use real butter

Our dinner at Nicole’s place was awesome tonight. She and Andrew made homemade butternut squash ravioli in a butter sauce. We all got to help in making the ravioli, but Andrew is quite skilled with making the pasta:

rolling it out

We met some of their friends too who were really neat. Amanda is a ranger, a paleontologist, and a foodie. Heather is a student in homeopathy and also an avid foodie. I asked her what homeopathy was and she described a lot of things that both frightened and astonished me simultaneously. She never ever defined what homeopathy was and my gut reaction was to ask if it was anything like sociopathy or psychopathy, but I thought better of it and kept my question to myself. Homeopathy = not approved by the FDA.

as the evening wore on, we got closer to the goal

I discovered that these three women tend to quote a lot of famous chefs. I typically do not - rather, I refer to specific recipes. Although, I guess I do defer to Rose Levy Beranbaum’s authoritative knowledge on cakes and pastries, and occasionally to Marcel Desaulnier on some chocolatier-ing (I’ve exchanged emails with Marcel and he is extremely accessible). I flipped through one of Nicole’s cookbooks and some of her issues of Eating Well. I like. I have found a concentration of foodies!

nicole serves up a delectable feast

Dinner was fab. Nicole made a rich chocolate torte for dessert too. Go girl!

Gong Xi Fa Tsai, Xin Nien Quai Le! Won Shir Ru I.

It’s Chinese New Year - the year of the Dog:

red envelopes usually contain money, sometimes candy, and are generally not edible

Chinese New Year is supposed to be festive, but you are also supposed to remember your ancestors. I had a place setting for Kris at our table with a bowl of goodies, and as we sat down to eat I cried. I think this is when I miss her most because the last time I saw her was on Chinese New Year two years ago. Also because she would call me each Chinese New Year on her way home from work to frantically ask me what she needed to make for dinner. My sister, the workaholic and devoted mother and wife, would barely scrape together a traditional Chinese New Year meal for Ben - but she would do it no matter what, because it was important to her.

I’m definitely feeling on the mend because tonight I got around to making use of some old granny smiths I had lying around. I made an apple bread pudding with vanilla sauce. I love this stuff.

ready for the oven

an hour later fresh out of the oven

ready for the tummy

Next time I’m going to skip the vanilla sauce and go for boiled custard.

There’s nothing I quite hate as much as being sick. I’m not sick, but I have been fighting off some low-grade mental cotton in my head for the past few days and without much success. It lingers because I’ve had horrible sleep habits of late. Today I decided to make some headway and fight it with naps, liquids, and not skiing (*sigh*). I don’t like to sleep, but when my body needs it, I do it.

However, tomorrow is Chinese New Year which means today is New Year’s Eve, which means I had to cook a lot of specific stuff for the New Year. I made dumpling filling with ground pork, nappa cabbage, shitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, green onions, ginger, sesame oil, cornstarch, and soy sauce. This filling is also used to make pork meatballs and goes in these little egg pockets. It’s a lot of work being a good Chinese daughter…

adding sesame oil

little egg pockets/dumplings

The big thing to make is the SOUP. It’s a giant pot of broth with bean thread noodles, fish balls, shitakes, bamboo shoots, mustard greens, nappa cabbage, pork meatballs, egg pockets (dan jiao), tofu, green onions… Everything represents something and you eat it as insurance against getting screwed over for the coming year.

a big pot of soup representing health, fortune, luck, and other good stuff

I asked my mom if I had to clean the house today. She said it was traditional, but that I didn’t have to. My concern was that if I didn’t today, I wouldn’t be able to for 14 days after the new year as it is bad luck (sweeping out the luck or something). My mom, whose number one hobby is to clean house said, “Oh, you can clean the house whenever you want.” Some of these superstitions aren’t followed so closely in our family. Kris and I used to compare notes and wonder if Mom and Grandma were just playing fast and loose with the traditions. One time Kris asked my grandma in Chinese, “So do I have to eat the ten ingredients dish ON Chinese new year day?” and my grandma told her as long as she ate it sometime around the new year. My sister narrowed her eyes and jokingly said in English, “Oh yeah sure. That’s not what you said LAST year.” Then my grandma, who understood her joke (sarcasm isn’t really to be found in China) raised her hand and hit her arm. Kris was a jokester. We remember our ancestors and loved ones who have passed on during this time. Tomorrow I will have a place setting for Kris at the dinner table.