Vegetarian Fried Rice...with Bacon

"Oh my God...the bar doesn't close at all tonight?"

Sometimes, you can see the anatomy of a long night unfold right before your eyes. For me, that time came at roughly 3:15 in the afternoon on a spectacular 75° Saturday on Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland, site of my friends Jeff and Maiyen's wedding where about a half-dozen of us were staring down the barrel of a really, really long night.

The plan, on paper--by "paper", I mean ninja scroll, since that is what Maiyen's family printed the invitations on--was to do a 3:30 wedding ceremony, followed by a reception that was to go from 7 "until." Normally, "until" has meant anywhere from 10 PM till midnight in terms of the DJ/band time; rarely has "until" meant 4 AM, so I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary. Maiyen and Jeff had set up a website with all of the pertinent wedding details, which I had naturally chosen not to check out, but I should have, because there were more details on the site that I should have made myself aware of. Like

"Dinner: 7-9 PM. Reception: 9-12. Afterparty: 12 Until."

I didn't know about any kind of "afterparty"; I had prepared for an early night.

That was my first mistake.

"You know, you can always stay with us...there ain't NO way you're drivin' home tonight."

The wedding was a nice affair--Sugarloaf Mountain is a great setting for a wedding, with a picturesque backdrop, a huge mansion and it's far, far away from civilization. If the wedding--which was operating on Modified CPT, what we might call a hybrid of Colored People Time and Asian People Time--wasn't 70 minutes late (a new record, in my long list of weddings attended...I thought it was a Prince concert for a minute), it would have been one of the best ceremonies ever. The diversity at this wedding was incredible, and having the influence of a white family, a Chinese family, and a bunch of Middle Eastern and black friends was pretty sweet. The people were looking good, and I had forgotten how much I loves me a good spring dress when the weather is just right.

But still, my mind was unwavering...what had I signed myself up for? I mean, I like Jeff and Maiyen, but I hate coming to a gunfight with a large bowie knife, you know? I didn't even bring a change of "bringin' down the house" clothes, for chrissakes! I looked over at my friends Wendy, Mandy and Wim, and all of us kept shaking our heads when we were joking about the upcoming festivities.

The dinner reception/"afterparty" was going to be held at New Fortune, a Chinese restaurant that is owned by Maiyen's family, which I thought was a nice touch, especially as a melting pot for the combination of people that were in attendance for the ceremony. My original belief was that this was a nice, quaint, family-style eatery where food, folks and fun would be the norm.

Then I met Maiyen's other grad school friends. One of them, ominously:

"We just finished boards yesterday...I've been waiting for this party all year!"

"Sir, would you like your Johnny Walker Black on the rocks?"

The wedding was beautiful, I got to meet a lot of interesting young people (and, me being me, a couple of funny grandmothers), and the weather was spectacular. Derwin and I, along with Kelly, a friend of Tena's that was in the back seat, started wondering about the evening.

"You know, I still can't believe that the bar doesn't close all night. Man, DAWG! This could be trouble."

I started to think back to some of the drunken revelry I have witnessed at many of the weddings I have had the opportunity to hit in the past. It seems like there are always at least a few people that have lost control over the course of the night; you know, "Sloppy Sarah", that girl in the corner that had enough Beefeater but not enough beef...by 10:30, she's completely demolished and is the sad, shake-your-head type that everybody takes a moment to crack on before going back to their business.

What if tonight's wedding turned into a room full of Sloppy Sarahs?

We got to the reception for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at 6:30. Derwin went to his hotel room to check in (I quietly wondered if I would need a room of my own to sleep this bad boy off), so Kelly and I went into the restaurant and spied a table full of spring rolls with duck--yes, duck!--and then walked over to the bar.

Friends, I have seen many things in my time, and hung out with my fair share of "old money" types, but I have not seen an open bar that had this much top-shelf liquor maybe ever. Now, maybe I don't know shit about liquor, but I know that when the first four things I see on the table are Remy, Crown Royal, Johnny Walker Black Label and Bacardi 151...AND THERE ARE CASES OF IT BEHIND THE BARTENDER...I know trouble is not far away. In fact, at this point, I realized that Wim Taylor was going to be fucking destroyed by the time this night was over, because the Bacardi alone is going to be somebody's best friend reallllll soon.

LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, MAN. THEY WERE GIVING AWAY FREE BOTTLES OF THE GOOD STUFF?

Let me put it to you this way--at one point, Wim and I saw a couple of guys bringing a bottle of Remy to their table...for themselves. Seriously, this felt like the first post-Prohibition party back in the day, people looked so happy with booze in their hands. It was like a rap video, mixed with Foxfield, with a splash of Mardi Gras...in a big-ass Chinese restaurant. No, I am not making this up.

"Excuse me, sir...do you guys have any extra bottles of champagne?"

