On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...
For this year's Lunar New Year, we made 10 dishes together to celebrate the beginning of this year of ox. Moooooo 🐮!
We started prepping for these dishes a little past noon. Altogether it took about 8 hours of prepping and cooking that day! By the time we got done, we were quite tired with sore feet (from standing in the kitchen for hours 🍲) and sore arm (from the covid vaccine the day before 💉).
2021 Lunar New Year's Dinner Menu
♢ Steamed Spicy Halibut
♢ Fried Oysters
♢ Garlic & Pepper Green Beans
♢ Beef Wrapped Eggs (wagyu beef slices wrapped over boiled eggs & green beans)
♢ Steamed Garlic & Butter Tiger Shrimps
♢ Rice Balls (filled with black beans, sauteed seafood mushrooms & brown mushrooms, seasoned with bonito flakes)
♢ Boiled Pork Belly (with garlic ginger sauce)
♢ Mushu Stir Fry (celery, wood ears, carrot, and ground turkey)
♢ Savory Sticky Rice (dried mushroom, dried anchovy, and ground turkey)
Story time. 😊
Traditionally, families celebrate Lunar New Year with lots of food - seriously a feast with many dishes! In Chinese culture, it's customary to prepare lots of food with the mind of "extra is good" and sort of this saying "have leftover every year." This leftover could mean leftover luck, wealth, or anything in line with good fortune. Since "extra" in Chinese sounds like "yu" and that it has the same pronunciation as "fish" in Chinese, lunar new year meals often include at least 1 fish dish.
In the past, we made a ton, and I mean A TON, of food and this time, we decided to go "tapas style" 🍴 W called it "a new tradition" and that we "will keep up with" 😆 We did prepare extra for some dishes (mushu, rice balls, green beans) and ate them with the leftovers for the rest of the weekend.
My personal favorites of these were the fried oysters (I think anything that's fried is hard to beat!) and that bowl of savory sticky rice (油飯, literally means "greasy rice"). W loved this rice dish so much that he asked me to make more just 2 days later, and so I did 😄!
May this new year bring us and our loved ones (and to you, dear reader) lots of happiness and good health 💖
新年快樂!
💗 CM
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