Yuanxiao

Like what I mentioned in my tweets earlier, Spring Festival also known as Chinese New Year ( some day between 01/21 and 02/19 each year by lunar calendar) is the most important festival for Chinese people; well, for most Asians~ Most of you knew that we eat Jiaozi (dumplings) in Chinese New Year, now, I would like to introduce you to another holiday, Yuanxiao Festival also know as Lantern Festival.

One thing you should know the difference between Yuanxiao and Tangyuan is the way they made. Other than that, they are pretty much the same. You can check out the video and find out more about the differences.

  

Now, let’s focus on Yuanxiao.

You can fill the glutinous rice flour with black sesame, sweetened bean, wuren (five nuts) and hawberry, those are the most traditional flavor choices. Recent years, the venerable Daoxiangcun (one of the most famous brand in making traditional local snacks in Beijing) have more flavor choices for variety of people; chocolate, aloe, meat, pumpkin, green tea, different kind of fruits… just named one, and you will find that flavor. Moreover, you can choose your favorite color for the dough too, suck as, green, purple and orange…even with leopard texture; most importantly you can eat that safely.

With all of these new flavors and the invention of various dough, Yuanxiao is not longer single white and black, but add more color for the big festival.

Holidays are coming, it’s time for family and friends gathering around enjoy all kind of holidays and getting ready for a new year!

PS: I wish you all the best for the upcoming 2012!!!!

  



I am always jealous of those food critics, they can eat everywhere they can and get paid by give a review by their own.

Sam Sifton, former New York Times food editor who gives a lot of reviews for restaurants; even on his twitter account, he have 75 thousand of followers. I really hope that one day I can get that position, so I can let more people know about my culture through foods. I will continue working on my blog and tweet, not only for the passion I have for food, but to present the nearly missing cultural.

Protect Beijing's traditional snacks

The rising costs are giving many business owners difficulties in this economy. According to Ecns.cn, the old Beijing traditional snack, the money they made each day is not enough for those sellers daily rent, although the cost of the dish is much higher than before, those places are still not making any money. The business mode for those traditional local snacks is “small profits, quick turnover”, with hope to keep protect Beijing’s traditional culture. What I can do for the whole economy is very a little, but let more people know more about traditional Beijing local snack through my blog and twitter is the thing I can do! 

Promote a video_ Beijing bygone snacks

Really speaks out for Beijing bygone snacks.

Like the old days, people lived together in Hutong (a courtyard residences) in Beijing, neighbors are nice to each other; but with new residential buildings are been being built, those traditional Beijing homes will disappear (well, maybe I need to say the disappeared Hutong) and make way for new development homes for the rich; this is really sad for Beijingers. Anyhow, about the food, as types of culture heritage in Beijing, traditional Beijing snacks are close to the edge of disappears. As a Beijinger and a foreign student in the U.S. I feel I have some responsibility to promote something, and that’s the reason I choose this video to promote on my blog. 

Thxgiving jiaozi / dumplings

start over the thxgiving jiaozi video~

X and O Hoops

As a former basketball player for Academy of Art University in San Francisco from 2008 to 2011, Phillip Samuel, son of the head football coach in OVC conference pursuing his career on coaching college basketball now. For those of you who are into basketball, you can find more WHYs of unspoken of NCAA basketball stories at his blog at http://xandohoops.blogspot.com; also in his twitter @X_and_O_Hoops.

Thanksgiving Jiaozi

Dumplings also known as Jiaozi is a traditional Chinese major foods, especially in northern China. In Chinese New Year, every family will gather around the dinner table and making Jiaozi. It’s like American celebrity Thanksgiving day by eating turkey.

Last week, the manager of my building made us jiaozi for Thanksgiving day, which is odd because we supposed to eat turkey that day… anyhow, all of us were very happy about that.

Here’s a short MV made by me about Jiaozi we ate that day. It’s only for fun~

There’s a big difference about the Jiaozi we eat in Beijing, and the one we ate that day, it’s about the shape. Different region have different shapes, since the manger of where I live here is from southern China, and what we called of the Thanksgiving Jiaozi is called Huntun actually. Beside of shapes, the making process is kind of the same.

KangShiFu Instant Noodles

Like what I said in my tweet, all of a sudden, I want to have a bowl of KangShiFu instant noodles. Because of my curiosity, I searched some of the background info about KangShiFu, and the shocking part for me is that there are 84 different flavors... It is no exaggeration to say that all Chinese students, whether they like the brand or not, they have eaten Kang’s instant noodles before. It’s like the well known brand- Cocacola in the market.  

Here is what I found from KangShiFu’s official website, which shows there customized flavors in mainland China. Pretty amazing~