Happy Year of the Rooster!

It's Chinese (or Lunar) New Year time!  Like Christmas, it's celebrated for several weeks; though, new year is celebrated after the holiday more than before it.  Last weekend, Mama, Sis, and Bud went down for a glorious overnight with Ma, Gong, and Goo.  I stayed behind with Eris (whose tail--injured and infected so that she had stitches and a cone--is much improved), who is still separated from the other cats.  They went for a longer stay than usual because Sis wanted lessons in cooking all the special new year's food--duck, chicken, sweet taro paste, and more.  She had a wonderful time, making her own recipe book.  She brought some of the food home to me--so good!  As usual, Bud has several kung fu performances, including two this weekend.  His school is hosting a big 10th- anniversary celebration in a few weeks, also part of the new year.   Also this weekend, Sis has a Girl Scout Lunar New Year party, where they'll learn to make Vietnamese spring rolls.  It's a special year for the kiddos and Ma because they are Roosters, born in the year of the Rooster.  And though the kids are 12 this year by our reckoning, they turned 13 on new year's by Chinese reckoning (they're one year when born and then age on new year, not their birthdays.)

Which means they are already teenagers.

Monkey Business

We celebrated the Year of the Monkey today, on Chinese New Year's eve.  It was our usual day of rituals and feasting, with the kids old enough to help out more with both.

Here they are carefully molding the rice for the presentation table to the ancestors.

Sis makes some pork meatballs for the broth.

The family altar where we say prayers to the Buddha.

Offerings to the Buddha, which the kids helped transfer after prayers.

Bud helps pour liquor for the ancestors.

The table for the ancestors.

There was a new empty chair at the table, for Mama's grandfather, Lao Gong.

Aren't these pretty?  Red bean paste buns.

Chicken, pork, and duck.

Paper money to burn for the ancestors.

Burning the paper money.

Not pictured is the groaning table of food that we sit down to after all of the prayers.  Many of the foods are reheated and combined in soups and stir fries.  I love the stir-fried fresh bean leaves and also the Buddha noodles with bean curd skin, dates, mushrooms, and gingko nuts.  Oh, and the taro with coconut milk.  The kids love the soup with the meatballs and fish cakes and the fresh chicken.  This year there was duck, which Ma made herself, with brown sugar and black soy sauce and a long salt-curing and then simmering.  Mama loves it all (except gingko nuts!)  And there are so many candies and sweets, each year is slightly different depending on what is available where (Ma and Gong visit dozens of stores in various areas--Manhattan Chinatown, Flushing, Bay Ridge, Avenue Q, etc.--in the week or so leading up to today.  In fact, one shop owner harassed Ma for buying so much!  And wouldn't even give her a box, wanted to charge her for it.  But the shop makes old-fashioned Chinese sweets so Ma puts up with them!)  This year there were candied kumquats and lotus seeds, various nut and seed bars, red bean paste buns, coconut buns, "smiley face" sesame balls, these peanut-filled "empanadas," sponge cakes, sesame buns with lotus paste, and these awful Osmanthus candies that Mama found (they looked good, though.)  You'll notice that most of the foods have red dots--Ma meticulously paints each piece or places a small paper cut out dot, as a blessing.  Her hands were noticeably red today.

Also, you can't quite tell that most of us are wearing red along with a new item of clothing--this year, we all got black Millennium Falcon t-shirts!!!   The house is also decorated with lots of red and gold, both old decorations of symbolic paper money and new Monkey things.  I don't think I took any photos of the decorations, though I did shoot a video of my favorite singing turtle, which flashes while you hear the song "Gong xi ni!" (sung over and over again in a squeaky girl's voice.)  I'll see if I can eventually link to the video here.

