Happy Chinese New Year!!

The Food Extinguisher wishes everyone a very Happy Chinese New Year.

Caption: Happy New Year - Hand Food Over!

To celebrate the New Year, the Food Extinguisher has been very busy - sampling various Nian Gou (年糕) from all over the world. Nian Gou, also known as Chinese New Year cake, is a sweet and sticky dessert made from glutinous rice, and is generally eaten during Chinese New Year because it symbolises good luck. The word Nian means year, and the word Gou sounds similar to higher/taller, so the Asians believe that by eating Nian Gou, you would get a "higher year". In other words, by eating this cake, children would grow taller and adults would get promotions.

Over the past few days, the Food Extinguisher has eaten many many Nian Gou. Obviously the Food Extinguisher is desperately in need of a higher year.

Day 1:

Traditional Jiangnan Nian Gao made by mixing rice with glutinous rice
The word 福 is stamped on the Nian Gou means "luck". 

Day 2:

An Unorthodox Version - the Baked Nian Gou

Day 3:

Nian Gou with a Pilipino twist - typically dipped in egg before frying
The Pandan gives it a vibrant green colour

On the first day of Chinese New Year, it is customary to eat Luo Han Zhai (羅漢齋), a vegetarian dish (mainly to avoid any "cruelty" for the start of a new year). The dish is generally made with at least 10 ingredients - 10 is considered a lucky number as it symbolises "perfect". Dried oysters (for some sort of weird reason, oysters are considered vegetarian in Hong Kong cuisine) and Dried Seaweed are generally used as it sounds similar to "good things" and "prosperity".

See if you can spot the 10 ingredients!

And of course, red packets (利事) are always given out from married couples to unmarried juniors for good luck, a smooth-sailing year and good health.

Woo hoo - MONEY!!

To kick off a wonderful year, this arrived in the mail for me on the day before Chinese New Year (18/02/2015), which, as weird as it sounds, made me super excited :D.

Wonderful New Year presents - the Credit Act

The ancient Chinese has a famous saying "Within a book lies a golden house, Within a book lies precious jade (書中自有黃金屋, 書中自有顏如玉)". Let's just say I've been reading it a lot and have yet to find one :( - I'm not as excited about it anymore.

The Food Extinguisher's New Year Resolutions:
1) Eat more (Pfftt...as if I don't already don't eat enough)
2) Study harder (sure, if it includes pracs like eating food)
3) Work Harder (sure, if work = eating food)