the Chinese new year experience

So I am not Chinese but sometimes I wish I was.

Some of you may recall my trip to Taiwan back in the day. I ended up there both because my dad was going on a business trip and invited me to tag along (I’d just graduated college early), and because my stepmother is Taiwanese and it was a chance to get to know her family.

Anyway, my experiences there should have somewhat prepared me for the mega-quantity of food produced for my dad and Sally’s Chinese New Year dinner.

 
(note: this is not all the food. Not at all)

So we arrived to an already-bustling kitchen. Sally had created her own giant (GIANT) radish cake. She sort of explained the process to me, claiming that the steps involved, which included cutting radishes into tiny cubes, boiling them, combining them in mysterious proportions with a very specific kind of rice flour and dried shrimp, onion, and pork were “easy”… but I’m going to leave that to her expertise.

 

I just went ahead and fried them.

The kitchen filled with all kinds of other sauces and ingredients, some typical-looking and others utterly mysterious. Sally’s friends arrived and there was much gleeful chattering. Various relatives and relatives’ friends arrived. Place was hoppin’.

My dad decided he had to make cold sesame noodles. He got to work on that. Meanwhile, my aunt and I thinly sliced carrots upon which to steam the buns, which was an adventure with an electrically troubled food processor.

To begin the meal, soup was mandatory, per Chinese culture. Sally used like a GAZILLION types of mushrooms (yes!)

… to create a delectable hot and sour soup.

The other soup was a tangy, spicy, beef and radish. Different, and good.

My fried radish cake pieces went out, lovingly arranged with Steve’s skill.

Speaking of Steve, he was crazy about this ultra-thin-sliced beef. My boyfriend loves him some saturated fat :)

I was enjoying various veggie and noodle dishes (though I sampled everything).

I think these were something in the garlic/onion family. Livened up my breath for suuuuure!

This noodle dish was spectacular: the noodles were something special, as was the sauce. I’m feeling very inadequate to describe these things because I truly don’t know what went into them. Other than deliciousness.

 

My dad’s sesame noodles went out next to ma po tofu. WOW. Have to make. So spicy and savory and amazing. I don’t cook a lot with silken tofu but it only makes sense in this recipe. Also, in the US you tend to only see tofu in vegetarian dishes, but whaddya know; meat mixed with tofu tastes boss.

    

Speaking of meat, this fall-off-the-bone tender pork was the best meat I’ve had in recent memory. It didn’t taste all that Chinese; just like a really really good braise.

 

These head-on, tail-on, whole shebang shrimp were excellent and spicy. Some were tender enough to eat the shells, which had a lotta flavor.

Oh yes, there’s more!

Comfort food delight in this thinly shredded cabbage and thinly sliced pork dish.

Fish, always served at Chinese New Year: apparently it’s good luck because the scales look like money! Thus, you are supposed to leave some on the plate to have money in the new year.

So the table sort of wobbled under the weight of all those dishes, and we all sat around the living room and chowed down. And had some non-Chinese wine :)

Was that the end? Of course not!

There were two kinds of dumplings and steamed buns that then came off the stove. I mean really.

The rest of the evening was spent eating the cake my cousin made (cause why not), and watching Celine Dion’s performance (!!!!!!!!) singing in Chinese (!!!!!!!!!) on Chinese state television (!!!!!!!!!!!!)

bu-ut oh! those summer nights!

I kind of live for summer cookouts.

Did you know last Friday was National S’More Day? I hope you celebrated. I did.

Last Friday was great. Met friends and went to Bluemont Park, where we basically stumbled upon the Lost Dog 5K Series. Basically, the Lost Dog Cafe is a cafe that along with selling (amazing) sandwiches, also rescues, sponsors and finds homes for dogs, and created their own Lost Dog Rescue organization. Awesome, right? So they do this 5K series and it looks like SO MUCH FUN. Everyone meets up on Friday nights at a pretty park, enjoys all the fun race stuff (or, er, if you’re me, get a free chair massage and Larabar sample despite not running, nor ever planning to run, the race), and then runs a race for a great cause.

The best part is, DOGS CAN RUN THE RACE TOO, which meant runners raced past the starting line to the tune of “Who Let the Dogs Out” (along with actual barking). And those of us who were simply there to loiter around the park and toss around a frisbee still got to PLAY WITH THE PUPPIES WHO WERE UP FOR ADOPTION. Oh my Goddddddddddddddd if you are ever even slightly dissatisfied with any aspect of your life may I recommend picking up a puppy who then furiously licks your chin? Agh so great.

Then we had a spontaneous cookout. Lydia came too, and was in charge of arranging the cheese.

I grilled tofu.

Just sprinkled with Cajun seasoning. GREAT.

And potatoes (foil packet; olive oil salt and pepper), and WHOLE CARROTS. This is a tip my uncle Louie gave me. Grilling carrots whole is the bomb. You get the best of the cooked carrots and raw carrots world. You just roll them in a little olive oil (or a marinade, if you’re using one for meat or something) and then throw it on the grill whole. Like roasted carrots, the outside gets wonderfully caramelized and sweet and flavorful (win) and like raw carrots they still retain a wonderful no-mush crunch (win). Delish.

 

Also foil packet-ed zucchini (olive oil, salt and pepper), peppers (same), and okra (which I did with olive oil, cumin, and coriander- nice!).

