I Suck At Chinese New Year

This year, my parents decided to celebrate Chinese New Year on Saturday. Chinese New Year is actually on Sunday, which also happens to be Valentine's Day. For anyone curious, this year is the year of the tiger (my year). Too bad I suck at Chinese New Year.

Every year, my parents host a dinner for Chinese New Year. In fact, I think Chinese New Year is the one day of the year that my parents look forward to because they get to share the event with friends and family. Particularly, they get to cook (and my mom loves to cook) and they get to share the event with Karen's family and some of our friends.

When this tradition began, it was mainly Karen, Karen's parents, my favorite sister-in-law (Janine), my favorite brother-in-law (PJ) and their family. Some other members of Karen's family would attend like Karen's grandparents. My cousin (Betty) and her son (Marvin) would also come.

Along the way, my friends (Jen and Bill) started joining in on the celebration. My mom's friends would come. This year, my friends (Gretchen and Andrea) attended the new year dinner. Pretty soon, there will be a ton of people attending my parents's Chinese New Year celebration dinner. Truth be told, my mother would probably be okay with that because she always makes a ton of food.

Anyway, the dinner celebration in my opinion was great as usual. I hope the newcomers of Gretchen and Andrea enjoyed the dinner. I was particularly curious if Andrea would enjoy the dinner. Andrea, like a good number of my friends, is particular when it comes to eating. If my friends had dietary restrictions, I could understand the peculiar eating. Sadly, that is usually not the case with my friends.

But I will give Andrea (and Jen) credit. Both of them did try seaweed. There is a vegetarian dish known as Buddha's delight. Well, within this dish my mother adds black seaweed. Based on the sound of things, I am sure the dish does not sound appetizing to the average person. For the most part, I would agree that seaweed does not sound appetizing, until you realize that seaweed is also used in things like sushi.

I actually think that is the cause of some of my friends' eating issues. I think that a majority of them have this preconceived idea of what the food will taste like based on these assumptions. Thus, they will refuse trying the item or already have a negative bias toward the item. In essence, it's judging a book by the cover... but for food. Luckily, I don't have that issue. I'll eat anything... which would make me a valuable asset to any of those reality television shows where you have to eat... anything.

Regardless, Andrea surprised me. She ate the seaweed. I doubt that she would eat it ever again, but at least she tried it. Of course, had she eaten the entire dish and not just the seaweed alone, she would had the full experience of the dish. (Why eat just the ingredients? It's like eating a dash of salt... you wouldn't eat that by itself, right?)

All in all, I had a great time celebrating Chinese New Year. It's always great to hang out with family and friends. After all, that's what it's all about.