It's New Year 2007- the second time round!
Chinese New Year fell on February 18 this year. Cathy and I thought we would celebrate at home by trying to mimic all the traditions we can remember.
Let's start with food. Well what I remember is we need to have fish (nian nian yo yi) so I grilled some Snapper. (I was supposed to cook it with ginger and black bean sauce but ran out of time). I threw some shrimps on the griller too for good measure. I recall shrimp was good to have on the Nea Year's Eve dinner table- either the color or the chinese character for it was lucky-- but in any case, even though I did not season it, it tasted good-- luckily.
=)
I also cooked some ampalaya with corned beef and egg; and beef with basil leaves. I don't know that these symbolized anything- I cooked what we felt like eating. On hindsight, ampalaya (bitter melon) was probably not the best choice for the occasion.- Meanwhile, Cathy cooked some sinigang na hipon. We capped off with some store-bought chocolate cream pie. - Overall dinner was yummy and we were full-- I think we fulfilled the intention of the New Year's Eve tradition, notwithstanding that we did not stick to the menu.
Separately, we made sure to fill our fruit platter. We were confused whether the right number of fruits was 9 or 12 and ended up with 11 (more from my poor counting skills-- I double counted the apple-- than anything else; I had meant to go with a dozen). Still and all, I thought it ended up looking pretty good.
Lastly, we tidied up the house a bit and opened all the lights. Cathy tells me the latter is a Filipino tradition and she is probably right. Still a few watts was not gonna hurt the electric bill we left them on till midnight.
We ended up braving the cold and watching the last full show of "Music and Lyrics" with a couple of friends. Thus did we usher the new year in with light hearts and full stomach. I'd be content if would be so lucky the entire year.
Happy Chinese New Year everyone.
Chinese New Year fell on February 18 this year. Cathy and I thought we would celebrate at home by trying to mimic all the traditions we can remember.
Let's start with food. Well what I remember is we need to have fish (nian nian yo yi) so I grilled some Snapper. (I was supposed to cook it with ginger and black bean sauce but ran out of time). I threw some shrimps on the griller too for good measure. I recall shrimp was good to have on the Nea Year's Eve dinner table- either the color or the chinese character for it was lucky-- but in any case, even though I did not season it, it tasted good-- luckily.
=)
I also cooked some ampalaya with corned beef and egg; and beef with basil leaves. I don't know that these symbolized anything- I cooked what we felt like eating. On hindsight, ampalaya (bitter melon) was probably not the best choice for the occasion.- Meanwhile, Cathy cooked some sinigang na hipon. We capped off with some store-bought chocolate cream pie. - Overall dinner was yummy and we were full-- I think we fulfilled the intention of the New Year's Eve tradition, notwithstanding that we did not stick to the menu.
Separately, we made sure to fill our fruit platter. We were confused whether the right number of fruits was 9 or 12 and ended up with 11 (more from my poor counting skills-- I double counted the apple-- than anything else; I had meant to go with a dozen). Still and all, I thought it ended up looking pretty good.
Lastly, we tidied up the house a bit and opened all the lights. Cathy tells me the latter is a Filipino tradition and she is probably right. Still a few watts was not gonna hurt the electric bill we left them on till midnight.
We ended up braving the cold and watching the last full show of "Music and Lyrics" with a couple of friends. Thus did we usher the new year in with light hearts and full stomach. I'd be content if would be so lucky the entire year.
Happy Chinese New Year everyone.
1 comment:
Very nice! I noticed there's 1 thing you forgot to include in your fruit platter though - pineapple! :)
We didn't do any of that coz we were at family parties for both Friday and Saturday nights.
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