Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day!

Xing nian kuai le! Gong xi fa cai. (i.e. Have a prosperous new year.) Oh yeah, and Valentine's Day. And President's Day! ...And happy Mardi Gras today. Goodness gracious it's a bunch of things to celebrate about recently!

Of course, that means there has been lots of baking/cooking and handing out of delicious goodies. There have been various dark chocolate truffles, Chinese almond cookies, and red bean nian gao (sticky rice cake)!

So February 14th was not only Valentine's Day, but it was also Chinese/Lunar New Years! It's now the year of the Tiger... it's my year! This meant only one thing: hot pot!

Photograph courtesy of Avi

What is 火鍋 (i.e. hot pot), you ask? Clearly, as you can see from the photograph, it is loads of fun. (And no, I wasn't the only girl there!) Click below to see more of what hot pot is and for Chinese Almond Cookies and Red Bean Nian Gao (stick rice cake)! :)

Holidays and 2010

Hi all!

Long time no see, I know. I hope y'all had a happy holiday season, and started off your new year with a bang. :)

I know I'm ridiculously behind in everything, but at least it's good to know that I've been busy baking (and vaguely having a life), right? There have been Christmas goodies and parties and new recipes galore, and I have a ridiculous backlog of holiday foods to put up. I've decided that I'm just going to show some pictures of the food for the holidays for y'all, and then figure out the whole specific recipes later.

I'd make some silly new years resolutions about posting more or baking more new recipes, but that's just silly. (And the holidays were actually a good time to try out new recipes!) I think my new years resolutions will be to get a job and to apply for grad school. :P However, I am resolved to write more about food and politics at some point!

Click below to find out more about Post-Thanksgiving, Fancy Pants Party, and New Years! (Christmas dinners were good too, but not made by me) :)

(Warning: LOTS of pictures behind cut!!)