Ang Pow from my parents
Gong Xi Fa Cai! Ang Pow Na Lai! (Never gets old, that one)
Cute, square ang pows.
I quite like having another new year. It gives me fresh inspiration to do de-cluttering. Maybe we should have a new year every month. But my waistline couldn't take it.
The festivities roll by in a sweet almost-repeat of previous years, with familiar sights, sounds and smells: reunion dinner, making and tossing the yu-sheng, the gentle clash of mahjong tiles, snacking, snacking and more snacking.
Oh the familiar food favourites: steamboat, steamboat ingredients cooked teppenyaki style, chap chye, her-pio soup, bakuluat chicken (I'm pretty sure the spelling's not right...oh well, I'll explain it some day).
Steamboat (how blessed I feel to have this laden table). Chicken, Pork, Fish, Prawns, Mushrooms, Toufu, Veggies, Meatballs, Crabsticks. Chicken stock. Sambal Belachan and Sliced Red Chillies. Steamed White Rice. Oh we forgot the squid this year.
I half worry that when the time comes for someone else to take care of the cooking (i.e. me and the cousins), we won't know what to do. That's why I think of this blog as a kind of record of things. Things to eat. Things to cook. Things that happened.
But between me and my brother and cousins, we should be able to do a decent job. Case in point: kris and I did a haphazard arrangement of yu-sheng the first night. I was mortified that after all these years of eating it, I hadn't quite remembered how to arrange it. "Oh no! What will we do when it's our turn?", I go. "I'll remember from now on," says Kris comfortingly.
Memo: The brother knows how to arrange the yu-sheng.
The other thing I like about Chinese New Year is that it's the time of the year when I put on lots more gold jewellery, like this favourite bracelet that kris, gwen and I each have (shout-out to gwen, if you're reading this!). Our grandma gave it to us years ago, and although I thought it was supremely PIANG when I first received it, it's grown to be one of my most nostalgic & treasured items.
~ The End ~
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