CNY 5 Days Away!

Another year is around the corner. The year of the Wild Boar. I prefer it's tamer and cuter cousin, the pig. But they are interchangable in the Chinese zodiac(so I am told). The wild boar sounds more exotic, I guess. Anyway, it's time to clean up, sweep away and discard all the 'cobwebs' of this year and welcome the new chinese year. That's means spring cleaning, and I am still working on it!:( The tradition in my family is to remove any old boxes laying around the garage, wash the car (not an easy task in with the melting snow and cold!), clean up the house and welcome the upcoming chinese year with new hopes, traditional new year foods, and laughter with family and friends. And let's not forget new clothes and ang pows for the little ones too. Most people of chinese decent will make their way home to their parents to celebrate the eve of the new year together at the reunion dinner. And CNY's eve is this coming Saturday!

Hence, this is the week of last minute cleaning and baking before the Chinese New Year festivities begin next week. The real fortunate ones will celebrate all 15 days of CNY, but modern life and work schedules only allow a couple of days of celebration. In most of South-East Asia, it's a three day holiday, so my friends are taking this time to take a mini break from work. Lucky guys!

My oven had been going all night, whipping up sweet, melt-in-the-mouth favorites of the family's CNY traditional and new recipes like peanut cookies, almond cookies, pineapple tarts, cornflake cookies, and then some. After Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year,superbowl, and valentine's day, the baking and cooking continues to celebrate the new year of the wild boar (or otherwise known as the year of the pig). Will post some pictures of my bakes soon. In the meantime, here's a picture of one of my aquarium as you requested, Ching.:)