 

Obviously my boyfriend ran out to buy 16 brats, too. Just in case.

And he bought smores fixin’s VERY IMPORTANT.

Then Lydia arranged them cause frankly these matters of arrangement and garnishing are important to her in a way they never ever will be for me. Thus her hand furiously arranging things in these first two pictures.

Here we go: 

I had one. Then I had s’more.

Speaking of cookouts, my family does them well too. (Though there were not smores, there were- unpictured- brownies, key lime pie, and Pavlova. I ate all in copious quantities).

Do other peoples’ family events just involve ridiculous amounts of food? And is it all awesome? I hope so. That is something I love about my family.

 

In the appetizer department, I obviously went nuts on the above guacamole; white bean, garlic, and rosemary dip (so good Kathy!); and horseradish hummus from Trader Joe’s, which I always love and should just buy and/or make.

Once I made myself a proper plate, it was sort of eyes-rolled-back-in-my-head experience eating the watermelon, tomato, mint and goat cheese salad. So good my aunt Nan made it… then her sister arrived later… with the exact same dish. There is a reason, guys.

 

Note the blossoming black eyed Susans out the window in the background. I mean really. Can it always be summer?

chinese new year and so on

Sometimes it is nice to celebrate Chinese New Year.

By which I mean to crave Chinese food and go “Oh, it’s Chinese New Year! Well… we should go celebrate!”

Also Steve started grad school and we had yet to celebrate that.

Plus I’d never taken him to my fave Chinese place, Full Kee. There’s one in DC and one in VA, in a total strip mall, but the place is mega authentic!

I love the decor…

… I love the tea…

… I love (and hate, due to indecisiveness) the absurdly lengthy menu…

 

… I love love love profusely that one can get soup with both dumplings AND noodles because it seems so unfair to have to choose.

(I ate this in Taipei, too!)

 

We parceled out our dumplings into individual soups. The wrappers are gossamer thin and they’re cooked perfectly.

The broth is just soul-satisfying delight.

And the filling includes shrimp, I think cabbage, and extremely flavorful mushroom.

If you wish, you can dump in a glob of the chili sauce at the table and watch your soup turn colorful and sinus-clearing.

(Steve overdid it and had a coughing fit :D)

This other thing we ordered- whoa.

I decided I wanted to get something with black bean sauce, because it’s my favorite Chinese condiment. I also knew they did sort of transcendent things with eggplant at Full Kee.

This led to us ordering this, described succinctly as “Tofu, green pepper, eggplant casserole in black bean sauce”

Guys, WHOA. Have you ever seen anything like this?!

I most certainly had not.

The tofu was flash fried, which made for that fried-tofu exterior (which I dislike but Steve adores; so that worked nicely). The inside of it I was all over- it was like SILK it was so tender. Yum!

The eggplant was like it always is at Full Kee- so luxuriously velvety and flavorful on your tongue. They know their eggplants.

And, it had a little surprise!

The veggies had a flavorful shrimp paste filling on the inside. In the case of this bite, it meant a cooked just tender green pepper (still nicely al dente), tasting a bit blistery from a hot pan, and then a rich and flavorful shrimp filling.

So tasty! So unique!

Yes, fortune cookies are not authentic but I like them! And the complimentary orange slices are such a fresh way to end a meal.

Good times!

On the subject of Asian cuisine, I’ve developed a fairly serious Korean bakery problem. Problem in that the foods are nutritionally unimpressive (though quite tasty!), and they have HUGE amounts of samples and I graduated from college recently enough that I behave like a hungry hyena around free food.

Oh yeah and they are EXPENSIVE!

They charged extra for soy milk in my coffee. Not a soy latte or cappuccino. No, when I asked to put a splash of soy milk in my coffee, they charged me! That is excessive.

Mind you, then they gave me an ENTIRE CUP of it. So I essentially had a cup of coffee and a cup of soy milk. This was so odd I took a picture.

Anyway, I might as well make a blog post out of some of the stuff that has been giving me an extra outer coating this not-particularly-cold winter.

An assortment:

I didn’t eat these all, but ate more than I thought I would!

First, sapporo bread. A mainstay of the Korean bakery.

The inside is fluffy white bread. I ignore it. (Well, I rip it up and put it in my freezer for bread pudding).

What I am focused on is the outside. The crispy, nutty, rich and fatty exterior. It typically (I think?) has ground peanuts or peanut flour in it, and in terms of consistency and sweetness is not dissimilar to the top of a fruit crisp. Delightful.

 

Next: sweet potato manju.

What a whacky looking creation, eh?!

I don’t know how the physics of this happened at all, but there’s kind of a papery thin bready outside that is thoroughly shellacked with cinnamon, and then inside is the sweet white bean filling of which I am so fond (found in many a Korean pastry), and it’s interspersed with chunks of Korean sweet potato.

 

The best for last! A layered delight:

    

It was the sample that sold me on this one; it really reminded me of one of those decadent, perfectly composed Paris bakery desserts.

Complete with the French(ish) name: A sunflower seed financier.

The bottom layer was crumbly, bittersweet chocolate. Above that was a coffee layer, sort of a crumbly, not at all too sweet, cake. Atop, rich candied sunflower seeds; like pecan pie but better!

I drive past the bakery that produced these every time I come home from work or school. It’s trouble, I tell you.