Dear Red Couch Readers, today is Chinese New Years Table. My husband teaches at a University with a fair amount of foreign students. His Chinese students call what we call Chinese New Years, Chinese Festival. Who knew that?
We celebrated Chinese Festival with our neighbors on Saturday night. They have three delightful little girls, so we put the Chinese Dragon puppet at the end of the table.
I put three fans on the table for the girls to take home with them after dinner.
The table was set with a simple red dinner plate, chop sticks and a little orange. Oranges in China are passed out liberally during Chinese New Years. Red symbolizes good fortune and joy, and is used during Chinese New Years.
Gold, like the Chinese brass characters and the chargers, is considered the best color. During Chinese New Year, money is given out in red envelopes. We just had gold-foiled chocolate coins on the table, embossed with the words "United States."
I just love all the red on this table!
I set the Chinese brass characters, bought in San Francisco's Chinatown years ago. The brass characters coordinate with the gold chargers.
A larger view of the table.
Tulips graced the center of the table. My daughter cutely asked if tulips were from China.
We had lemon chicken. Sorry the photo is a bit off color, as we took the photos at night. You can find the recipe for Lemon Chicken HERE. We have been making this recipe for over 30 years now. We pressed the white rice in the ramekins, and then we unmolded it. This was a fun little touch.
We also made steamed pork dumplings, and we served them with a delicious Gyoza dipping sauce from Trader Joe's. This was my first experience with a bamboo steamer, and it worked so well.
We had a simple dessert of fortune cookies, almond cookies, and cookie butter cookies.