly was especially excited about returning home because she was expecting a proposal from her boyfriend at the airport.
Dani, an au pair from Brazil had just arrived a few days before and was able to join us for her first cultural activity. “I really enjoyed this experience!” Dani said. “My favorite part was to know so many girls at once, chat with them and know a little bit more about their cultures and their experiences as au pairs. ” “And, of course, the food,” she added.
Stephanie heard from Lilly shortly after she returned, and confirmed that Lilly had, in fact, gotten engaged. Congratulations Lilly! Best wishes for a bright future.