We have been spending some time with some international friends and were lucky to be invited to a Spring Festival celebration in honour of the Lunar New Year. I've been to a few of these celebrations in New Zealand, and always enjoyed the lantern festival in Albert Park - with the culinary delights that that brings - but this celebration was unique, as they all probably are. We only had one Chinese person from China, and many people from Korea, Singapore (both Indian and Chinese), Taiwan, and America. We each brought a traditional favourite food from our own countries particular to the holiday. As it is not our holiday, I chose a favourite dessert and took that - the rasberry lemon bars. They were a hit (and the only dessert).
The food was very special and delicious, and largely unknown to me. There was one particularly spicy rice noodle dish which had everyone blowing their noses. I think my favourite was the chicken, peanut sauce, and cucumber wrapped in lettuce. YumBo. Following the food, we made New Year decorations which created the Chinese character for spring in 3D. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos - I wanted to bring them home but Jbird thought it would be polite to leave them there to decorate the host's house.
The hosts had organised a really fun Singaporean tradition where everyone piles a different food on a plate as we were told the blessing this food would bring. There were 16 ingredients including pomelo, jelly fish, five spices, white pepper, cucumber, pickled mango, and smoked salmon. With chopsticks, we mixed all the food together as a group by lifting it all up, high above the plate. It was really messy - I was covered in honey and jelly fish - but created a delicious fresh dish. I only had a small taste as I wanted to avoid the jelly fish and smoked salmon, I'm unsure of the safety of eating those when pregnant. As we munched, people were all talking about the different blessings the different ingredients were going to bring them. The night ended with everyone being given Hong Bao - the red envelopes with money. I'm sure these are normally reserved for children, but it was a sweet treat regardless.
The hosts had organised a really fun Singaporean tradition where everyone piles a different food on a plate as we were told the blessing this food would bring. There were 16 ingredients including pomelo, jelly fish, five spices, white pepper, cucumber, pickled mango, and smoked salmon. With chopsticks, we mixed all the food together as a group by lifting it all up, high above the plate. It was really messy - I was covered in honey and jelly fish - but created a delicious fresh dish. I only had a small taste as I wanted to avoid the jelly fish and smoked salmon, I'm unsure of the safety of eating those when pregnant. As we munched, people were all talking about the different blessings the different ingredients were going to bring them. The night ended with everyone being given Hong Bao - the red envelopes with money. I'm sure these are normally reserved for children, but it was a sweet treat regardless.
We also had our own little celebration with Yann, nothing like your but special nonetheless. We talked to Cathy and all his friends and relatives on WeChat, the Chinese talking txt app and sung them a little ditty, something a little different to celebrate the occasion!
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