We don't make risotto very often, but when we do, Hungry Bear makes a cauliflower and mushroom risotto using sticky rice (glutinous/sweet rice). I love all things made with sticky rice, and this risotto is one of my favorite sweet rice dishes. The best part is that minimal stirring is required to make it.

The recipe is adapted from the Susanna Foo Fresh Inspiration cookbook. For the most part, we like to reduce the butter and fat in a recipe whenever possible. But we also know when not to mess with a good thing, e.g. potato salad, nicely marbled meats and dessert. The main changes Hungry Bear made to the recipe were — removing the butter, swapping out milk for chicken stock, and increasing the quantity of mushrooms and cauliflower. Before anyone boos the removal of the butter (ahem, Jane!), Hungry Bear added extra coconut cream.

Crispy spring rolls, egg rolls or imperial rolls, whatever you call them, it's cha gio in Vietnamese. My mom's cha gio was one of my favorite things to eat growing up. Nothing compares to my mom's crispy spring rolls. I know I say that about all of her cooking, but I really mean it. When I was younger and attended a lot of Viet gatherings and parties, I would always leave thinking my mom's cooking was better.

Cha gio comes in many different sizes and can be made with spring roll wrappers or rice paper. Traditionally, rice paper is used in Vietnam, but my mom has been using spring roll wrappers for as long as I can remember, so I'm partial to them. I grew up on pork and shrimp cha gio, but a few years ago, my dad became a pescetarian. So last month when I visited my parents, my mom made shrimp and crab rolls.

Dungeness crab season started late this year in San Francisco because of the terrible oil spill in the bay. We were lucky that the spill wasn't worse, and Dungeness crab season was only delayed for a few weeks. Still, I was worried that we wouldn't have crab for Sunday night dinner before all of us left for the holidays.

My parents came to the rescue by sending Jane and Mark a Christmas gift, crab crackers and forks. I had no idea they were sending them a gift, and Jane was especially surprised and happy. Jane wanted to christen the crab tools with a dinner of Dungeness crabs. Way to go Mom and Dad!

On Sunday, Jane picked up crabs at Sun Fat Seafood Company, where they quartered and removed the gills for her. The crabs were a reasonable $3.99 a pound. With the dismantled crab, Garry made stir-fried garlic crab. It's a really simple recipe with a lot of garlic... think garlic fries. We used three heads of garlic for four Dungeness crabs.

Oysters and hot dogs? What the hell? That was my first reaction when Jane invited us over for dinner last Saturday. I asked her what her inspiration was for this odd food pairing. She responded with "it's what I'm craving." Alrighty then! I have to admit, oysters and hot dogs is the most original surf and turf combination I've ever heard of.

The actual dinner dishes were...

• Champagne and oysters with three different type of sauces — cocktail sauce, red wine mignonette and champagne mignonette.
• Grilled bacon-wrapped stuffed hot dogs
• Stir-fried Chinese long beans and eggplant
• Banana cream pie

Hungry Bear and I brought over the vegetables that we got from the Serramonte Farmers' Market and Garry's friends picked up a banana cream pie from Mission Pie. Not only did we have a really peculiar surf and turf, the rest of the meal was an eclectic pot luck.

Jane ordered eight dozen oysters form Royal Hawaiian Seafood...

• Malpeque PEI
• Kumamoto Point Reyes
• Fanny Bay B.C.
• Malaspina B.C.
• Effingham Inlet B.C.
• Kusshi Petite B.C.
• Beau Soleil
• One more type I didn't catch

We had the oysters raw with the three sauces, which Garry made from the Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home cookbook. I'm not a big champagne person, but it went really well with the brininess of the oysters. My favorite oyster was the Malpeque PEI with the cocktail sauce, however I'm not an oyster expert. After sucking down a few, they all tasted the same. Maybe Jane, our oyster connoisseur, can add more commentary on the oysters?

I thought the highlight of the meal was the bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Garry made the dogs using this grilled bacon-wrapped stuffed hot dogs recipe. The frankfurters were stuffed with mustard, ketchup, cheese, onions and sauerkraut, then wrapped with bacon! I usually don't like sauerkraut on my dogs, but I didn't mind it this time. Who's not going to like a bacon-wrapped hot dog on a toasted bun?!? I really liked the extra crunch the grilled bacon added to the stuffed dog. The wieners were accompanied by a side of stir-fried long beans and eggplant. We definitely needed some healthy veggies with the heart attack on a bun.

For dessert, we had banana cream pie from Mission Pie. The pie was good and was not overly sweet. The predominant flavor was banana and not sugar... a big thumbs up from me. We are going to have to try different pie types from Mission Pie.

Overall, dinner was fantastic. It was the strangest assortment of dishes I've had in a long time, maybe ever. Oysters, champagne, hot dogs, Chinese vegetables and a banana cream pie. Can anyone else top this meal in terms of goodness and quirkiness?

SNDsters: Garry, Karen, Eva, Yvonne, Keith, Jane, Mark, Hungry Bear, Chuck