My Mom the Lucky Lady: Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony

As mentioned in the previous post, my mom was the Lucky Lady at my friends Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony.  I googled research on her role and provided her some of the lucky saying that I found online.  However, she didn't like them and came up with some on her own.  Some are generic since these are some sayings that go way back in the Chinese culture.  But she actually requested to meet with my friends (the bride and the groom) and personalized it.  I found this very special because during this process, we get to know the new couple's family better and added more meaning to the tea ceremony.

For instance, the groom's sibling is not married.  So my mom said to the sibling during the tea ceremony that after gaining a sister-in-law this year, s/he will gain a spouse next year.  If an uncle invest in stocks, then the lucky saying to the uncle will be his stock will be on a rise after drinking the new bride tea, etc.  Below are some saying done by my mom from yesterday's ceremony.

Lucky Lady: 新郎茶好品嚐。  今年娶弟婦， 明年添伯娘。

Translation: New groom tea is delicious.  This year brother gains a sister-in-law; next year, he gains a wife.

Lucky Lady: 新娘茶樣樣有。  蓮子， 百合， 糖蓮藕。  飲過新娘茶， 食到九千九。子孫滿堂要幫手。

Translation: New bride tea has everything – lotus seed, lily bulb, and sweeten lotus root.  After drinking new bride’s tea, you’ll live to nine thousand nine with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

After putting jewelry on the bride:

Lucky Lady: 首飾金器戴在身。  從此成為X家人。 良緣巧遇天注定。

Translation: Jewelry and gold all over the bride.  She is now part of the X family.  Fate is destined by the heavenly above.

"X" above, you put in the last name of the groom.

Lucky Lady: 飲杯新郎茶， 歡樂好年華。  健康長壽笑哈哈。

Translation: Drink a cup of new groom tea.  May happiness and health be with you always.

Lucky Lady: 新娘茶, 香又清。  飲過新娘茶， 步步再高升。

Translation: New bride tea, fragrant and light.  After drinking new bride’s tea, you will be on the path to success.

Sweet Tea: Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony

My mom was asked to be the Lucky Lady at my friend's Chinese wedding tea ceremony yesterday; of course, I helped out.

Our original plan was have a dried red date and a sweetened lotus seed in each cup; however, after much searching, we were unable to locate the sweetened lotus seed.  We were told that these are not available until closer to Lunar New Year.  Therefore, we substitute it with dried logan.  I really wanted the sweetened lotus seed for my friends because I know they really want to have kids and the bride really wants a girl, but with much hesitant, I settled on the dried logan which represents many sons.  Dried red date was added for good luck.  In the Chinese culture, red is good for everything. Sweet tea was served by the couple to represent their sweet reunion.

Dried Logan

Dried Red Date

I set up the cups before the guest arrives and put one dried logan and one dried red date in each cup. We used the tea the restaurant.  I have all this set-up and when the tea ceremony begins, a helper simply pour tea into the cups for serving.

Chinese Wedding Paper Tea Cups

Chinese Wedding Tea Tray

Ready to serve the first family member.  One family member gets two cups -- one cup of tea from the bride and one from the groom.  If serving a couple together (like parents, grandparents, an uncle & an aunt), you will need four cups of tea on the tray for serving.

Sweet wedding tea with dried red date and dried logan

Going back and forth serving tea and the lucky envelopes are from the tea guests to all the helpers in the tea ceremony

The tea ceremony luncheon ended with a red bean soup that has lily bulb and lotus seed in it.  I was so happy when I saw the lotus seed.  It was a sign of relief that perhaps besides many sons, my friend can have a daughter too!  :-)

We are actually Christians, so we turn to God on blessing my friends with children.  However, the new couple wanted this ceremony to honor and respect their families.  Therefore, all the good luck elements are from the perspective of honoring our culture.

Drink to Beautiful Skin: Bitter Melon Spare Rib Soup

Bitter Melon is also known as a Chinese super-food; my Chinese therapist told me to make this bitter melon spare rib soup to help with my acne break out.  You can google research the health benefit for bitter melon.


Ingredients:
1.5 lbs of spareribs
1/4 cup of dried black-eyed peas
1/4 cup of dried soy bean
2 bittermelon
1 dried sweet date
1 container of firm tofu
2 slices of ginger


Directions:

1) Blanch spareribs

2) Wash and cut bittermelon in halves.  Scratch out the inside of the bittermelon with a spoon.  Then cut bittermelon into cubes

3) Cut firm tofu into cubes, one container makes around 10 cubes

4) Peeled skin off ginger and smash the two slices with a cleaver

5) Wash dried black-eyed peas, dried soy bean, and dried sweetened date

6) Put everything into a pot and put one pitcher of water in it.

7) I used my electronic pressure cooker to make this.  I used the soup function and set it for 45 minutes.

