Tis' the way we do our Lunar New Year reunion meal at home, and interesting it is too, for there is love, there is effort, there is celebration, and not only do we get our traditional favorites, we get to experiment with (new) dishes too.
Like the spicy meat dish that we had this year.
It was a surprise. Generally we tend not to do spicy stuff for Lunar New Year (chili sauce and chilies not counted) but this year it was decided that a little bit of chili a la Sichuan style would provide that extra kick to our traditional favorites, so out the dish came, in a special pink platter that we only use for special occasions.
It was a surprise. Generally we tend not to do spicy stuff for Lunar New Year (chili sauce and chilies not counted) but this year it was decided that a little bit of chili a la Sichuan style would provide that extra kick to our traditional favorites, so out the dish came, in a special pink platter that we only use for special occasions.
And it was thought that more vegetables would make the meal much prettier, tastier and healthier, so for this year we had an abundance of lettuce, plus an abundance of cherry tomatoes. I particularly wanted more of the yellow tomatoes, and The Parents kindly obliged.
There were mushrooms- button ones- which we broke tradition and dipped with Thousand Island coz The Parents felt it sort of balanced out the East and West.
There were the fish balls- the fried ones- for the element of fun, which was what we really wanted, coz equality is important to us, and The Family being a small one, what were we going to do with one of those huge steamed fishes, tell?
Our reunion dinners have grown more unconventional as the years go by. For some, consistency may be the key, but for The Family, being together is all that matters, and whatever we do, just so long as we break no traditional rules, hey, that's fine.
Reunion meals become more of a surprise, and thus more enjoyable as well. It's like, you won't know what it is you will get for the year, you won't know what to expect and so we all go with the flow. It can be cuttlefish balls and mushrooms together on one plate for one year, and it can be specially ordered roast duck for another. On one year we can do bottles of Fanta orange (for nostalgic purposes) and maybe a tub of ice cream, on another, we can do pink guava juice and Thai sesame cracker rolls.
But there'll always be the familiars and the favorites. There'll always be a citrus fruit somewhere (coz we all want the Vitamin C and the 'gold'!), we'll always have the dong dong dong qiang festive music blasting through the player, and we'll always have the flowers, the snacks, the red packets, and the siew mai.
Because dim sum is pretty much a Cantonese thing, we're Cantonese, and because I have a special thing for steamed siew mai.
There were the fish balls- the fried ones- for the element of fun, which was what we really wanted, coz equality is important to us, and The Family being a small one, what were we going to do with one of those huge steamed fishes, tell?
Our reunion dinners have grown more unconventional as the years go by. For some, consistency may be the key, but for The Family, being together is all that matters, and whatever we do, just so long as we break no traditional rules, hey, that's fine.
Reunion meals become more of a surprise, and thus more enjoyable as well. It's like, you won't know what it is you will get for the year, you won't know what to expect and so we all go with the flow. It can be cuttlefish balls and mushrooms together on one plate for one year, and it can be specially ordered roast duck for another. On one year we can do bottles of Fanta orange (for nostalgic purposes) and maybe a tub of ice cream, on another, we can do pink guava juice and Thai sesame cracker rolls.
But there'll always be the familiars and the favorites. There'll always be a citrus fruit somewhere (coz we all want the Vitamin C and the 'gold'!), we'll always have the dong dong dong qiang festive music blasting through the player, and we'll always have the flowers, the snacks, the red packets, and the siew mai.
Because dim sum is pretty much a Cantonese thing, we're Cantonese, and because I have a special thing for steamed siew mai.