new year cooking tips

the year of the golden pig started off hot... we descended into the oz capital of fashion and at the same time our skin started to shrivel up as our sweat vapourise into the 38 degree heat... it was a great weekend (although we didn't have much time to sleep)... there was the endless food preparation before the new year's eve family lunch... there were numerous cooking tips to be remembered... there was the quick arvo nap and then catching up with old friends in (yet another) wedding... and there was the family visit and red packets to collect...

the most interesting cooking tip: nian gao (new year cake) is steamed with cake sugar & rice flour mixture for 1 hour only (in my childhood i was told it takes 4,5,6 even 7 hours to steam); and the trick is to steam it in a glad wrap lined container and decorate it with a chinese stamp with red food dye at the end - the end result really looks like the one in the shops

the hardest goodbye: was to gramps at hospital... having to visit him at the last leg of his life and then had to wake him up from his sleep to say goodbye... how important it is to have everyone (and i mean everyone) around - can one imagine struggling at the end, by yourself, no one giving you a tissue as you drown in your own saliva... or dying of thirst as you do not have the strength to grab your glass of water...

the dryest country: the grass was brown, and washing machine water was being piped into the bathtub for garden watering / flushing loo, my dried and itchy nose, and the thirst for cold water...

more red packets: 30 years of red packets... abit embarassing really...