Dinner With Friends

[Grandma Anne, Ethan, Lauren and Diego]


Last night we had dinner with colleagues and friends at home. My mom and I prepared food. Mom cooked honey glazed (mini) Cornish hens, while I made my sweet pork roast. We had mashed potatoes with mashed sweet potatoes. Our freshly tossed salad had mangoes, avocado, Gala apples, tossed greens, cherry tomatoes, and shredded carrots. For dessert, mom made her famous apple crumble with Bryers double-churned, extra creamy, vanilla ice cream. :-D


Emil was first to arrive. This is also his last year at Duke. Emil is in his final half year of internal medicine residency and is going to continue his training sub-specializing in adult hem/onc (cancer) at Sloan Kettering in NYC.

Krishelle came over next, coming straight from work and still in her scrubs. She brought with her a lot of drinks and desserts when we explicitly said 'no need to bring anything'. :-D Oh well. That's Krishelle for ya. And we did kinda think alike with the drinks - I had bought sparkling apple cider, and she, sparkling pear and peach. So good times. And reminiscent more of Thanksgiving, Krishelle's dessert options included Ede's pumpkin ice cream as well as sweet potato pie. Yum! (oh and we ate this for breakfast this morning too) :-p

The Ramers graced us with a visit too. They had just finished Christmas dinner, and decided to drop by and it was a lot of fun to have them hang out with us. Lauren's mom, Anne, was also in town, and was quick to snatch up Ethan (as grandmas do of course). Diego was in his holiday best festive attire in his bright red knit sweater (matching mom, Lauren). The fam had to rush off to their church for Christmas service at 8pm. Ethan had been a bit fussy during this time, and Diego was in no hurry to leave for church as he was quite concerned for his friend, Ethan. But with a bit of love and tenderness, they were off, and imparted some joy and smiles to our evening.



Natalie and Davar arrived with their new bundle of joy - baby girl, Emily! This had been the much anticipated meeting between Emily and Ethan. Dressed in a very festive red dress with white fur trim, Emily was the star of the night. Her big, beautiful eyes and huge lashes just captivated everyone. Such a cutie. I think Emily looks more like her daddy, Davar, although in some pictures, she really takes on mom's features.



A la Grey's Anatomy, Natalie, our "world renowned ophtho doctor" (eye doctor) - because everyone on this show is "world renowned and super achieved in their field of medicine" - brought two dishes: (1) eggplant parmesan and (2) vegetarian lasagna. Actually, our very own Natalie is consitently voted one of America's "Best Doctors" and is a leader in the field of Corneal transplant surgery and laser eye surgery. Many friends have had their eyes done through Natalie :-D

As expected, we took a ton of pictures of the noomies, Emily and Ethan. Girl and Boy. Pink and Blue. Yup, we had a field day with this one. And there are so many similarities with both of them: (1) both were born 5 weeks premature of their expected due date, (2) both weighed exactly 5 lbs at birth, (3) both have names that start with 'E' :-D

Rabi, a colleague of Kelly's and Krishelle's also dropped by for a few minutes. Rabi was very good with Ethan! And in fact, almost all of the pictures I took of him with Ethan are fantastic (but I should only really post a couple!). Rabi is an a tour of the country it seems, for the holidays, since he has stops in DC (Washington), New Jersey, Pittsburg, is that is (?) ... I may have forgotten just all the places he is going to visit in the next few days. Rabi is a pediatrician, and is also on his final home stretch of residency. Originally from Syria, Rabi takes his training next to Seattle (U of Washington, or U-dub) where he will commence a fellowship in pediatric hem/onc (cancer) - like Emil, but babies instead of adults. Good luck! And now, Christmas day, it is pouring, and so I hope your road travels are not too difficult or there aren't too many delays.


So many dinners... tonight we are going to Fariba and Payam's home for dinner. Dinner is for Glen and Isik, two dear friends who are leaving the Triangle and moving to Turkey (where Isik is from) in a few days for a couple of years. It was Glen's birthday yesterday (12/24) - HAPPY BIRTHDAY GLEN - and I heard they had a marathon showing of The Lord of The Rings the past few days at their home. You guys will be so missed!!! Ahhhh! Love you! :-D I'm going to bring my laptop with me tonight, so that I can burn CDs for you guys of pictures of some of the things we did over the past three years or so. (not to mention I have promised Fariba wedding pictures for some months now!)

And Tuesday night another dinner, this time at Natalie, Davar and Emily's home. And Wednesday, Thursday... what timing for Adeline, all these fantastic dinner dates.

Pediatrics Dinner

One benefit that Kelly has for doing a combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency program at Duke, is that she gets to go to both the medicine and peds parties for both Christmas and year-end celebration. And, actually, a third med-peds party is usually thrown in the mix too. And so last week was the medicine party, and tonight was the pediatrics equivalent.



Also held at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club, the party was a lot more cozy due to the smaller numbers on the peds department. And although there was no chocolate fountain, in my opinion, we got something better (for dessert) - oven hot waffles with vanilla bean ice cream and whip cream with fresh blueberries, strawberries and blackberries. There were three flavours of waffles to choose from: (1) chocolate, (2) apple cinammon and (3) oh I forget this last one. But I totally prefer the waffles to the fountain station. Yum! :-D





And it was more fun this party, what we even did a bit o' dancin'. The kids came out to play - Krishelle, Matt, Christian and Kelly - all of whom are in the same med-peds class and are in their final (fourth) year. Only missing were Reilly and Jennifer from this group of six. And not to mention the very important spouses of these wonderful medical doctors - Lauren (in white dress) and myself :-D The night was a blast.

We got pictures with the med-peds crew (sleigh pics) and also one with our very own (Ethan's) pediatrician, Dr. Susan Owens, MD.





It is hard to believe, after three previous years of Christmas parties, this is Kelly's (et al) last. They are the seniors now. The six amigos. And in one half-year remaining, we shall all be together for a final hurrah, before the group go their separate ways to pursue fellowships or primary care elsewhere in the country.










You've done well, guys and gals. Ya dun good.

Medicine Dinner

Last Friday (12/9) was the Duke medicine department's annual Christmas dinner party, which traditionally was held at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club - the venue of our very own wedding two years ago.

This year's dinner - the food - was much better than last. Similar to last year, they had various 'stations' set up in one of the large ballrooms. They had an Asian station with stirfry, chicken skewers, shrimp skewers, and the like. Another station was set up with a large carving roast under a heating lamp with a chef ready to serve you, and garlic mashed potatoes. This was my station for the evening as we often eat Asian cuisine at home.

The real treat, however, was a large chocolate fountain, with fresh fruit (strawberries, blackberries, honeydew melon), marshmellows, cheesecake, and regular cake on skewers for you to coat in chocolate - I suppose like a fondu but instead of dipping your fruit/cake into a bowl of melted chocolate, you simply let the chocolate fountain coat your skewer. Neat :-D Needless to say the crowds were around this station.

And after having one too many chocolate coated cheesecake skewers, I was near about to puke. In hindsight, I would have simply stuck to the marshmellows (light!) and the no-fail, always-excellent-coated-in-chocolate, strawberries.