The DePaul family loved Chinese food, all seven of them. In addition, they all enjoyed dining out and made it a family ritual to do so every Sunday night. Even if one of them had other plans, dinner with the family, and frequently in one of their favorite Chinese restaurants, was mandatory. If they had plans with a date for that evening, the date was brought along to dinner, but the family dined together and that was all there was to it.
And while they were open to and enjoyed other genres of food and ethnic cuisines, Chinese food was hands down and without question each one of the DePaul’s favorite choices. And usually when they would have Chinese they would have it served family style so that they could all sample as many dishes as possible. This works out especially well in a large family. And when they had this structure of service, they would all try and order different items to get the greatest variety possible. This was difficult to introduce to Willow, the youngest of the DePauls. She too loves Chinese food and was extremely unwilling at first to share her fried rice. So, for about the first year she ate in restaurants with them and actually had her own meal, her parents would order an extra plate of fried rice so that she could have her own and also participate in the family service.
Meanwhile some of the other favorite dishes included moo shoo pork, which was cabbage and vegetables cooked with pork and then rolled into a Chinese crape and served with plum sauce. It was considered mandatory for someone in the family to order beef and broccoli as that was the favorite of more than one person and the whole family enjoyed it. Coconut prawns were also a popular dish with the DePauls and they would have a plate of that whenever it was available. In addition they would order a couple appetizers and usually preferred one of the sampler pates. And even though various family members rebelled against this mandatory ritual occasionally, it was actually special to and enjoyed by all of the DePauls.
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