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DMV APALA Social Recap

Collage of dim sum items including sesame balls, xiao long bao, and har gow.

by Molly Higgins

Inspired by the announcement that APALA was organizing regional chapters, a group of APALA members in the DC, Virginia, Maryland (DMV) area recently got together for dim sum. Some of the attendees had been members of APALA for a decade, and others joined this year, proof that our community is both well established and constantly expanded.

We ate! We took lots of pictures of the food! And we talked about plenty of topics ranging from TV to what we’re doing for professional development to what it might look like to form an APALA chapter. While we don’t have all the details yet, we’re excited to get to know like minded librarians in the DMV area. Many of us haven’t attended in person conferences since 2020, so it was really gratifying to see people face to face. We’re looking forward to getting together again, to eat more food or do a book swap.

Below are some of the pictures of the food. My personal favorite was the light purple taro buns with gold leaf painted across them. Inside was a thick, golden custard, almost like an egg yolk.

I hope that APALA members in other parts of the country consider holding local social events, too. We had a lot of fun.

Sesame balls on a blue plate.
Singapore noodles on a white plate
Gai lan in a white bowl
Bite of duck with cucumber
Duck on a platter with cucumber and onion and wrapper
Fried eggplant on a light blue plate
Black bean spare ribs in a white bowl
Fried dumplings in a bamboo steamer
Pork buns in a bamboo steamer

Photos courtesy of Tricia Greenstein