One Electric Wok and a Rice Cooker

Last weekend was Canton weekend! For those of you that do not live in Texas or surrounding states, Canton is a town that has a HUGE flea market on the weekend of the first Monday of each month. You can find ANYTHING in Canton! My husband (before he was my husband) and I ran into each other at Canton after not seeing each other in over six years. He brags that he picked up a wife in Canton. Anyway, the point of the story is that Canton has anything that you could ever think of and many things that you never have thought of!!

We were walking down one of the many covered pavilions discussing how the town that we work in does not have a good Chinese restaurant. We had visited the buffet at one of the two choices for Chinese food the night before! Usually it meets our standards, but on that night, we were very unimpressed. Suddenly, we see a vision from God! A little Chinese lady from Oklahoma of all places was there, in Canton, making Chinese food and selling the ingredients (noodles, spices, and sauces) to make them! We stood there as she made three wonderful dishes and gave free cooking lessons. My husband loved the food so much that she ended up giving us two BIG bowls of food...for FREE! Not only did she save us from having to buy lunch, but she gave us her phone number and told us to call her anytime (before 9pm) and she would help us over the phone! We bought her ingredients and set out on our next mission...finding an electric wok!

On our way home that night, we stopped by several places to find our wok. Apparently, they are unheard of in East Texas! No one knew what we were saying and no one knew how to spell it! We are "instant gratification" people so we wanted to find it right then! Our search turned up nothing, so we were forced to look on the Internet and plan to look when we traveled to the Dallas/Ft. Worth to visit our family for Easter. Well, our plans for Easter were rearranged, but I was still able to go to the DFW area for one day and find our electric wok. And as a bonus, I found a rice cooker/steamer for $20. Woo hoo!

Saturday night we attempted our first Chinese dinner! It was a success! We still have some things to learn, but we impressed ourselves with our abilities! It is amazing what you can do with an electric wok and a rice cooker! Maybe we should open our own restaurant!