>  JM> Other than Carol, how many here know how to properly use them?   My
 > 
 > I know that I don't. I don't think I actually even tried. But would probably
 > be fun to learn. Isn't mostly a shoveling motion?

LOL!  No.  Although folks at the start kinda do that.  Some foods get a
little shovel sorta motion but most are more like a tweezer motion.

 >  JM> The only way to eat rice (and other Asian foods) is with chop sticks.
 > 
 > I like asian food, though will admit that most experience comes from the
 > buffets or 1 or two regular asian restaurants which I have not frequented as
 > often as the buffets. What I was thinking was and/or is an oddity, which

Those would be americanized versions likely but that's ok.

-+- Slight break, was hungry and had dinner---

 > probably isn't but might be my observation is skewed. Whenever I see a worke
 > there who also has the choice of what the customers have, they all seem to g
 > for a huge plate of white rice and maybe a little bit of some kind of meat o
 > side or top. With all the choices they have in what I consider specialties a
 > I normally do not eat the kind of food available there, they tend to pick
 > White rice? Is that cultural or is that something they are told to do, or am
 > completly imagining things, thoug I see it soo often.

Cultural.  It's the majority of the rice seen in Asia eastwards of India. 
The eating style is more to use meat as a garnish, vice main component.

We just had dinner as mentioned above.  The recipe is a fusion but the
overall is fairly asian in portions used.

1 large bowl rice (1.5 cups cooked each roughly).  Made sticky with a little
butter and black pepper added.

1 cup each green beans, cooked with a little dashi.

1 fat pork loin slice, about 1 inch thick, cooked to medium rare in a
marinade of sweet-hot chile sauce (Mae Ploy as out of flying duck), Soy
sauce, and spiced vinegar.  

Heat frying pan (cast iron) then add meat and cook about 2 mins per side then
turn heat off.  Let set as you dish up the rest.  Then, slice meat to long
thin strips and garnish the rice with it.  1 loin fed me and Charlotte plus
some leftover for the dog and cat (grin, Don's out or would have made 2).

Yummie.  Now I'm stuffed ;-)
          xxcarol
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