Rose petal soup

March 8 was Women's Day here in China. It's the day set aside to honor women and it's also the date that many stores offer, as any developing market-based economy would do, a SALE! Apparently, stores give small to big discounts to women who shop that day. At the university here, the group of women at the International Education office received the afternoon off in deference to the day and the sales!

Later that nite I joined Bob, Lorraine, Shaw, and Jane for dinner at a near-by restaurant everyone seems to frequent: the Drunken Moon. After being seated in our own little room Shaw explained his conversation with the waitress: since it was Women's Day, and there were three women in the party, we would receive special soup "on the house" to honor us.

I thought, well, that's nice. But, the soup wasn’t ordinary soup...it was rose petal soup!

Talk about AWESOME!! It’s a lukewarm soup with a sweet rice base so it is opaque and has TONS of rose petals in it. It’s equally aromatic as it is tasty. I for one wouldn't have thought of turning rose petals into soup—perhaps the Rose City needs to look into this and adopt it as its official soup. It's totally incredible.

I’m not one to just sit and fully appreciate a taste, but I did this time. Taste. Smell. It was olfactory and tastebud overload. Both Lorraine and I put our spoons down and just enjoyed the wonderful, sweet, aromatic taste of roses in bloom exploding in our mouths.

And, according to Shaw who knows Chinese cultural data points, rose petal soup is supposed to make you more beautiful. So clearly it’s a winner on many levels! Although, I got up the next morning, looked in the mirror and didn't see any change.