This is my first time making bittermelon soup and it taste better than I expected.  The sweetened date helps the bitterness.  My soup did not have dried soy bean because I don't have any have home.

Sweetened dried date put in soup

Soup is done

My bowl of soup

Fall Inspired: Persimmon Curry Beef Rice Noodle Soup

The last time I went back to Macau, my aunt took me to three different places to eat curry beef rice noodle soup.  Today, I made my homemade version -- this is a healthier version, which means, it might be too blend for some you out there.

But here it is:

Part 1: Curry Beef with Persimmon

1 ripe Hachiya persimmon

1 onion

14 oz of beef stew meat (I find this too lean, will use some tendon or something fattier next time)

1 tablespoon of curry oil

small piece of dried tangerine peel

salt to taste

1) I rinsed the stew meat and towel dry it.

2) Marinate the meat with persimmon, tangerine peel, and salt

Ripe Hachiya Persimmon, peel persimmon

Place peeled ripe persimmon and cutted tangerine peels into the container with the beef

Mixed persimmon with the beef, add salt into the mix

Cover, leave in fridge to marinate overnight

3) Cut onion into cube

4) Put marinated beef, onions, and a tablespoon of curry oil into a slow cooker; set high and cook for 8 hours.  I cooked mine for 10 hours because I turned it on before I go to work and off when I returned to work.  No timer on this slow cooker.  

Onion cubes at the bottom, persimmon marinated beef, curry oil

This is the curry oil I used.  My aunt got me this from Macau

5) Finish product: Persimmon Curry Beef

You can serve this with rice also

Part 2: Rice Noodle Soup

1) Soak rice noodle for 30 minutes

2) Boil water (around a quart), add teaspoon of chicken bouillon to water, add 2 tablespoon of persimmon curry beef (you can add more -- this is tailored to your liking)  to boiling water

This is the bouillon I used

3) Add rice noodle to soup base, cover and bring it to boil.  The noodles will float on top when it's down.  Try a strand of noodle to make sure it's soft (cooked).  Add salt to taste.

Cover this after adding rice noodle.  Let it boil

4) My dinner: Persimmon Curry Beef Rice Noodle Soup

Bonus

You can substitute the rice noodle with ramen!  It will make it tastier (less healthy) :-)
But it's also quicker.  After the Persimmon Curry Beef is done.  Just cook your ramen and add the persimmon curry beef to your ramen.

You can serve the dish with rice on Day 1 then ramen on Day 2!

I freezed the dish, took it out of the freezer last night and make my Persimmon Curry Beef Ramen

Hope you enjoy this.

A Cup of Mangosteen Tea

I was very fortunate to receive fresh mangosteen in Hawaii.  Besides eating this fruit fresh, I prepped the rind and skin to bring back to the Mainland to make tea.


1) Fresh Mangosteens

 Fresh Mangosteens

2) Inside Mangosteens

 Inside Mangosteens.  The white flesh was eaten fresh, the rind and skin was saved for tea.

3) Cutting the mangosteens rind and skin into small pieces for drying

Cutting mangosteens rind and skin

Drying the rind and skin in the Hawaiian sun

FYI: One cannot bring fresh mangosteen fruit back to the U.S. mainland; but can bring back the dried rind and skin.

4) Grind the rind and skin in a clean coffee grinder

Grinding the rind and skin

5) Now in close to powder form

Grinded mangosteen rind and skin

6) Mangosteen Tea

1 quart of water

1 tablespoon of grinded mangosteen rind and skin

heat for 30 minutes

add 1 tablespoon of honey

This makes two cups of mangosteen tea

Right before I added the honey

A cup of mangosteen tea

I am so grateful to the fresh mangosteens; you can google research the health benefits of mangosteens.

Enjoy!

Island Inspired Guava Chicken

I wanted to make chicken drumsticks for the kids today.  I was going to do my normal drumsticks, with soy sauce, garlic, and an orange color jam (apricot, passion fruit, or marmalade).

However, being on the island of paradise and having access to some really fresh fruits, I decided to throw some guava and lime into this dish.

Island Inspired Guava Chicken

8 Chicken Drumsticks
1/2 Guava
1 lime
3 gloves of garlic
Soy Sauce
Brown Sugar
Oil



1) Deskin the chicken drumsticks and chopped the garlic
2) Chop guava into cubes

Guava

3) I put in 1/3 of lime, but you might want to skip this and use lime juice only.  The peel of the lime gave the dish a very slight bitter taste
4) Put some oil into a non-stick pan, when oil is heated, put in the chopped garlic
5) Then put in the chicken drumsticks and soy sauce.  I did not measure the soy sauce I put in.   I did two swirls from the bottle.
6) Let the chicken cook. Cover the chicken.
7) In around 10 minutes when the chicken is like half cooked, put in the guava cubes.