At the very end of the day, right before we pack the car with enough leftovers for days plus makings for the Buddha soup on the seventh day, we exchange red envelopes, "ang bao."  This is when we say our little chant, ""Xing jia eu-ei, xing ni huac chai, ang bao tua tua kai."  The amount of money in your envelope is related to your age, which is calculated slightly different--you are one on the day you are born (you get credit for womb time) and then turn 2 on your first Chinese New Year, so you are always about 2 years older than your Western age.  So in this case, the kids got a multiple of $12, plus $2 for luck.  (They get more than the adults, being kids, but later when they have jobs, they are supposed to give us envelopes.)  

And so we drove home, ready to start a new year . . . .which might just begin with a snow delay or even a day off!

Xing Jia Eu-Ei!

Happy Year of the Sheep, or Goat or even Ram/Ewe (see the NYTimes article on the difficulties of translating the Mandarin)!

But because of the death of Lao Gong, or great-grandfather, we are still in mourning, at least as far as wearing red and having a big party goes, as I understand.

Also, with Ma and Gong out of the country, we aren't obviously going to their house for a big meal and observance as usual.

In fact, we're not sure what we're doing.  The kiddos have been invited to their bus mate's house (her parents are from mainland China) to roll dumplings on Sunday.   Dumplings aren't part of our family's tradition, which is based in Guangdong (which capital is Canton), but it will be a fun activity.  We have lots of snack foods, which we picked in Flushing, but they don't make a meal  (though, they'll be good to send on Sunday to the little friend's house.)

Today, I went to a friend's annual Tet celebration, which is Vietnamese New Year.  She has held a potluck luncheon for several years, with everyone bringing what they can--some get take-out from Chinese or Vietnamese places, others attempt an Asian recipe, and still others just bring something else.  My friend puts out makings for noodle bowls, with rice noodles, lettuce, cilantro, cucumber, sweet and sour sauce, and deep fried egg rolls to cut up over everything.  So good!  (minus the cilantro, of course)  I took dried plums, red plum wafers, and almond cookies, all from Flushing, which Ma helped me choose.

My friend also had coconut sticky rice, which was much sweeter and creamier than Ma's version (I'm surprised to find I don't have her recipe; must get it), but still very good.  She served it with sliced persimmons (we serve it with mangoes.)

So, I give you my friend's version, in case you'd like to make your own little Sheep celebration, and wish you a happy, lucky, healthy, prosperous year.


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Miss D's Coconut Sticky Rice

3 cups rice
3 cups unsweetened coconut milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Mix all ingredients and cook in rice cooker.

Serve with sliced fruit.  Yum!

D.S.

Everything's Coming Up Kumquats!

While keeping an eye on the forecast for 2-6" of snow tomorrow and prepping for said snow, I did a few fun things around the house.  Mainly, I candied a pint of kumquats I'd picked up in Flushing over the weekend.  I have a soft spot for the orange-y fruit, intrigued by the bitter pulp and sweet skin, so backwards from other citrus.  I also like the extremely sweet candied kumquats we sometimes have at Chinese New Year's, with it's shell-like coating of sugar crystals on the outside.  Today was my first attempt at candying citrus since a terrible mishap almost twenty years ago, when I burned a pot, the peel I'd labored over, and my own ego.  Ugh.  

But today it worked!  And they're so much better than the crystallized ones.  They retain some of their bitterness which provides an unexpected sophistication to them.  I have a whole jar full of them  . . . I can see them paired with vanilla ice cream, cream fraiche, or maybe even cheesecake!

And while I waited for the kumquats to boil (twice in water, twice in sugar), I doodled on my recyclable coffee cup!

Candied Kumquats

I got some kumquats in Flushing but knew I’d never finish them all, so I looked up how to candy them and found this recipe in the NYTimes.  My last experience candying citrus ended with a burned pot, burned peel, and lots of tears—almost 20 years ago.  But today’s attempt went well.  They aren’t sugary sweet like the ones you buy in Chinatown, instead keeping some of the ir bitterness for an unexpectedly sophisticated flavor.

