Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year is this Saturday. I am really looking forward to celebrating and welcoming the Year of the Rat. My friend Wendy helped me put together a dinner party menu that includes a whole chicken and a whole fish. (I’m thinking to try following this recipe by Fuchsia Dunlop.) The extraordinary amount of food is a symbol of surplus—the phrase “a fish every year” (niannian youyu) sounds the same in Chinese as “every year a surplus.” Wendy also recommends having a bowlful of tangerines with their green leaves still attached. Her family eats a sweet rice cake called nian gao for dessert. Wishing you all a very happy Lunar New Year and a prosperous year to come.

(Photo © by Laura Dart of my husband and my two brothers-in-law on the eve of our wedding at our favorite dim sum restaurant in Los Angeles.)