2017 is the Year of the Fire Rooster. January 28th, 2017 marks the Lunar New Year. It’s a very important holiday in Chinese culture and I feel like I actually know very little about it. Friday I headed to my parent’s house to celebrate with family. During dinner I learned a few things about why certain foods are served at dinner during New Year’s and some other cultural history. For instance, the reason we eat Tofu (豆腐) is because it sounds similar to 多福.Which means more luck. I need to start writing some of this knowledge down or I may forget, oh wait, that’s this.

My mom made a veritable feast of succulent food. So many of my favorite things to eat, I wish I had been slightly more gluttonous. Chinese sausage, bean curd skin, stewed beef with daikon, shrimp, some stuff I don’t even know what it is but I just recognize it as something I love to eat. I’ll have to get a recap from my parents next time I see them. Then I need to learn how to make it so I can recreate this in the future for my friends and family.

After dinner we sat around and talked and caught up about our lives. Mostly mine, I tend to not visit home often due to gallivanting around during the week, and my parents being gone on the weekend. It was nice to just sit around and talk and catch up while enjoying food. We then decided to take some group pictures and I got to play with my remote shooting feature on the camera. Before long it was midnight, time flew by. We all headed home and I slept soundly with a full belly.

Saturday I got to sleep in, but I had a meetup with Kathy in Detroit. I’ve never been to the Huron Room. Kathy is absurdly busy, so I was happy to be able to catch her for 4 hours. I’ve known her a long time (I almost want to say as early as elementary school), and we only recently reconnected during Mr. Macnair’s retirement party. I think I just assumed most of my high school friends moved away so it’s been nice including her in activities whenever she is able to make time to come.

The Huron Room serves mostly seafood, and I think locally sourced when possible. I ordered a Grilled Venison Chili fingers which ended up being delicious. I ordered a chili as well, which may have been a mistake because I wasn’t able to finish my fried fish curry. The chili was not quite what I was expecting, but it was still delectable. I had to take some of the curry home, but it made for a good dinner the next day. Before long Kathy had to move on to her next endeavor and we had to part ways.

Having drank a good number of beers at the Huron Room, I decided to start up a fire and drink around it. I was hoping the fire would cast away some of the gloom that the light dusting of snow had brought. Also I had some things I had to burn to get rid of. Ian, Kevin, and Dante came over and we made it a night of discussion and beer. As the night progressed, Kevin went to bed and Dante fell asleep. Ian and I managed to stay up until 5AM having some great conversation before I also had to tap out.

Sunday we had to wake up for Dim Sum. 11:30 AM came too quickly with a mild hangover. We had a group of 14 people to enjoy Dim Sum and finalize our celebration of Chinese New Year. It was a great time, I haven’t seen Sylvie or her kids in a long time and Jennifer has been busy as well. We met her friend Carolyn who is quite the jetsetter; I got a lot of great advice from her about travel plans. Lovely lady. I hope to see more of everyone soon. What started out as a pretty nonchalant weekend less than a week beforehand turned into quite a slew of events. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

-Evilmanta