1 pint kumquats or 4 Meyer lemons, washed and destemmed

1 ½ cups sugar

In a small saucepan, cover the fruit with cold water and bring to a boil. Drain. Cover the fruit with cold water and bring to a boil again. Drain and set aside.

In the same saucepan, combine 1 cup water and the sugar, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pierce each piece of fruit 2 or 3 times with a paring knife. Drop the fruit into the sugar syrup and continue to simmer for 15 minutes for kumquats or 20 minutes for lemons.

Remove from heat and leave the fruit steeping in the syrup unrefrigerated for 8 hours or overnight.

Bring the syrup and fruit to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Cool and store in a glass jar. Fruit and syrup will keep in the refrigerator for 3 months.

NYTimes

Family in Flushing

We went to Flushing today, where there is a large Chinese community, to spend time with Ma and Gong before they head to Bangkok for two months to visit ailing Lao Gong ("great-grandfather.")

In one little block on Kissena Boulevard, we did some grocery shopping for our own New Year's celebration, looked at the Chen Family shrine (actually Gong's family name), ate dim sum, and went to a traditional Chinese bakery.  Whew.  Plus got leftovers for dinner tonight and snacks for several days to come.


As always, the grocery store was packed.  Stores in Flushing, in my experience, are always packed.  And I'm always the tallest, whitest person there.  It's not a shock like it used to be--if you're Caucasian, how often are you the only one?  Sure, it happens to Mama everyday in Connecticut but never to me.  Years and years ago, I used to feel very out of place, very unwanted, very in the way, and very sure that whatever I was doing was a complete social offense.  Now, not so much.  I realize I'm just not that important.  And I'm good at staying out of the way.  Other things about Chinese groceries I've been to:  there are always very strong scents, usually from the open-air fish market, but also from the row after row of mounds of vegetables.  We bemoan American love of processed food, but the Chinese have packaged crap in spades.  Also, today, I noticed three different packages with the same cathedral on the front . . . . cathedral??  I think it was to denote that the snacks inside were European in some way (they were all cookies, though a couple were traditional Chinese cookies.)  Interesting.  The kids picked up lots of foods they like--dried seaweed, udon and soba noodles, lychee gummies, Pocky, lychee drink, coconut gels, Asian pears, dried squid, prawn chips.  Mama also restocked our pantry with soy sauce, noodles, and other things for new year's.  I picked up some snacks--dried persimmons and those Chinese "cathedral" cookies--for a New Year's party I've been invited to in a few weeks.  It's the Year of the Ram, so Ma bought us Ram decorations for the house.

Then we went to lunch.  I've posted about dim sum before and the foods were much the same, though now the kids know what they like.  Sis loves shumai and fried dumplings, lotus buns and custard buns, mango dofu, and don tot (custard tarts.)  Bud likes shumai and chicken feet and various rice noodle and tofu skin wraps with various fillings.  Mama eats all that, plus tripe soup!  I had boiled greens, steamed chive dumplings, steamed vanilla cake, almond dofu, and coconut dofu.  And we took home a little of all of it.


For any of you who might be going to China, some dim sum tips:

• First, I don't know if mainland dim sum is anything like American dim sum, so watch others and follow along;
• tables are big and round and unless your group is big, if the restaurant is crowded, you'll be seated with others;
• hold on to that little "scorecard."  The staff will stamp it with a different stamp for each basket you buy.  If you wander the restaurant to look at items on the sidelines, like stews, take the card with you;
• feel free to point and stare and sniff and then refuse the item, or take it, as you desire;
• things aren't always what they seem--there's always an almond-coated ball that looks like a sweet to me, but contains fish.  There's lots of fish and even more shrimp, in everything;
• sweets and savories all come around at the same time, so if you want it, TAKE IT WHEN YOU SEE IT, because lots of times, you might not see a dish again;
• if you run out of tea in your pot, turn the lid upside down on the top and put the pot near the edge of the table; 
• tapping on the table with two fingers (index and middle) is the sign for thank you (for example, if someone pours you tea--the youngest pours--you tap your fingers next to your cup);
• usually, they'll give you to-go boxes--if the food is on your table, it's yours.

