The other night a group of us played strip dinner in Box Hill.  It’s like strip poker with the cards replaced by very spicy Szechuan (Chinese) food.  For each course, the first person to call barley has to take an item of clothing off.  As it was already a hot night, no-one had much on to start with, so each of us was determined to persevere for as long as possible.

I need to explain, perhaps, that Szechuan food can be impossibly spicy.  When the first dish arrived (a huge bowl of pieces of white fish floating in yellow oil) the smell alone seared the nose.  Ah, I thought, those green beans will help me cope with this.  How innocent I was.  Those red speckles should have warned me.  The others mopped their brows as I removed one of my shoes.

One down, five to go. (more…)