Today is New Year's Eve (year of the Ox). Customarily, we would spend today gathered with family for a reunion dinner. However, living in America and having family scattered all over the country, it is tough to keep this tradition alive.
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| Kids practising the dragon dance for the new year |
When I came to America over thirty years ago, I stayed with my aunt in Philadelphia and worked part-time at her restaurant. I am forever grateful to her and her husband for their hospitality and kindness. Since then, I finished college, got married, and moved to different parts of the country. Recently, I found myself living in the same area as my aunt and her sisters. They are now in their late 60s and are retired. Every so often, we would get together and cook up a storm while reminiscing about the old times, our home country Malaysia and the food we grew up with.
This is our third new year celebration together. We had our reunion dinner one day earlier than usual (guess we couldn't wait to usher out 2008!) We whipped up a lavish dinner. I made my annual new year cake (made from glutinous rice flour, and baked instead of the traditional steamed). For some mind boggling reason, the cake turned out different - more like a biscotti than the sticky chewy rice cake...Huh? I'm still baffled about what went wrong. The good news is that the "biscotti" was good and everybody loved it!
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| New Year cake with red bean paste, topped with coconut flakes |
That felt like an auspicious beginning of the year to me.
May the new year bring peace, health and much happiness!
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Happy Niu Year!
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting our blog, and for your kind comments!
RYC: we got the matcha powder at a Japanese grocery store in San Jose. You could probably buy some online. Get the good stuff.
Thanks for visiting my blog. Phyllo dough can be used for both borek and baklava. Only the particular Spinach borek you commented on happened to be made differently as there are different types of boreks.
ReplyDeleteYour cruising is so interesting. It should be fun to be cruising around all the time.
I meant to wish you a happy new year in my previous comment and clicked the post comment button too fast!
ReplyDeleteHappy Chinese New Year!