You'd think that was enough food, but after lunch, we went to the bakery.  It's self-serve, with a paper-covered tray and tongs for you to select coconut cream buns and poundcakes, lotus buns and "pineapple" buns (called that for the scoring on the outside.)

Pretty soon afterwards, we headed back to Ma and Gong's house  . . . to digest all of that food!  Which the kids did by learning some of Ma and Gong's Tai Chi Fan forms!

Gong Xi Ni!!!

It's that time again:  Chinese New Year!  This time, the Year of the Horse.  As always, we prayed, served the ancestors, lit incense, bowed with the food, burned paper money, and ate.  We ate a lot:  fruits and candies from the altar, then chicken, pork, duck, a whole fish (and fish ball soup), a vegetarian Buddhist delight (for me--mushrooms, tofu "skin", noodles, baby corn, etc.), vegetables, homemade fried tofu, and taro with coconut milk for (one) dessert, PLUS more store-bought desserts.  My in-laws shop at about 10 stores in preparation the week before, never knowing exactly what will be best to buy.  This year there were my favorite candied kumquats, sesame puff sticks (ok, yes, these are all my names--it just doesn't translate!), sesame balls, egg custard tarts, peanut "empanadas," almond sesame seed cookies, soy sauce cakes, dried persimmons, etc etc etc.

I described it all in (much better) detail a few years back.

We also played with Goo, practiced some Tai Chi (my in-laws are taking a class; I'm considering it), watched some (awful, high-pitched, too cutesy) Chinese New Year song videos with three little girls (sometimes it's boys and girls), and also watched some Winter Olympics.

And of course, my favorite part:  singing along to the Gong Xi Ni golden light-up turtle!  (The video of which I can't seem to upload here.)

We always watch the latest New Year's video with cutesy singers.

The table is set for the ancestors, with incensed burned three times.

The home altar

Paper money is burned as an offering to the ancestors after the praying is done.

Rice, tea, and liquor served to the ancestors

Burning the money.

SOME of the food

The foods from the altar.  The red dots make it all extra special.

The table from another angle.

The Old Guard

It was the mixing of the old playgroup, in part, and new friends at a Lunar New Year celebration today.  I rarely see the friend who hosted the party anymore--her children go to a different school--after almost five years of weekly encounters.  The same with most of my old playgroup--we might run into each other at the store or at extra-curricular activities, but nothing matches the intensity of the toddler years.  So it was delightful to spend time with some of them (not nearly all and I missed the ones who would have been there if it had been a playgroup.)  And, while we greeted the others and even conversed (some even knew each other!), we congregated together, catching up . . . . while eating wonderful food, as usual (indeed, my fourth post ever mentioned all of the food)!

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Hello Ladies----
It was so great to see everyone today, thank you so much for such a lovely afternoon.  Here is a link to the cake recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Flourless-Chocolate-Cake-14478

The only thing I would say is that when it calls for wax paper I would use a layer of parchment instead (with the buttered parchment layer on top of it), I don't think it's great to bake with wax paper. 

Anyway, I felt fed on many different levels today, so great to catch up with you all!  

xoxoxoxo

Flourless Chocolate Cake
4 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder plus additional for sprinkling
Accompaniment if desired: Coconut Lime Sorbet
preparation
Preheat oven to 375°F and butter an 8-inch round baking pan. Line bottom with a round of wax paper and butter paper.
Chop chocolate into small pieces. In a double boiler or metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt chocolate with butter, stirring, until smooth. Remove top of double boiler or bowl from heat and whisk sugar into chocolate mixture. Add eggs and whisk well. Sift 1/2 cup cocoa powder over chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 25 minutes, or until top has formed a thin crust. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes and invert onto a serving plate.
Dust cake with additional cocoa powder and serve with sorbet if desired. (Cake keeps, after being cooled completely, in an airtight container, 1 week.)

