Show and Tell Friday - Collected Menu - Hong Kong Harbor 1968

Do you like to travel and do you like to return home with a souvenir of your travel destination? In the summer of 1967 I was in the Wilmington, Delaware kitchen of a lady whose son was a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and a subsequent Marine Corp officer in Vietnam. This lady had on one wall of her kitchen framed menus of restaurants around the world that her son had visited in his naval and marine corps travels. I thought that was the neatest souvenir idea and so I copied the idea. For over the next forty some years I have been collecting and framing menus from both famous restaurants and not so famous restaurants around the world. I have at least 110 menus today. (I always lose count when I go from room to room to count them. Yes, yes, my collection has outgrown the kitchen and has spread like a fungus onto walls in my breakfast room, powder room, laundry room and the staircase leading to the basement.

For the next week or so I'm going to share with you some of my favorite menus from my collection since there is a lot less in the way of flower gardening photos to share with you this time of year. In the meantime I will make a serious effort to count how many menus I really have.

Now for the first menu I have to share with you. I think this is the very first menu that I ever collected and framed. I got it in 1968 in Hong Kong, China when I was ferried with other DOD teachers to a floating Chinese restaurant in the harbor of Hong Kong for an elaborate meal. I had this menu framed when I returned to Okinawa where I was teaching first grade at Sukiran Elementary School. You might want to click on the photo above to read the writing. This menu today hangs in my kitchen.