Welcome to the Year of the Rat!!! Wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous New Year! I don't normally check horoscopes until of course I feel that something is going really wrong. So, so far so good - knock on wood!
The week before Chinese New Year, a new friend (whom I met during the Emergency Preparedness Meeting a few months ago) invited me and the boys to have dim sum in Little Saigon. This Vietnamese community was perhaps about 40 minutes away, a bit closer than I had expected. But gosh, was it busy! The line to wait for dim sum was over almost 1.5 hours!!! So we ditched that idea, spent probably another 15-20 minutes just trying to park the car, and walked into one of the first noodles stores that we saw. Yummy and cheap... perfect combination :-)
After that, we walked across the street to an open air market. Hey look! Lion dance!
I'm glad the boys were able to see a lion dance. It was one of my favorite things growing up in Malaysia. Graham ended up donating his "Emergency $1 ring" to the lion:
If you're wondering what Graham's "Emergency $1" is... it is a real $1 bill that Graham folds using origami into a ring that he wears on his finger. I will have to take a photo of this fancy ring the next time he makes/wears one! :-)
This place is crowded today. Boys are busy looking around and Mommy is busy trying to find some new Chinese New Year outfits for the boys:
I couldn't believe all the plants this place was selling!
We left the area and drove a little bit further down the street. After driving around and trying to find another parking spot for about 10+ minutes, we walk into a few stores. Hmm... "spicy baby crabs"??! Looks crunchy! No,... I didn't get any:
I did find some dinner! Roast duck and roast pork. YUMMMM!!! The duck was a bit on the skinny side but the remnants made some really good porridge the next day :-)
A New Year means a new door mat! No, not really but our old one was starting to look pretty bad. Love this new pineapple one and it was Bobby-approved!
I also hung some red lanterns that the boys made during the Chinese New Year festival organized by their Chinese school a couple of weekends ago. Check out this fog at night! How weird!
First day of Chinese New Year normally means a night of dumplings. This year, in addition to just making plain minced pork dumplings, I also had to make a vegan/veggie version - garlic, cabbage, spring onions/scallions, and "meatless" ground beef. I might have overdone the scallions but not too shabby!
Charlie was happily being Mommy's helper:
Graham is obviously having too much fun playing with Mommy's phone camera:
Charlie literally said "I waited a WHOLE YEAR to wrap dumplings!!!" I love his enthusiasm. I hope both boys continue this tradition when they are older:
Looking good!
Hmmm.... I wonder who is getting ALL that garlic to dip with their dumplings???!
Glad everyone is enjoying the meal! Graham and Charlie are still using training chopsticks:
Family we-fie!
I busted out some fancy chopsticks. I bought these chopsticks in Hong Kong many years ago. Might have been almost the same time I met Bobby in China. Something about chopsticks and bowls... I just love collecting them :-)
Successful dinner! And now, the next morning - somehow I was motivated to try and make some Chinese pancakes. The dough (just flour and hot water) had to rest for about 30 minutes. It was not rising as much as I thought, so I put it above our new electric fireplace. PS: Love LOVE this new fireplace!!! And the 3-D effect on the fire looks pretty cool too:
I love how Charlie pretends to be warming up his hands by the "fire". Ha ha!
The dough is still not quite rising!
The dough was rather thick with the first batch. I didn't quite completely read the last bit of the instructions where it says to flatten it to a specific height. Well, it was obviously too thick and did not cook all the way through :-(
For the 2nd batch, I tried folding it like the way my Grandma did (my dad's mom). She used to make these "lau ping" as we call it in Chinese all the time when we were growing up in Malaysia. I watched her plenty of times but never really did get my hands dirty to make them. How I wish I did now!
So okay, 2nd batch was edible but the texture was still not quite right. But then... on the 3rd and last batch, SUCCESS!!! It wasn't quite salty enough for the texture was perfect! Will have to attempt these again. My grandma would be so proud :-)
I did learn how to fold dumplings from my Nai Nai/grandma and watched her make dumpling skin from scratch. Charlie really wanted to make dumpling skin from scratch but I didn't quite have enough time that first night of Chinese New Year. Some day for sure!
In the meantime, we are trying our best to continue our Chinese tradition in the Lee-Pridgen household. I did buy some new outfits for Graham and Charlie. Not quite the traditional Chinese ones but these were from the Vietnamese community of Little Saigon:
The boys really love their outfits and I think it looks dashing! They didn't quite get their favorite color (they actually swapped colors!) but nonetheless they were more than happy to wear them.
Time to "pai nien" which means to pay respect to your elders and wish them a Happy New Year. And in return, the boys will get a red packet called "Ang Pow" that contains money in it.
This is obviously the boys' favorite part of Chinese New Year! It was definitely my favorite part when I was growing up in Malaysia. We would visit relatives and friends and end up with so many Ang Pows. And by the end of the night, we would take all the money out and count out all the cash. I still remember getting over RM$400 (ringgit) one night. Woohoo....! By the way, Chinese New Year last for 15 days which means you can get Ang Pows throughout those entire 15 days!
Although sometimes, my mom would have to "recycle" our money, as I put it. Since the banks were all closed during this holiday, she would sometimes run out of money and hence we would have to put back some of our money into ang pows and give it away to other kids and unmarried/single friends or relatives. Fun times. Ha!
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