A simple pre-Christmas and Winter Solstice festival gathering with cousins took place at our humble abode. There were no roast turkey, or baked potatoes. Not even a celebration cake. Neither were there steamed chicken and stir-fried mixed vegetables. Instead, I whipped out three simple east-meets-west style dishes - chinese turnip and orange salad in apple cider, honey and mint dressing, honey mustard chicken, and tomato-based minced pork macaroni.
Dessert was tong yuen, round glutinous rice balls in hot, light syrup. The partaking of these soft, chewy rice balls symbolises family unity, and prosperity for the following year. I remember my younger years spent with my grandparents, and I helped roll the kneaded dough in small balls. They were left overnight to harden so they were more chewy and not easily dissolved when boiled and cooked in syrup. Perhaps next year I would attempt to make some with red bean paste or gula melaka filling, or savoury ones with peanut filling.
Homemade white and yellow plain glutinous rice balls
The gathering was more for fellowship and sharing as we came close to the end of 2008. Later into the night, three bottles of wines, including a Brown Brothers late harvest laid on the garden table. We stayed up late chatting away in the porch, with both our neighbours putting up with our loud chatters and laughters in the stillness of the night, which drowned even the chirpings of the crickets in the park across our abode. Boring as it might have seemed, nothing beats bonding of such.
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