…a lot different from eating a Hot Pocket.  And, unlike dropping your contact into a Hot Pocket (Katie…), if one were to drop his or her contact into a hot pot, I doubt you would want to put it back into your eye.  Hot Pot is kind of like Fondue, but not exactly.  First of all, unlike those little “fondue for two” kits they sell at Borders around Valentine’s Day, hot pot is said to be best with lots of people.  Paul Joy took care of that and got together a group for dinner.  It also happened to be Fourth of July, but the real reason to gather was for the hot pot.  So the hot pot itself is a large bowl of oily broth place over a stove in the middle of the table.  For us, our bowl was split into two sections—one with fiery red broth, and one clear broth for wimps like Matt and me who can’t handle the heat.  Paul [Joy] did a good job of ordering for our table from a list of at least a hundred items, and we had a tasty array of lamb, chicken hearts, meat balls, leafy veggies, mushrooms, pumpkin and potatoes which we tossed in the boiling hot pot to cook throughout the meal.  The hot side was really, really hot and spicy.  I dunked one piece of lamb into the broth to test it out, but after that I could only dip.  It was pouring rain outside, which made the meal all the more enjoyable as we sat around our steaming table, sweating, and eating the endless supply of good food.

also, another entry was posted out of order.  if you want to hear the story on paul, go to the post just before the forbidden city ones. mmmk.