Paying for the new year binge

Of all the New Year goodies, my weakness will have to be love letters. Not the mass produced factory ones, mind you, but good old traditional homemade-from-a-secret-recipe ones. Those that you can only procure by being in the loop, knowing someone (usually a peranakan homemaker) who will only get into the business of making them once a year. They're difficult to find, and even if you do have a contact, orders have to be made way in advance. Can't just ring her up and casually ask for a tin or two. These are rare commodities.

So imagine my joy when I was given a tin of these. At first sight, you'd know that they've been handmade lovingly by someone squatting behind a hot stove. Its a lovely light golden brown. Not the uniform chau tar brown churned out by the thousands in an unknown factory. Needless to say, it'll be a sin to not eat them, and eat them fast you must, or it'll go lau hong easily. So in the span of three days, they were all gone. Half of it eaten by me. Yes, this New Year binging is very bad. But my mitigating factor is that I didn't have any of those other New Year goodies.. shrimp rolls, kueh bangkits, bah kwa, pineapple tarts. So i guess its slightly ok. In any case, other than new year snacks, my dad will usually whip up a storm in the kitchen, preparing for the reunion dinner and lunch on the 2nd day. We usually have leftovers on the first. It's supposedly a Chinese thing, symbolizing abundance, eating from the old year to the new. Not that I mind of course, most of the stuff my dad puts on the table for the reunion dinner only make their appearance once a year. Like my favorite Hakka dish of stewed beancurd sticks, black fungus, mushrooms. Funnily enough, it has no auspicious name.. its just called 'The New Year dish'. And its taste is at its zenith only when dished up as a leftover. And there's also dried oyster steamed with some minced meat and wrapped up in pig's caul. Just lovely. I have to remember to get the recipe from my dad some day.

And New Year ain't New Year without gambling of course. Like any Good Chinese Person, that's what I did mostly. Played blackjack with my 2nd cousins on the first day and lost prolly around 5 dollars. It's all in good fun. I played mahjong on the 2nd day with my sister and her friends. For 5 hours' work, pocketed 6.40 and I was the overall winner too. small stakes, but huge fun. I'm not very good at Mahjong actually. Haven't played in a long while, but I was lucky. Maybe inspired by Andy Lau in the New Year movie the night before, where he played some Mahjong warrior or something. I'd start out with really crap hands, but somehow all the tiles I want will always be drawn. Not bad for a novice versus 3 addicts. ha! They might not want to play with me again.

No pictures though, camera died and I haven't gotten around to send it to hospital. Maybe next year.



And what's the title got to do with the post so far? Well.. to make up for scoffing all those love letters, I got myself a new pair of running shoes. Gotta start moving! All this eating and sitting around in front of the computer is definately no good. And there're a couple of push factors too. namely JE and R. They've been buggin me to run. And I want to. Not on the track though.. reckon I'll be huffing and puffing along the ridge soon.