Chubby Bunny

Chinese New Year, Bolla Chianti

The night before Chinese New Year is like…having Thanksgiving dinner, but with emphasis on having symbolic food for dinner.

Yes, we have symbolism for dinner. It’s pretty awesome.

This year, though, Mom toned things down by a lot. Randy stayed upstate since he has school there, so it was just me and the P-Unit. So for the three of us, Mom decided we don’t need to make that much, else we’ll be devouring leftovers until…indefinitely.

There must always be fish. And yes, you need to have the heads and tails on the fish to. What’s more important is that you need to keep the fish whole from supermarket to plating at the dinner table. Then, you must have leftovers. Yes, it’s lucky to have leftover fish, because it means you will have excess fortune.

Mom did something complicated with these babies. She filleted the fish without damaging the skin. Then, she chopped up the fish and bones (the bones are edible…if chopped up) and she mixed it with Chinese dried sausage and some other ingredients. And finally, she took this pasty mixture and stuffed the fish.

I’m not kidding. :O

Then, basking away in microwave to keep warm before serving, I found the pig feet. I guess a more elegant way to say it would be pork knuckles, but nah, feet are cool. This was a dish plated on a bed of lettuce and dried mushrooms (like shitake, but thicker); the lettuce is symbolic of growing weath (from homonym of the words) and the mushrooms are shaped like coins.

Oh and there’s also pork pancreas in this dish. I always thought it was pork tongue. I’m not sure if I feel more uneasy about eating pancreas or tongue…

And we had a vegetarian dish with a mix of vegetables, which I took no photograph of, because I was too busy getting ready to have drinks with Dad.

That’s right. We  He popped open a bottle of Bolla chianti and yes, it was tasty. Granted that nothing we ate really went with red wine (Dad doesn’t liek white wine…at all) it was worthy as a means of celebration. That extra touch. And yes, it was a bit spontaneous, as you can see, because we didn’t think ahead to have it chilled in the fridge. But that is why man discovered frozen cubes of ice.