I had about a half-dozen of those duck rolls, so mixing that with two cups of JWBL and the Remy, I was sitting down mostly to take a break until dinner. Then, they brought out the menu. No joke: the two "appetizers"? Lobster tails and shrimp & scallops. I thought that was three things, and worse, I thought that was enough for dinner! But, no, that, plus an orange sherbet, was the FUCKING APPETIZER.

A seven-course monstrosity followed, far and away the most food I have seen served at the 40+ weddings I have now been to. By the third or fourth course, no one was even breathing, they had served so much food...and, what made it worse was that there were almost as many servers as there were tables, so they just kept pounding us with roasted chicken, huge servings of squash, asparagus, and a bevy of traditional Chinese dishes, including a side of beef that Derwin left swearing was the best beef he had ever eaten.

Then, they brought out the rice. The menu said that this was going to be our last dish, Vegetable Fried Rice. I, naturally, was going to pass on this, like I had passed on the last three dishes, since I was about to explode. Then our server dropped it down on our table, and somebody exclaimed

"It's got bacon on it! Look, there's BACON!"

All of us leaned closer. My God, I thought. My God...it's Vegetable Fried Rice...with BACON!

I dumped some soy sauce on a heaping plate of the rice/bacon combo, and started chewing to my heart's delight. What genius! What genius! I say, who is the genius that has crafted such a simple, elegant gift!! My innards screamed in pain, but I bounded from one side of my chair to the other in sheer, giddy delight. This was Bacon-Wrapped Scallops good. (Sorry, Storms.)

I had forgotten that I had just downed my sixth (tenth?) drink and took to the dance floor, if anything just to shake a few pounds off my newly-minted fat ass. Things were starting to come together. The people were having some fun. A Chinese master of ceremonies named--again, not kidding--Mr. Long was yelling all of his lines into the microphone, and just his name alone got me going all Black Sheep on his moniker--

"The Sugardick Daddy, Mr. Long!!!"

Our crew of seven--me, Wim, Derwin, Wendy, Mandy, Tena and Kelly--took to the dance floor and started a congo line that got the entire room buzzing. The cover band was really good at this wedding, and they mixed up the slow stuff with some good danceable oldies. All of this, mixed with a bizarre number of announcements by Mr. Long that local Chinese bigwigs were in attendance

"And now, from the Chinese Poker Players Association of Gaithersburg, Mr. Tony Chan!! And now, for the five Chinese members of the Department of Energy, a big round of applause!!"

were making this party sound like Li'l Kim was about sing "The Jumpoff" at any moment. It was nearly midnight, and normally about this time, people are going home...or, they are pulling out MP3 players and clock radios to REALLY make the party jumpoff! An announcement from Maiyen's dad over the loudspeaker:

Again, this was Maiyen's DAD:

"Drink up, people! The bar is still open! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

It was this maniacal, crazed laugh that will last in my memory, as people almost couldn't believe this was happening. I was looking around, and talking to some of the other guests, and man, the alcohol had taken hold in some of these folks, but in various ways. Wendy came back after a shot:

"I just had a shot of...something. I had to tell someone because I can't feel my mouth at all right now."

One girl who I didn't meet until oh-dark-30 was nasty-sloppy. She led with that classic, walk-away-if-you-know-what's-good-for-you intro: "Hey...Justin...nwice thu meet you. You look SO GOOD! in that shirt...[burp]"

You almost couldn't believe it, 1) because I was wearing a ratty-ass undershirt, and 2) because it was right out of a movie (or an essay like last year's tale of debauchery at a nightclub in SF) and the stereotype completed itself when she fell over twice trying to sit in a chair nearby.

And, Wim...well, he said it best when his wife Mandy asked him how he was feeling at the end of the night.

"I'm fucked up, that's how I'm doin'!"

"Hey man, you got anything besides Miller, Corona and Red Stripe?"

At around 2, they finally kicked us out of the restaurant. I still hadn't even really had the chance to talk with the wedding couple, and now of course, that wasn't going to happen. Being night owls, people were looking for the next party, which luckily was a quick stumble up the road to a local hotel.

Although I didn't stay very long at the afterparty--I had stopped drinking by 9 and was trying to sober up to drive home--I got the chance to witness the above exchange between one guy who had booze ready to go and another guy that was actually being picky at 3 AM at a local Summerfield Suites about what he wanted to drink! Between watching one guy hump another guy already trying to sleep, one guy giving the shirt off of his back to another woman (who purred "Thanks...nice chest") and watching four men argue why beer might be better than blowjobs, I was whisked away to my memories of college, where there were no hours, just plenty of time to hang out and worry about getting some sleep when you die.

I couldn't wait that long, so I drove home and went to bed. But, I don't know if I should be going to too many more weddings where the bar has unlimited booze!

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

Super Saturdays at Putt-Putt: Opening Weekend
Free burgers, pork, corn-on-the-cob and Corona: $9.50 Show
Having a cool roommate...that you never get to see: Matinee
Men who hate video games: Rental
Gettin' all blow'd up: Hard Vice

bellview--hope you like waffle irons!

Vegetarian Fried Rice...with Bacon