Question for my Chinese and Taiwanese readers: is this Nian Gao, the traditional Chinese New Year dessert? I couldn't hear when they announced what this was. A Chinese gentleman at my table told us it was made of rice flower and the brown color is from brown sugar. I did eat a piece to be festive. I'm not a fan. It doesn't taste like much of anything, except goo. Reminds me of a more solid version of the Tang Yuan (glutinous rice balls) that I tried to make at home a couple of weeks ago. More sugar and rice flower goo. Sorry.
Here's a pic of Kevin tonight in his celebratory "Happy New Year!" shirt. We bought these matching shirts last year for our first annual Chinese New Year party. Kevin's so funny. He had two middle aged Chinese women asked him if he knew what his shirt said. Kevin played dumb, and replied, "No, what does it say?" They looked shocked, and replied that it was a very appropriate shirt because it said Happy New Year. Then Kevin would start laughing... and they grinned knowing that he was just teasing them. We noticed that we never saw any of the Chinese families giving this sign in their photos, but a middle aged Chinese man got a big kick out of seeing Kevin pose like this for this picture!Tonight we saw enjoyed dragon dances, dances with bells on sticks, fan dances, singing, multiple musical numbers on the piano, cello, and even a whistling performance. There were many adoptive families there, with lots of beautiful little girls under the age of 12 running around in brightly colored silk dresses. I couldn't help myself, my eyes were drawn to them all night as they ran around giggling, whispering, and taking pictures with their parents' cell phones. I'll stop here and not go into details about getting teary eyed watching adoptive mother-daughter pairs.
I'm very excited to learn from another adoptive family that one of the teachers at the area Chinese school is Taiwanese! Woo hoo!
I'm really glad that we had a good time, because we passed up most of the Superbowl to go. Kevin grumbled about missing the greatest sporting event of the year a few times this week. We arrived at a Superbowl party with nine minutes left in the game. The crowd told us that it had been a boring game and that we didn't miss much. It got pretty exciting when the Patriots took the lead (boo hiss), and then that play where Eli Manning managed to run away from all of the Patriots linemen comming after him and had that great long pass to Plaxico Burress... oh that was great! This group of Colts fans likes to see Payton Manning up in the box cheering for his brother and really LOVES TO SEE THE PATRIOTS LOOSE.
You have a good husband! That's a funny photo! We are going to be celebrating the Chinese New Year this week too!
ReplyDeleteI love that Kevin messed with them about the phrase on his shirt! Ha!
ReplyDeleteAnd, we were thrilled to see The Cheaters (oops!) loose, too. We're Titans and Chargers fans, so no real reason other than the fact that it was nice to see a good solid win against a team that may have gotten where they are with too much "help". I saw the whole game and- everyone told you right- it was only REALLY exciting at the end!
Next year, you'll probably be at the celebration with YOUR daughter! Wow, huh?
Tisra
I love that Kevin messed with them about the phrase on his shirt! Ha!
ReplyDeleteAnd, we were thrilled to see The Cheaters (oops!) loose, too. We're Titans and Chargers fans, so no real reason other than the fact that it was nice to see a good solid win against a team that may have gotten where they are with too much "help". I saw the whole game and- everyone told you right- it was only REALLY exciting at the end!
Next year, you'll probably be at the celebration with YOUR daughter! Wow, huh?
Tisra
Yep - that's nian gao. The trick is to slice that big hockey puck up into 1/4" think slices, dip the slices in a bit of egg (scrambled like an egg wash) and pan fry it. Then it tastes good.
ReplyDeleteMmmm... much better that way.
Kevin
Thanks, Kevin. I was hoping that you would read this. :)
ReplyDelete