Special Deliveries

Wow.  Deliveries all day today for a certain young lady who is looking forward to celebrating the Lunar New Year.  It is a really important celebration for her and she must have spent a lot of money buying all the stuff for us to try.  We want to give her the money back but she won't hear of it, but where there is a will there is a way.  I already have the red envelopes sourced and ready to go, we can just add more money which she can't refuse.  We have also ordered some of the traditional goodies including picked vegetables and candied fruit and fish sauce.  It is quite difficult for me to do this in secret as I need to read up on the traditions and then try to translate the foods on offer and available to us.  Q has obviously found a better stockist than me that I hope she will share the details of as Longdans where I have been buying from seem to sell out weeks in advance of any celebrations. 

The bottom two squares are Bánh chưng , traditional Vietnames cake made from sticky rice, mung beans and pork, which are traditionally eaten as part of the celebration.  I was going to make some until I read how long it took (12 hours to steam!!), and how they needed to be folded and tied in banana leaves which strangely enough they don't stock in my local Tesco.  


I am really looking forward to Friday, we have been to the supermarket for the main ingredients for the banquet - a lot of chillies were included in the trolly, some of which will feature in my still life pics I intend to take for the next camera club competition.  I'm sure more pics of the cooked food will be on my blips for Friday.