Last Sunday was the first day of the Chinese New Year of Tiger. Since I didn’t have to work, I felt the urge to celebrate by trekking up to San Francisco.
Chinese New Year was a big deal when I grew up in Hong Kong. But since I came to the US, it gradually felt off my radar because the last few cities I lived didn’t have a sizable Chinese population or a decent Chinatown, so there was no large-scale celebration.
Maybe because I hadn’t taken Chinese New Year seriously for such a long time, I really looked forward to it this year. I thought much about the trip to San Francisco during the week leading up to the New Year.
So what did I end up doing in San Francisco? The first place I went was San Bao Temple, a Buddhist temple of Taiwanese origin. I wanted to follow my family’s custom of visiting a temple at the beginning of the New Year to ask for blessings from the gods.
After a ceremony to dedicate our offerings to the Buddha, the temple served a vegetarian lunch for the congregation. Even before I became a vegetarian, I liked to start the New Year with a vegetarian meal. The idea is to avoid any killing.
The temple serves amazing Chinese vegetarian food. The main dish for the day was lo-han vegetarian medley (consisting of napa cabbage, bean curd sheets, black moss seaweed, mushrooms, etc.), served along several stir-fries, brown rice, and soup.
I then moved on to Chinatown to get my dose of unhealthy festive food. I gleefully threw my New Year resolution to eat healthier out of the window, at least for the day.
As if I were on a high, I picked up deep-fried dough balls coated with sesame seeds, steamed buns filled with lotus seed and custard pastes, a glutinous rice ball dessert, and a couple of Hong Kong-style bakery items.
I enjoyed these treats by sitting on the grass in the nearby Washington Square in North Beach, people-watching at the same time. Talk about low-cost entertainment!
Before I headed back to San Mateo, I couldn’t resist and bought a round cake of nian gao (glutinous rice cake) to savor at home later. The cake was tinted red to signify good luck. I hoped the color didn’t come from artificial coloring.
But I craved nian gao so much that this was hardly a concern. The last time I had it was EIGHT years ago. When I bit into the warm, pillowy, coconut milk-flavored slices of nian gao after heating them up at home, memories from Chinese New Year in Hong Kong rushed back to me. All the food. All the people. All the noise.
Unhealthy festive food: deep-fried dough balls and nian gao
I went so far as eating almost nian gao only the following day. Was it nostalgia or homesickness? Now I have to think of ways to lose the pounds I’ve gained from all the carbs…
Wishing you an auspicious Year of the Tiger!
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