Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, and school vacation week all hitting at the same time, not to mention President's Day, and a friend says that her Lent is beginning before Ash Wednesday... wow, busy weekend!

For my home, other than the lovely day off I get for President's Day, the big thing is Chinese New Year. The immediate family gets together for a yummy dinner together to close the year - this year Mom made my absolutely favorite soup (Watercress soup), vermicelli with ground pork, baked fish, tomato shrimp, roasted chicken, and a bunch of other dishes, and we finished off with some fresh fruit and a mango tart from Costco.

We then get together as an extended family for an opening of the year meal - we used to head over to Grandma's for lunch of a mix of homecooked dishes and take-out, but this year we'll be off to a Chinese restaurant for dinner.

Growing up, we went all out - or a toned down version of what my parents experienced growing up in Hong Kong - with a big house cleaning, decorating the house with flowers and a whole freshly killed and cooked chicken (head and all), a new item of clothing to wear, yummy dishes that we don't get to eat at other times of the year, and we kids received lucky red pockets of money. This year, Mom made sure that she picked up some fak go (steamed glutinous rice muffins) that she'll steam up for breakfast.And she considered having me make a baked version of lean go (glutinous rice cake) for dessert, but with the mango tart in the freezer, she decided against it. Later we'll be slicing up that store bought yellow sugar based lean go that Mom likes to serve dipped in egg and fried so it is tender and sweet inside and savory outside.And sometime this week, we'll be making homemade spring rolls... Yum! Happy Year of the Tiger!