CNY @ Home

It's Good Friday today.

And I've just looked at the pictures of the Chinese New Year Lunch that we had at hoem this year.

It's wonderful seeing these pictures again.

Especially since Chinese New Year is a quiet affair in our household these days. We dont' go out visiting very much, and many of the rituals  that we used to do, we dont' do anymore. 

Still, life is such that festive occasions are as important as the day to day, and it doesn't matter whether it differs year on year. 

We have our traditions, of course.

Every year we bring out the candy tray, decorate it with little flowers, shiny little streamers and a smattering of fresh oranges. 

Some years we decide not to have mandarin oranges or oranges. 

We have grapefruit instead. :)

It isnt everything that can be easily switched around, however. 

There are some things which are harder to compromise. 

Mushrooms, for example. 

You can't do away with mushrooms. 

They're significant. 

There's never been a year where we've never had mushrooms on the table. 

But the type of mushroom varies though. 

Tradition says you are supposed to have the big, big mushrooms or the shiitake mushrooms in your pen cai for the season. 

But in case you don't feel like going all the way down to the dried goods shop, you can alternate it with the button types instead. 

That's what we did this year.

Got ourselves a large can from the supermarket, split it up into four portions, and put one portion onto the plate together with the siew mais, the ngoh hiangs and the bits of lettuce. 

I have to say it did make for a very pretty sight. 

I'm really glad for the siew mais. 

They're one of my favorites when it comes to celebration meals. 

And we have them at birthdays, Christmas, Easter, and Chinese New Year. 

They dont' have to be the dim sum stall kind. 

The frozen ones bought from the supermarket which you then have to throw into the steamer are actually pretty good too.  

Ngoh hiangs, however, are new to the menu. 

The Parents took a liking to them, and next thing I knew, they started appearing on our table last year, or the year prior. 

We had a salad of fresh lettuce and cherry tomatoes with mayonnaise as dressing. 

We had a dish of specially prepared noodles that had tomatoes, cuttlefish balls, beef balls, lettuce leaves, seafood wantons, and sausages bobbing about inside.

And there was even a plate of paus left over from The Parents' breakfast which we decided to keep for tea time. 

We finished off the food bought up from the cai fan stall though. Stir fried potatoes, stir fried pumpkins, chili brinjals and meat patties dont' keep very well. 

It was a very lovely afternoon we had. 

Over our music player we had Chinese New Year songs (in Cantonese) blasting. 

We had good conversation. 

And we continued the celebration all the way until dinner time where we ate up the box of sam lor hor fun The Parent had bought up from the zichar stall, we all shared a bowl of soup containing more lettuce leaves, more tomatoes, more mushrooms, more cuttlefish balls and more seafood wantons, and closed off the 2022 CNY celebrations with a cup of coffee each, and a cute little tub of of warm vanilla ice cream.