Sunday Snapshots

My parents sent ZJ and I chocolates for the Lunar New Year, a nice way to bridge Jewish New Year traditions with those of CNY.

Sadly, I didn’t wear any red or new garments at our CNY for two.

Spring Festival in China, Chinese New Year in U.S.

This post is part of the Chinese New Year Blog Hop 2016 hosted by Two Americans in China. A blog hop centers around a single topic and allows readers to discover new blogs.Check out the other blogs at the bottom of this post!

You might have heard a few things about Chinese New Year already. You’ve probably heard about the firecrackers and maybe even the money in red envelopes that older members of the family give to young children to celebrate the festival.

And as you would expect with a major family festival, it involves a big family meal and trips to see relatives.

But there are seven other things about the Spring Festival that are less widely-known, so with the new year upon us, I want to take a look at some of the aspects of the festival I learned about when I lived in Xi’an that you might not know about. You can always read all about the first Spring Festival (it just so happened to be my very first blog post).

I’ll also share how we celebrate 春节, Spring Festival, since we now live in the U.S.

Bizarre Foods

When my sister moved out, we snatched up the cablebox, so as to collect dust in our living quarters.

It’s instead done the opposite: we watch the news, AMC’s The Walking Dead and Into the Badlands, basketball games, and channel surf.

Cooking Chinese food at home

Homemade Kung pao chicken, tomato and eggs, cabbage

Homemade dumplings

Coin-shaped dumplings normally reserved for Chinese New Year

Rolling out the dough

Boiled peanuts, liang cai, chicken and potatoes

Jian bing, porridge, and sliced potatoes

Big plate of chicken

Jian bing, Jin jiang rou si, and sliced potatoes barely visible in the left corner

Chinese food intimidates me.

A family friend said, at a dinner party hosted by the parental units. Since we live with them, we were also in attendance.

ZJ and I gave her step-by-step verbal instructions to cook fried rice, kitchen sink style.

The verdict, she said, a week or so later when we crossed paths again, how easy, delicious, and nutritious our Kitchen Sink Fried Rice recipe turned out to be.

Review: Chengdu 23, Shanghai Noodle House, Xi’an Famous Foods

I am a 吃货, foodie. There, I said, it, in writing no less. The Chinese phrase suggests though, jokingly, that I may not be good at much else beyond eating. Life here as much as it did in Xi’an, revolves around food. A discussion ensues in person, via text or phone about who will make dinner, and what will be served. When ZJ and I lived in our second story walk-up in the first of two buildings designated for foreign teachers, every meal we ate together, be it lunch or dinner, took hemming and hawing to decide. We mostly ate out so it took deciding whether we wanted to trek downtown, treat ourselves to expensive mediocre “Western” cuisine, or grab a quick and inexpensive bite from the street vendors on 师大路。I blogged about some of our local Xi’an haunts, not really reviewing said establishments.