I Love Fried Rice

Yesterday, as we all know, was the Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year). My friend and I decided to go to a potluck sponsored by the Association of Asian American Graduate Students (AAAGS). It was awesome! We opted to make both vegetarian and chinese sausage fried rice.

Initially, we argued a bit about the ingredients. The fried rice that I've made usually has chicken or bbq pork, but chinese sausage was a fair (if not better) substitute. My friend loves to put ketchup in her fried rice (she argues that it's the secret ingrediate to all great fried rice).
"Ketchup?? I've never had ketchup in my fried rice!"
She then responds, "Ketchup is what makes fried rice red."
"I've never eaten red fried rice."
"Well, ketchup also makes the fried rice tangy."
"Uh. . . I've never eaten tangy fried rice."
You can see where this conversation was going. . . In the end, I relinquished to ketchup. . . It tastes good, yet very different than the rice that I'm accustomed to.

So, we make two huge batches of this fried rice -- one with chinese sausage and the other without. Everyone at the party loved it. However, not as many people showed up to the party as we expected. So, we now each have one gigantic bowl (and I mean GIGANTIC) of fried rice that will last for many days (possibly weeks!). All in all, we had a great time meeting the Asian Americans in our local community. Everyone is a fantastic cook! Yum!