Use your Words - Mongolian Fire

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

egregious ~ performance ~ assumption ~ luxurious ~ bursting with pride ~ spicy

They were submitted by: My healing tomato - thank you!

I have to admit - other times when I get a prompt, my mind immediately starts racing, and I can see pictures and stories coming up, and it's just a matter of sitting down, capturing those thoughts and putting them on ~~paper~~ screen.

Not today, though. I didn't even know all of those words. Egregious?

same thing?

Blame it on last night. We went out and stayed up way beyond my bedtime.

It was our office "Christmas" dinner which usually takes place in January when people are less busy, and tables in restaurants are available easier.

We went to a Mongolian BBQ place. I had some sangria on an empty stomach - this alone should make for a fun night - and a lot of yummy food. What a luxurious choice of veggies, seafood and meat! And you haven't even seen the dessert buffet yet! I was certainly gonna bite off more than I could chew!

But let's start at the beginning. This is how it goes down:

You grab a plate, choose your carrots, broccoli, sweet corn and prawns, add a cup of broth and hand it to your chef who blanches it for you.

Or you skewer your beef, kangaroo or scampi and barbecue it yourself on the hot stone grill.

Then you choose the sides and sauces.

It all went very well. Everyone enjoyed their food and made conversation, laughed and drank.

Then I made a mistake. Actually I think I was the victim of some conspiracy. Although they might object to my egregious assumption, I am pretty sure that someone switched the location of the fruity sweet & sour sauce that I liked with my first course, with the one of the Mongolian fire (very hot).

It took all of about a milli-second until I felt I was on fire! One of my coworkers laughed so hard about my desperately downing the whole glass of water.

"A little too spicy for you?"

That makes him a suspect, no? I urged him to taste it. He gave me this pitiful look, nonchalantly took a fork full, brought it to his mouth, chewed and swallowed. Bursting with pride he said:

"See? I think it's actually quite mild! You know this Thai lady I told you about? Her food is much hotter!"

Then he coughed and grabbed his napkin in order to dab some sweat from his forehead. Nice performance, dude!

For the next hour I was sitting there, cheeks all flushed, making conversation with my tongue slightly hanging out of my mouth. At least that's what it felt like. I wasn't quite myself. I was also convinced that somebody in the room was watching me.

So much for my night out. I'm done, I used all my words! Now I will share my chocolate mousse and fruit with you and let you check out the other posts as well.

PS: Remember Tim, the Toolman, Taylor?

Yes, the one who thinks he can handle tools and power much better than he actually can! He loves Polish food and doesn't know better than to eat too much. Every single time.
So his stomach gets upset at night, and he has the strangest dreams.

That's exactly what happened to me.

Mongolia and Poland must have something in common when it comes to their cuisine.

While I was tossing and turning, I had this dream where I was picking strawberries and sneaking them into a hotel room. Then the lights went out, so I had to take my shower in the dark. There was an earthquake, and I collapsed. When I came to, I found myself on a deck chair near the beach, an empty champagne bottle in my hand. In the distance a Swedish rock band was playing, and no, it wasn't ABBA.

I'm telling you, try this Mongolian fire - but at your own risk!