Kai Choy or mustard cabbage soup with root vegetables on a cool Hawaiian Sunday afternoon...2/10/2019
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Today's salad has a little of this and that: Manoa lettuce, arugula, daikon leaves, spinach, sweet basil, dill, and baby kale....plus our first cucumber! Our salad dressing is homemade with chive vinaigrette with garlic, turmeric, ginger, shoyu, sesame seeds and olive oil. Homemade vegan pesto on top of whole wheat bread with papaya on the side.
Chinese New Year Good Luck cake or nien gau, is a homonym for "higher year." It's stickiness made from glutinous rice flour helps keep the family together and to stand taller with each year. The sesame seeds signify fertility and the red date in the center brings good luck. Traditionally, jai or vegetarian monk's dish is served on the first day of the Chinese New Year. It usually has more than 8 ingredients because the number 8 signifies good luck. Fragrant narcissus blossoms are the symbol of Chinese Lunar New Year. Is is said that if the bulbs bloom flowers in the spring they will bring wealth and good fortune for the year to come. Annually, ken cultivates these precious ornamental plants. Lucy's mother always cooked gau and jai for our 3 families. So it is with this tradition and her recipes that I continue to pass on her legacy. Ken's dad taught him to carve narcissus bulbs to create a "crab claw" style many years ago. He has taught our son, Stuart, this art, too. Below, is a " ha jow" or crab claw narcissus ken carved. The video below sums it all up... Gung He Fat Choy, Sun Nin Fai Lok for a auspicious year of the pig! By coincidence, ken took this picture exactly one month ago as we had arrived in Lihue, Kauai on Jan. 2, 2019 and went on a train ride at the Wilcox Plantation where these pigs lived. What a nice omen! |
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