Kidbits

Bud lost a tooth.  Literally.  He came home with one missing on the bottom.  He noticed it was gone on the playground, probably either dropped or swallowed.  But he much prefers to think it fell out (and frankly so do I).  And he was very worried that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't come if there wasn't actually a tooth.  No worries on that score.

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Over dinner the other night, Bud told Sis that he could read her mind.  "Prove it," she challenged him.

"I don't want to right now," he demurred.

She kept insisting and so he gave it a try.  But she said he got it wrong.

His explanation?  "I was reading another part of your mind."

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The kids were practicing their "ang bao" rhyme for Chinese New Year, with my help.  Of course, I don't speak Mandarin or Teochew (our family's dialect), but I can pronounce the words atonally so I was helping.

Well, come time for the kids to perform the rhyme for Ma and Gong to ask for the envelopes and the family started laughing.  The "tua tua" part the way I pronounced it, and taught the kids, sounded like "peanut" in Thai (another language I don't speak that the family does), not "big" in Chinese, and everyone thought this was funny.  Because, of course, the last thing you want is a peanut-sized envelope!  So I laughed and said that in one of the languages I know, Latin, "tua" is your.  And asking for other people's envelopes isn't a bad idea.  

Chinese New Year: Wrap-Up

As you could see from all the pictures, we had a wonderful, if belated, celebration of Chinese New Year at my in-laws' house in NYC this weekend.  Chinese New Year is actually, in part, a sacred, ritualized, private family holiday, with lots of prayers and food.  I've been celebrating with them now for several years  but learn new things each time (see here for my best description of the holiday).  This year, I realized:

• I have trouble praying on schedule.  We pray at the altar of the Buddha to present the food and then we pray with incense, approximately every 15 minutes, as the incense burns down by a third (at which point we add more incense and more sherry and tea), asking for luck, health, wealth, happiness, success, and all good things for the new year.  Anyway, I quietly recited some of my metta meditation but had trouble concentrating, and then finishing in the allotted schedule.  Also, while I've done some reading in Western Buddhism, in other words how it is generally interpreted and practiced here, even in its myriad guises (Zen, Tibetan, Theravadan), it is almost completely different when it is an actual Asian tradition (even though their version  is also Theravadan); the main difference is the praying to Buddha specifically, in the belief in numerous spiritual, celestial beings, that don't arise in the texts I've read.  Of course, Chinese New Year is also a Confucian ancestor ceremony.
• While Mama's family sets places for the ancestors, including Gong's grandfather and parents and Ma's mother (her father is in his 90s and doing well), this is unusual in that the woman's family is not generally included at all, but they wanted to acknowledge her.  Apparently, before Lao Ma's death, the seat was for Gong's father's childless first wife.  But apparently most recent deaths are more important.  Similarly, Ma's mother's paper money is in a separate basket from Gong's family money before we burn it.  The spirits don't mix and Ma doesn't want her mother to have to explain herself to Gong's ancestors. 
• The family's New Year table combines a few different traditions, including certain dishes from Cantonese tradition but also the platter of sweets which is a Teochew tradition.  The sweets are my favorite.
• Last night we ate the traditional Seven Vegetable Soup, on the seventh day of the New Year.  But Ma is not sure about the exact meaning of the soup. Each vegetable has a specific meaning but she doesn't know about the seventh day.  We laugh that it's to give you some vegetables after all the rich new year's sweets.

Chinese New Year: Ang Bao

Chinese New Year: Feast

Chinese New Year: Burnt Offerings for the Ancestors

Chinese New Year: Praying to the Ancestors, Three Times

Chinese New Year: Praying to Buddha

Chinese New Year: Preparations