Not too long ago, M1 openly complained that M2 has been very soft and called her a tofu; M2 took to heart her association with the food type.
We went out for dinner on one occasion and I happened to order tofu and scooped some for M2 to eat but she declined and said,”Mummy, I don’t eat my kind.”
“Huh?”
“She’s a tofu and she doesn’t eat her kind,” M1 explained.
Ahhh… What a clever new excuse to avoid food that one does not like.
It was during Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year that we discovered some very enlightening facts about hubby’s side of the family. Hubby’s uncle and cousin had painstakingly researched the family roots, tracing back to his great-grandfather, who was born in 1881 and emigrated here from China.
This means his grandfather is the first generation of the clan, hubby the third generation and my girls the fourth generation. I was awed because on my side, my only sibling and I are first generation; my Dad came from Singapore.
During the PowerPoint presentation, the whole clan learnt of the beginnings of the ancestors: how they met, when, where and all. There were even mug shots of the great-grandparents and it was one of the mugs that I commented, “Gosh! He looks European! Almost like an Italian!” to which M2 overheard and perked her up.
“Am I Italian?” she said.
Tickled by her question, I merely raised my eyebrow. She persisted.
“Am I Italian?”
I rolled my eyes and ignored her.
“Hmm. I must be because I like pizzas!” she decided and beamed.
It was a Wednesday and for two days in a row, we were going out for yet another dinner with friends. Hubby was just informing M1 about our plans.
“Going out again?! Why?” questioned M1.
Well, impromptu plans can coincide with plans made earlier. Indeed times have changed when it used to be the older questioning the younger but it’s the other way around now.
These past few days and the next few, it seems that all we do and think about is eating and eating well. Perhaps it is still the festive Lunar New Year/Chinese New Year that is in the air that we are making the extra effort to meet up with friends (and family) for the must-have Yee Sang for good luck along with hearty sumptuous Chinese meals.
We’ve been calling Chinese restaurants all over town to book tables only to be turned away as they have been fully booked. It looks like we are not the only ones with this eating mission in mind during this festive period. After all, Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days and there’s still a week to go.
Despite the set back from the more renowned restaurants, we managed. Today, I am booked for lunch with a girlfriend and later, dinner with friends and their children. Then the gastronomic adventure continues, with hubby and the girls, with dinners on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights with different groups of friends, culminating with a family dinner on Chap Goh Meh, the 15th and final day of the Lunar New Year on Friday!
This is what the Lunar New Year is all about, the Reunion Dinner. The mass exodus by the working people to their hometowns for this all important occasion with the family. This year our Reunion Dinner will be with my mother and my only sibling and his family. The Dinner is all the more significant with the inclusion of my niece who came back after graduating from college.
We opted for the occasion to be at home instead of going to a restaurant. Over the years, dining out became an option to entice people with the idea of just dining with no hassle of cooking or cleaning up. We tried this before but the matriach of the family feels this is very rushed and not personal. In other words, too commercialized to savor the true meaning of a reunion in comfort.
So we will enjoy dinner with mostly home-cooked meaningful dishes and some pre-ordered delicacies. Bottomline, it is not just the food that matters but the family being together. Tomorrow we travel to hubby’s hometown to be with his family.
The Year of the Horse has galloped in so fast that I feel I am totally unprepared for it. We have been having festivities one after another within such a short period, there’s hardly time to recover from the merry-making and planning. From Christmas to New Year and several birthday celebrations thrown in and now, Chinese New Year, a mere four days away!
And for the first time for as long as I can remember, I have left things until this late to prepare the necessary for the coming lunar new year. Although I am not a traditionalist, there are some traditions I still follow through as taught by my mother.
Also, for the first time, we are having the Pre-Chinese New Year Yee Sang rather late. I recall previous years, we would have had a couple or more of this dish prior to the new lunar year. This must-do dish is an experience by itself. Asians love to toss the condiments of the dish as high as possible for its significant connotations. The higher, the messier, the noisier, the better it is for prosperity and luck.
Last Friday, hubby and I had the Yee Sang and I almost comatosed from the six people 8-course lunch because firstly, it’s such a heavy lunch and secondly, ever since my detox diet recently, my tummy shrank and well, there is only so much I can consume.
Well the Horse has trotted in, whether I am prepared or not, and it looks like the next two weeks is basically about eating and merry-making. So I had better prepare myself to face this and have many more Yee Sang occasions for prosperity and luck!
