It’s my first Chinese New Year away from my family. In past years, I was either with my parents /cousins /aunts /uncles /nephews /nieces {you get the picture} or with my brother and sis in law. This year, I am spending it with my own family, my husband. Mike loves to learn about the different customs and traditions… we are even adopting some for our own.

As a kid, I used to love Chinese New Year – it was the time of year for an allowance bonus. We get red packets/hong bao/angpow from married elders containing money. It’s funny when Mike laments that he only was introduced to this as a married adult – when it was our turn to give out the angpow.

We get to dress up in new clothes – even new jammies. There is a tonne of different goodies to eat. Everyone’s happy. And it is a time of year when I eat the most tangerines!

Tonight we will have our little reunion dinner with pot-stickers {wotie/jiaozi}.

{aside: a cat was seen climbing up the tree on its way to the feeder… maybe he needs a meal for his reunion dinner tonight?}

Just saw a blue jay at our feeder. Its hawk-like calls attracted my attention. I thought it could be a hawk because when we first moved in, we spotted a wood howl nearby. From its lovely blue plummage, I thought it could be a blue jay {I’m still new at this birdwatching}. After looking up my guide, I found out that blue jays made those hawk-like calls for some reason, usually when a hawk is around or suspected to be. The guide didn’t know why either. Hmmm…

It’s 2 days before the Lunar New Year. The Year of the Goat. I decided that I should carry on some traditions even after my move from Singapore to America. We went to the asian market and bought us a little string of artificial firecrackers. It was in red and gold, both auspicious colors – red in particular as it was the color that the Nian monster {who as legend has it, haunted the ancient villages in China} feared. Been teaching Mike how to say Gong Xi Fa Cai {wishing happiness and prosperity}, Xin Nian Kuai Le {happy new year} as well as the chorus of my favorite New Year song – “Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni” {wishing you happiness repeatedly}.

In the food department, it is tradition that in any home there should be an abundance of cookies and sweet goodies. We received a pretty candie tray from Cindy and Karen when they visited in December, it is now laden with all the sweets it can possibly hold.

I’m thinking of making sugee cookies. This recipe reminds me of a good friend Charity. We’ve since lost touch but I hope she knows that she is thought of fondly. So, I’m baking these cookies to remember her. It is a simple recipe – a tiny sweet cookie that’s grainy, does not hold together very well but would plainly melt in one’s mouth when partaken of. I will post the recipe shortly.

Made lamb shank stew today with the fresh lamb shanks we bought from Whole Foods on our trip up to Atlanta. It was good – the recipe was Nigella Lawson’s. Had it with some basmati rice. Yum! Kinda like Soup Kambing {Spiced Mutton Soup}.

Have a couple of projects to work on when Mike goes back to work tomorrow.

Throw Pillows

Going to stitch the fabric I found at Hancock Fabrics into 2 18″ square pillows for the couch. The couch came with pillows but the colors and design on them didn’t really suit my taste or our color scheme.

Magnetic Memo Board

We bought two flat strips of metal of about 3 feet each. Will attach it to the wall with mirror holders and use it with my proposed marble magnets {instructions and inspiration courtesy of several craft blogs I read daily}

Marble Magnets

Of course, to use the above “board”, I’ll make these wonderful magnets which are being sold for quite a bit in the stores. {thanks megan!}

It just arrived this morning! My Elephant Wall Hanging that I found at Novica.com. One of the main reasons I got it was because it had elephants on it. But mostly because we had an empty wall in the dining room which leaves it looking very bare.

Remember the nightstand that we’ve been looking for to place in our guestroom? We found a bamboo one in Kirklands. I mostly don’t like the whole safari decor but sometimes I find something unexpected there so that’s enough reason to look. It has elephants on it too.

Went to the library today – some of our books on hold came up on the system and so we went by to pick them up. I got The Life of Pi – Yann Martel, Alice Sebold’s much-talked-about The Lovely Bones, an Eyewitness Guide to Herbs (since I started my indoor herb garden), a wild bird feeding guide (since we put up our bird feeder) and a Hands on Training guide for Dreamweaver (since we’re starting our website). It seems like there are so many things I’m trying to do and learn right now. At times it just feels like I want to scour the entire libraries of the world and memorize every interesting morsel. Greedy me!

Pillow Project

Before we got to the library, I took a slight detour and headed for Hancock Fabrics, hoping to find some fabric for pillows. I found a wonderful one after browsing the entire store as Mike waited patiently with me. Will put up the fabric when I take a pic of the pillows, post-project. For now, it’s a taupe background with dark oxblood red and olive green flowers. Matched our color scheme in the living room perfectly.

It’s Superbowl Sunday! Forgive me but I’m not a football fan nor do I want to offend any fans out there but we didn’t watch the superbowl today. We just got in on the finger food bandwagon – buffalo wings, jalapeno poppers, spinach dip, fried wontons and beer. Instead, we sat down to a movie. The wings were spicy and delicious, the poppers not as expected, the spinach dip was perfect and the wontons crispy and fragrant.

New domain

Mike and I got our new domain today… we’ll soon be working on our website – www.stefmike.org – will keep you all posted on its launch!

What is dim sum? A Cantonese term, Dim Sum translates into “to touch your heart”. I never knew what it really did translate to, until I had to explain the term to Mike. It’s hard to define a whole experience. So I decided to take him for dim sum when he visited Singapore.

I remembered it as a child – a huge expanse of a Chinese restaurant where the wallpaper or lights made everything a little rosy, over the audio systerm a crooning songstress belts out her number in cantonese or mandarin, crowded tables of at least 8 persons each, trolleys/carts being pushed around by yelling waiters/waitresses announcing their steaming goodies available and the smell of freshly poured jasmine tea. Once seated, I would zoom in on where the dish of chilli condiment for my dim sum as well as watch as each server ticked our little dim sum card. Except for this card it wasn’t about collecting more stamps/tick marks because that would mean eating too much. There are so many little items in those bamboo baskets which try to catch your attention – siu mai (steamed pork dumplings), har gao (steamed shrimp dumplings), char siu pau (barbecue pork buns), he ye fan (lotus leaf wrapped glutinuous rice) just to name a few.

From where we live now, it’s a little inconvenient to have dim sum on our whim and fancy. Maybe the next trip we’ll take up to Atlanta would include it…bur for now the frozen steamed barbecue pork buns will have to suffice.

There is a hot seat in our living room now. One reason could be that it’s in crimson red denim but also because it’s very comfortable and already a much sought-after place in our living room. We went by La-Z-Boy some weeks ag and finally decided to get it on Tuesday. It’s one of their modern style recliners – they call it the Carlyle.

I have a hankering for fish and some seafood. Maybe it was the freshly caught trout I saw on Food TV…maybe I miss the wonderful barbecue crab we had on Fisherman’s Wharf in December. This weekend, I think we’re going to cook some shrimp to appease the appetite. A spicy shrimp curry recipe from Kerala beckons.