A few Christmases ago, we stopped by the new house of some good friends of ours to find the halls decked to the nines. Our hosts explained that they wanted to create family traditions for the kids -- so, among other things, the kids would want to spend the holidays with their parents when they grew up.
We really liked the idea of creating our own family holiday traditions, but we weren't sure how to implement the idea, since we rarely spend the holidays at home. Christmas and Thanksgiving are usually celebrated either on the East Coast, with our parents, or in Hong Kong, with Deb's extended family. In fact, in the 10 years since we moved to California, we've only spent one Christmas in the state!
That's why we really wanted to do something for this year's Lunar New Year, which fortuitously fell on a long weekend for both of us. However, with various work, church, and social obligations, we found ourselves struggling to get our new year dinner together for Sunday night. Fortunately, with the help of some phone calls to our parents and the gracious labor of our dinner guests, we were able to throw a decent lunar new year meal together in about two hours.
Dumplings are the cornerstone of the lunar new year meal in northern China, since dumplings are associated with prosperity; they resemble a Chinese tael and stuffing dumplings has been likened to imparting good fortune. For many families, part of the tradition is sitting together to wrap the dumplings. While we didn't have time to do that for our dinner, we did enjoy some delicious potstickers -- courtesy of the frozen Ling Ling chicken and vegetable dumplings from Costco.
Nian gao, or sliced rice cake, is the new year food choice in most of southern China. "Nian nian gao" is a homophone for "each year more prosperous than the last". Deb cooked (on her first try!) a delicious savory nian gao stir fry that included sliced nian gao, diced chicken, napa cabbage, and mustard greens.
Fish is another traditional new year food, since the word for fish, "yu", is a homophone for "surpluses". 99 Ranch supplied two fried fish -- tilapia and ocean perch -- to which we added our own sauce. 99 Ranch also supplied two freshly-steamed Dungeness crab -- currently on sale at $3.69/lb. -- adding a touch of extravagance to the meal. Rounding out the meal was roasted asparagus -- not a very Asian preparation, but we did buy the asparagus at 99 Ranch, and no new year meal is complete without something fresh and green.
Something else necessary to complete the Chinese American new year meal is dessert, and nian gao came into play once more. We bought two cakes of sweet nian gao from 99 Ranch -- one regular, one with red bean -- sliced them, dipped them in egg, pan fried them, and dusted them with powdered sugar.
Beyond the food, the kids got red envelopes of money. While our kids have certainly gotten these before -- and these aren't only given during the new year celebrations -- we're starting to teach J more about money, and we introduced him to his first piggy bank (which had been sitting in its box in J's room for a year).
So that was our lunar new year. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a great family tradition; after all, it's the single biggest holiday in east Asia. Happy new year, everyone!
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