I cannot believe another year has gone by so fast! Wasn’t it just yesterday the whole family was visiting the US – the adults catching up with some of our dearest friends and the children seeing what I deem as my favorite places from my college days? Wait a minute, that was last year! Dang.
The past few days I was reminiscing about this time of the year and out of the blue, the song by Band Aid (Do They Know It’s Christmas?) popped into my mind! Wow. That was dinosaur years ago. Watching the music video when John Taylor (of Duran Duran) fleetingly appeared made my heart skipped a beat even after all these years. Sigh…
It’s such a classic and oldie now, that song.
This year I decided to host the family Christmas (eve) dinner, relieving my only sibling of this annual duty. I look forward to the usual happy, fun and boisterous occasion despite the reduced head count (the twins are away in college and the younger niece, at camp). The tree is up, the presents are in place, the wine chilled and the food prepared with love. This time of sharing will no doubt be cherished.
This year has been significant for me, in many aspects of my life. For starters, I tried Candy Crush (in March) out of curiosity and look what happened? I became so addicted to it, I qualify to be called a professional candy crusher. I also started this blog (in June) and have been going strong ever since. With 4,851 views and more than 200 ‘Likes’ so far, I must be doing something right.
This year also marked my M1 turning Sweet 16 and my M2 fairing well in her UPSR exam. Children aside, Hubby and I traveled a fair bit—not to new destinations—but to near and far and enough to keep our sanity in check to balance up the work stress that we face daily.
And this year I made more new friends compared to any past given year. Pretty unusual but then again, golfing friends are a unique breed and it’s nice that it has developed into wonderful friendships over many outings and dinners beyond the fairways and greens. I also rekindled old friendships, thanks to technology for making the world smaller and reachable. For all these, I feel truly blessed and yeah, it’s been a significant year for me.
So I’d like to end this significant year by wishing all—from the bottom of my heart—a happy Christmas and a merry New Year in its truest sense! Hope your 2013 was equally significant for you to reflect back in years to come with fond memories and a smile on your face.
Two weeks I decreed the girls should have meatballs for lunch on Monday and M2 whooped, “Yay! Meatball Monday!!!” But alas, plans had to change and the meatball lunch did not materialize.
Errands got in the way of routine. But finally, the highly anticipated meatballs was to be prepared for lunch on Thursday.
“We’re having meatballs tomorrow?” asked a surprised M1, on Wednesday night.
“Aww… It’s not the same. We can’t call it ‘Meatball Monday’!” M2 lamented.
Well, does it matter to have the first alphabet of each word to be the same?
So I turned things around and declared, “How about calling it ‘The meatball Thursday’? Happy?”
Two cheesy grins appeared.
I was at the hospital several months ago visiting a loved one. And it stretched over to lunchtime and I got hungry. So I decided to visit the cafeteria for some tummy filler otherwise it would be embarrassing to have the tummy growl loudly in front of the patient whilst she had her lunch. Then she’d make me eat her lunch!
People always complain hospital food is not the most palatable. Strange coming from a place that promotes good health and good eating. I must agree with the general public on taste alone but I must say, when I got to the cafeteria, the offering was an array of colors for just one type of meat, it was blinding.
I had choices ranging from red (curry chicken), orange (more curry chicken), mustard yellow (kurma chicken), yellow (tumeric chicken), white (steamed chicken), brown (fried chicken) or dark brown (roasted chicken!) It was literally a rainbow of chicken choices save for purple and blue! Even the fish was not too far off in terms of color offerings! The only green offering was literally the greens-vegetables-with no shades at all.
Unlike M2 who thinks chicken is awesome, I thought the choices were an overkill.
So I debated between shades as it was tough to choose the right shade of chicken to eat. Should I go with something for its taste? Or should I go with the color? What if I just choose something to complement my shirt? Hmm…
In the end, I chose a red chicken and an orange fish just to blend with my Liz Clairborne shirt! Heheheh….
Saturday nights are our eat-out nights and it is always a challenge to find something nice to eat. This has become our pattern ever since the extra music classes and busy Saturday chauffeuring duties ended several months ago. And now that the school holidays have started, it is a must to eat out.
“Let’s eat something nice!” M2 enthused.
“Have we ever been to a place that serves food that’s not nice?” Hubby asked.
“Have you ever seen places advertising that they don’t use the freshest products?” He went on.
Put it this way, well, most of our gastronomic experiences have been nice. If it wasn’t, I’d think it’s personal. After all, one man’s meat is another man’s poison.
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