Even though I am still on a walker and/or a cane as I recover from knee replacement surgery, I wanted to host our Wednesday Mah Jongg game with the OMs this week. But since I am not yet ready to put together some exotic meal, I did the next best thing – FRESH DIRECT!

If you don’t know about Fresh Direct, check out their website – and hopefully they deliver to your area. Their food and their service are terrific and they are truly a lifesaver.

Early this morning the Fresh Direct delivery arrived:

As always, everything was there and looking good.

Fresh Direct’s Southwestern Chicken Salad is a favorite of the OM’s and it is really delicious, especially when you pour on the Jalapeño Ranch Dressing that comes with the salad. I like to julienne the pieces of roasted chicken and add a few extra ingredients to the already wonderful salad of mixed greens, pimientos, corn, carrots, and cucumbers. I cut up some cherry tomatoes

as well as chopped up several avocados. Fresh Direct sells what they call “ready to eat” Hass avocados and they really are. They are perfectly ripe and so delicious.

With the table all set

all I had to do was put out a big pitcher of Arnold Palmer Tea (half tea and half lemonade), some lemon slices, a bucket of ice and a big bottle of chilled Pellegrino sparkling water.

Once everyone arrived we sat to a yummy lunch of the Southwestern Chicken Salad and Fresh Direct’s fabulous cornbread (tastes just like homemade).

Nothing could have been easier than this lunch and really, it was delicious. By the way, Fresh Direct doesn’t skimp on their serving sizes. They say this salad will feed six but I think eight is more accurate – lots of leftovers for tonight’s dinner!

Today’s games were played at breakneck speed – we actually commented several times at how many games we were playing and that perhaps we might be ready for the speed of tournament play. Well, I’m not sure that I am ready for tournament play but I must say that the game is so much more fun when it moves along quickly.

G – who brought a huge can of dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts from her recent trip to Hawaii –

had one of the most interesting hands of the day. She had never tried to play an Atomic hand so she decided it was time. K was dealer so she threw out the first tile. I was next and discarded a Green Dragon and, much to everyone’s surprise – and G’s delight! – she called for the tile and then called Mah Jongg! As you can see in the picture, only two tiles were out on the table! So exciting!!

I lost the next hand due to my own stupidity! I had everything I needed for Like Numbers – Flowers, three different suits of 8s and…oops, I was short one tile! So, I had to declare myself dead. What a disappointment because I really had a great hand.

I did make up for that loss with several other wins – one was an Atomic hand win and then a win with a really tough hand listed under 2468 that required two 2s, two 4s and two sixes from one suit and then 4 8s from another suit and another group of 4 8s from a completely different suit. I had never played that hand before and it was an exciting win for me. Everyone had multiple wins today and it was a great game day all around.

Around 3 pm it was  time for dessert – we had scoops of Talenti Sea Salt Caramel Gelato along with biscotti…YUM!

Mah Jongg Wednesday’s are always the most fun!