Year of the Boar
This is the 2nd day of The Year Of The Boar. If the rest of the year is anything like the eve and the first couple of days, I say bring it on!
What has become tradition in our family is our friends coming over for New Year's Eve reunion dinner. These are friends who are like family to us. Here are some of the dishes prepared for that day.
A special request by friends and family every year is TAU YEW BAK, which is braised pork belly in soy sauce. PT's eldest daughter called on New Year's Eve to make sure I'd saved some for her as in the previous two years, our guests had polished everything before their visit. This year, I doubled the portions and saved some especially for family visiting on the first day of New Year. That meant cooking 4kg of pork belly and shoulder!
Jew Hoo Char (jacima beans/sengkuang fried with shredded cuttlefish) is a dish which is special to me. Chinese New Year reunion dinner is not complete with this dish. A dish which symbolizes abundance as cuttlefish sounds like "always have" in Hokkien. I can eat this alone with lettuce and forego all the other dishes. This dish reminds me of CNY's of my childhood in Ipoh.
More auspicious sounding dishes were lotus root soup for longevity, "ho see fatt choy" (dried oysters with hair fungus) for all good things and prosperity, emperor chicken so we all live like emperors, "ha ha tai siew" (prawns) for lots of laughter throughout the year, "nien gao" (steamed sweet cake with grated coconut) for promotion and advancement in our career, stir-fried sweet peas for a sweet year ahead and of course "loe sang" for obvious reasons. I believe we have all the important things in life covered!
The reunion dinner ended about 5am, with most of our friends crashing at our place. By late morning, the party started again when we got up and our family joined us. My brothers and their family, PT's daughters and family and our friends who stayed over. It was a noisy house but I love it! Kids were playing, adults were chatting, lots of cooking and buzz in the house.
In the evening, I suddenly realised I've not heard Adam's voice for a while. I found him sprawled on the sofa, fast asleep!
After his power nap and a shower, he was playing again. Here's the biker chick and biker dude!
Today we visited PT's 80+ year old aunt and we visited my aunt too. Most times, holidays and family getting together are portrayed in a negative light in the movies. Dysfunctional family members fighting over dinner and not getting along. I am so happy that that doesn't apply to us as I love visiting family and I love having family and friends over.
I've not come to the best part yet. Even with all the excitement and being super busy, I have not missed a single day of gym! Yes, I've been going to the gym! More of that in another post in the near future!
What has become tradition in our family is our friends coming over for New Year's Eve reunion dinner. These are friends who are like family to us. Here are some of the dishes prepared for that day.
A special request by friends and family every year is TAU YEW BAK, which is braised pork belly in soy sauce. PT's eldest daughter called on New Year's Eve to make sure I'd saved some for her as in the previous two years, our guests had polished everything before their visit. This year, I doubled the portions and saved some especially for family visiting on the first day of New Year. That meant cooking 4kg of pork belly and shoulder!
Jew Hoo Char (jacima beans/sengkuang fried with shredded cuttlefish) is a dish which is special to me. Chinese New Year reunion dinner is not complete with this dish. A dish which symbolizes abundance as cuttlefish sounds like "always have" in Hokkien. I can eat this alone with lettuce and forego all the other dishes. This dish reminds me of CNY's of my childhood in Ipoh.
More auspicious sounding dishes were lotus root soup for longevity, "ho see fatt choy" (dried oysters with hair fungus) for all good things and prosperity, emperor chicken so we all live like emperors, "ha ha tai siew" (prawns) for lots of laughter throughout the year, "nien gao" (steamed sweet cake with grated coconut) for promotion and advancement in our career, stir-fried sweet peas for a sweet year ahead and of course "loe sang" for obvious reasons. I believe we have all the important things in life covered!
The reunion dinner ended about 5am, with most of our friends crashing at our place. By late morning, the party started again when we got up and our family joined us. My brothers and their family, PT's daughters and family and our friends who stayed over. It was a noisy house but I love it! Kids were playing, adults were chatting, lots of cooking and buzz in the house.
In the evening, I suddenly realised I've not heard Adam's voice for a while. I found him sprawled on the sofa, fast asleep!
After his power nap and a shower, he was playing again. Here's the biker chick and biker dude!
Today we visited PT's 80+ year old aunt and we visited my aunt too. Most times, holidays and family getting together are portrayed in a negative light in the movies. Dysfunctional family members fighting over dinner and not getting along. I am so happy that that doesn't apply to us as I love visiting family and I love having family and friends over.
I've not come to the best part yet. Even with all the excitement and being super busy, I have not missed a single day of gym! Yes, I've been going to the gym! More of that in another post in the near future!
Labels: holidays tradition family
posted by Min Chan at
7:43 pm
6 Comments:
Oopps, I drooled on my keyboard while looking at ur blog!! Everything looks so delish. Keep up the good work on working out eventhough it's the hols season!
Imagine cooking all the food and having to abstain from overeating! I at a lot of the jew hoo char which is relatively healthy lah.
On the first day of CNY, I was actually thinking of going to the gym! Fortunately, my session after the hols was on Monday. I was eager to work out again! I am a changed person lah...
same here! i was drooling on my keyboard also. well... i've finished my exams~ yeai! n i think it'll be ok also~ haha
so so nice! im going home tomolo~ gonna so so fill my belly wif all the nice food n especially yue sang! so so miss it!
happy new year!
Have a safe trip back, noto. And just in time for some yue sang too!
gong xi fa cai :)
adriene
Happy CNY.
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