[Sca-cooks] So... Lunar New Year coming up again!

[Elaine Koogler]

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> Hullo, the list!
>
> I've been disgustingly busy and my computer is dying slowly (a  
> replacement arrives Tuesday, I hear), but the show must go on. The  
> Lunar New Year arrives in less than 24 hours, and this time I'm not  
> doing the cooking.
>
> We went to a sort of preview at my sister-in-law's house this  
> evening, and had a family-style dinner with winter melon soup with  
> Smithfield ham shreds, followed by stir-fried watercress with  
> fermented bean-curd sauce, chopped-up roast pig with hoisin dip, soy- 
> sauce chicken with ginger-and-scallion oil, shrimp and roast pork  
> stir-fried with asparagus slivers and black mushrooms, plain blanched  
> bok choy, more shrimp stir-fried with garlic chives, red-cooked  
> cuttlefish, and, for some unaccountable reason, chopped pig's feet  
> braised with white radish.
>
> With the exception of the roast pig (bought at a restaurant, I  
> assume), my mother-in-law did the cooking.
>
> Tomorrow we're going to get up early, see what looks good at the  
> markets (if we can find a Chinese market open) and go over and cook  
> dinner at my Mom's house. We brought home a whole soy-sauce-braised  
> chicken from this evening, so that's one dish, then we have to come  
> up with a shrimp dish, jai/Buddhist Delight, 2 fried fish and at  
> least two steamed sweet Chinese sausages, and probably a pork dish  
> and maybe cilantro egg-flower soup, which is a favorite of my mother's.
>
> Normally, at home, we do a minimum of nine dishes, but my Mom's  
> kitchen is a little small and we're not ultra-familiar with  
> everything there, so keeping it just a tad simpler seems like a good  
> idea.
>
> We'll do our usual household dinner next week; I'm not sure yet what  
> we'll serve.
>
> Happy New Year to all, and to all a good night!
>
> Adamantius
>
And, of course, you have made my mouth water.  We probably are going to 
a great restaurant in northern Virginia next week to indulge in dim 
sum...so many of the really great places in DC's Chinatown are no longer 
in business, having been displaced by the high rents brought about by 
the location of the MCI Center in their neighborhood.  sigh.  I used to 
be able to do all of my shopping for ingredients, etc. there, but the 
stores just aren't there anymore.  Sometimes I really hate what so many 
call "progress"!!

Kiri