Indebted to the Chinese For All We're Worth
We had wanted to light the large braziers on the porch and sip our cocktails out there by the warmth of the braziers, but it was too chilly, and so we gathered by the fireplace in the great room instead. Schuyler fixed us a drink he called Rosita. By now you've noticed that we all like drinks made with Campari, a liqueur that some find hard to get used to, but once you do, it's impossible not to love it. With some Corazón Silver Tequila, and both red and dry Martini & Rossi vermouths, this is a strong but delicious highball.

The redness of the Campari reminded us of China, a country, Bob told us, to whom we are so heavily in debt that they practically own us. He explained to those of us who seemed not to comprehend the importance or the magnitude of what he was telling us that under the Clinton Administration, the United States had been left a legacy of a budget surplus, but that very, very soon after President Clinton left office, the new administration started hocking the United States to the highest bidder. Only problem is, Bob told us, that highest bidder is not particularly an ally, though not an enemy either, making for strange bedfellows.

The Dragon Awakes and Catches George Bush Off Guard
I don't know about you, but I'd just as soon not wake up with a scorpion in my boots or a rattler poised, ready to strike, Bob continued, but how stupid would you have to be to put the scorpion in your own boots or tease the rattler into biting you? That's no way to live on a ranch or on a farm. It's like living in Indonesia and teasing the Komodo Dragons, which, weighing hundreds of pounds and being almost ten feet long, can eat a cow, horse or man. Now, Terry and Art said, that on their visit to Indonesia they had seen these monsters and their instinct for self-preservation alone had warned them of the dangers these dragons pose.

Bob said that just like the scorpions, rattlers and Komodo dragons posed danger to fools not clever enough to know how to stay out of their way, somebody who has a ranch close to Waco, Texas had fed his country to another dragon, which while it slept for decades, is now waking and moving fiercely and quickly, like the giant dragon it has always been. Now, it is eating wildly. It's main item of consumption? U.S. Treasury bills, fed one by one by Dubya to the tune of roughly 800 billion dollars. Now, Bob asked us, what if the Waking Dragon decided it wanted more dollars, or wanted to regurgitate them and dump them all at once? Well, any Economics 101'll tell you that would be catastrophic for the United States, but that smarty pants rancher-wanna-be doesn't have the natural ranching or farming smarts that keeps the rest of us alive and thriving. His papa told him it was o.k. to tease the critters.

U.S. Financial Markets Shaken to Their Core
If you "ranch and chop cedar" in Crawford it's more than likely you don't quite know how to walk and chew gum at the same time, so you'd likely be unable to quite grasp the import of China's dumping 800 billion dollars of U.S. Treasury notes on the market, but the financial markets have been jolted off their collective butts by China's Central Bank's announcement that "China's foreign currency regulator said its plans for 2006 include widening the foreign exchange reserves investment scope." Which might be Chinese for we can dump those notes and bankrupt you, George Bush.

Anything China does in the direction of selling these notes could influence bond and currency markets, as well as any move China might make to shift reserves to gold, which is at its highest price since March 1981. Any move that China makes with these vast holdings of our Treasury notes will deeply affect the United States, and lest we forget, the Dragon already reared its head just this past July, when it was attempting to buy oil giant Unocal Corp, and angrily snapped at Congress to not interfere. In the end, China backed away from the acquisition, but it should have shown any smarter man the dragon does have teeth. And teeth bite. Art, who recently returned from Mexico, told us the dragon was fast making friends in left-leaning Latin America, becoming quite chummy with people like Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela. It seems, Art told us, that while George Bush has been asleep at the wheel all around the world except Iraq, China has been busy making alliances with many countries that really don't like us all that much, and buckaroo, that's a lot of countries.

The Welcome Dinner Gong
Art and Terry paired up to prepare our dinner tonight, with help from Max. They have the organic herb and produce farm down the road, and have enormous greenhouses that even in winter allow growing of some produce. Because their farm also produces artisanal goat cheese, whenever they cook for us we know we'll be getting some pretty special, healthy food.
To begin our dinner, they served us some excellent, small quesadillas made with their goat cheese and fresh zucchini blossoms, onion and a touch of Serrano peppers. From Mexico, Art had brought back the very small yet hefty little glasses people in Mexico use to sip their tequila from, and each of the adults was served some Tequila Corazón Añejo to sip with our quesadillas. We have all grown to love those squash blossoms used so much in Southwestern fusion cuisine.

The next course that Terry had prepared was a seemingly simple mushroom broth, made with mushrooms from their farm. The teenagers are always going over to Art and Terry's farms, fascinated by the art of growing mushrooms. The trick to having a simple broth or even chicken consommé Art said was to just squirt a small amount of lime or lemon juice in the broth bowls. Paired with an Amontillado sherry, the mushroom broth was perfect.

Perhaps because of our love for mushrooms, Terry and Art next prepared Grilled Salmon with Chanterelle Mushrooms. Anything grilled is food for Art and Max, and they had the grills going on the porch, ready for the salmon and the vegetables they would also grill in their little wire grill baskets. Tonight, Art and Terry brought over some bottles of a Pinot Noir they thought we'd enjoy with the salmon, the smoky 2003 MacRostie Carneros from California.
After the salmon, and before the meat course, Art and Terry served us an amazingly good and fresh salad, Boston Lettuce with Grilled Mushrooms and Goat Cheese, once again providing us with bounty from their farms.

Max and Art paired up to grill Lamb Steaks with Chile Salsa. Together with the lamb, they served some of the same vegetables they had grilled an served with the salmon, and presented us with a wine we'd never tried before but that was perfect for the grilled lamb, a 2004 La Posta Malbec from Argentina by winemaker Luis Reginato.

For dessert, Terry made a Creamy Ricotta Pine Nut Tart and served with some sweet Italian Vin Santo.

Just before rejoining the teenagers, Liz told us something Sir Winston Churchill had said about China in 1952: "The Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago: 'China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it.' There is another Chinese saying about their country which is much more modern, it dates only from the fourth century. This is the saying: 'The tail of China is large and will not be wagged.' It sounds, Liz said, like somebody in Washington needs to keep Sir Winston Churchill's words in mind.

The Teenagers Learn Chinese
When we returned to the great room to spend some time with the teenagers, they reminded us that Chinese was quickly becoming "The" foreign language to study in their schools. Fully a third of them were enrolled in Chinese as a Foreign Language Courses, lending further credence to some of the issues we had discussed earlier. Strange, that our children should be smarter than many politicians in Washington.

Summary
The Dragon awakes, and it's tail can snap the foundations of the economy of the United States. George Bush is ignoring the waking dragon. He is ignoring the fact that China's Central Bank is changing its position vis à vis its tremendous holdings of U.S. Treasury notes, and Bush has ignored the significance of China's warning the U.S. Congress to back off during the period when China was seeking to buy U.S. oil giant Unocal.