Add in Guava when the chicken is half cooked

8)  I also put in my 1/3 lime with peel with the guava cubes.  Again, the lime peel gave the dish a slight bitter taste. So, this step is optional.
9) Put in around 1/3 teaspoon of brown sugar.   I did not measure this when I put it in.  You can add more sugar if you like it more sweet.
10) Cover the chicken and let if finish cooking.

Done, ready to be served

11) Squeeze in lime juice to finish up the dish.

Island Inspired Guava Chicken Drumsticks

Aloha to a Cup of Java

We did a Kona coffee tour yesterday; I learned quick a few things about Kona coffee.

1) Coffee beans are cherries

Cherries on coffee plant 

2) It is picked when the cherries are ripe; once picked, the cherries go through a buoyancy test.  The cherries that float are bad, the ones that sink continues on the process of being coffee beans.


3) The cherries that sank get their skins remove.  The plantation washes the skin and dried the skin to make Cherry Kona Coffee Tea.  The inner seed move on to grading and selection.

Ripe cherries and the seeds inside

4) Most cherries have two seeds inside.  Around 4% have one round seed, and these become Peaberry Coffee

Seeds for Peaberry coffee

5) Of course, the grading and selection of the coffee beans are all done by machines.  Machines import from Costa Rica due to Costa Rica's rich history in coffee processing.  They showed us sifters to demonstrate how it's done.  Coffee beans larger or smaller than these sifters cannot be Kona Coffee.

Sifters to qualify beans for Kona Coffee and to grade the coffee beans

6) Once the beans are graded by size by the sifters, they go through another size and density test -- like the mixed nut effect in physics.

Machine shaking the beans, one grade size at a time.  The smaller, rotten, light beans goes to the bottom.  The big ones on top.

7) The good beans comes out on top.

These beans will move on to color grading

8) Once the beans go through color grading, it will come out of the shooter for roasting.

These beans passed the color grading

9) Roaster -- coffee beans have no taste.  Roasting breaks the beans to release oil in the bean.  The oil is what gives the beans the taste and smell.

10) After roasting, packaging happens and off to store shelves.


This is my brief recap of my coffee tour at Thunder Mountain Coffee in Kona.  The most interesting fact I took away from the tour is how decaf coffee come about.  The coffee beans are soaked in spring water to get the caffeine out.  Once the caffeine is out, they processed the beans to become decaf.  Now, what do they do with the caffeine spring water?  They sell it to Coca-Cola!

A Taste of Childhood: Butter Sugar Toast and More

Peanut butter jelly sandwiches probably is the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to childhood sandwiches; however, my version of childhood sandwich is the butter sugar toast.

Butter Sugar Toast
2 slices of bread
Toast the bread
Spread butter on the warm toasted bread
Sprinkle sugar on top of the melted butter

My night time snack last night -- Butter Sugar Toast

There is another variation to this toast -- which is the Peanut Butter Sugar Toast, simply replace butter with peanut butter.  It's delicious, but due to nut allergies, this has been banned from my household.


My colleague has given me permission to share her childhood sandwich --

Bread with Sweetened Condensed Milk

A slice of soft white bread
Drizzle sweetened condensed milk on the slice of bread


These are easy to make and importantly, every time I make butter sugar toast, it reminds me of my mother and how she used to make it for us when we were a kid.  The same for my colleague, when it comes to her bread with sweetened condensed milk -- it always reminds her of mom.

Happy Birthday: Ice Cream Mochi Donut Cake

At this point in my life, I have hosted my share of children birthday parties.  My proudest creation thus far is the Ice Cream Mochi Donut Cake.


2 dozens of Crispy Kreme original donuts (got a Groupon or LivingSocial deal, $10 for 2 dozens)
Multiple boxes of Ice Cream Mochi
Put an Ice Cream Mochi in each donut hole

I got extra ice cream mochi to serve to the adults.

Jook (Rice Porridge): Comfort Food for Her Spouse

I'm very grateful to my hospice volunteer experience.  It was a calling to become the first Cantonese speaking volunteer at Hospice.  I never expected to be serving the dying and their families at that point in my life.

I was assigned to patient A; hospice asked me to go and provide companionship.  I arrived at her apartment and discovered that her spouse needed the companionship more.  He was her caregiver and was trapped in the house all day to care for her.  She was on morphine to reduce her pain, but the morphine also made her very sedated.  He was losing her, he was lonely, and he was grieving.

I served this family for a few months.  The day she was actively dying, I visited her to say my good-bye.  Importantly, it was time to say my good-bye to her spouse.  I brought along with me a container of homemade jook for him that visit.

Jook, it's a comfort food in the Cantonese culture.  It is also called congee or rice porridge.  I grew up eating jook for breakfast.  Everytime someone is sick in the family, the first thing we do is to make jook.  If someone is grieving, we also make jook because we know it's hard for them to intake solid food.  So jook provides comfort and something easy for them to eat.

There are many methods to make jook.

One simple and lazy way is to use a slow cooker.

1 cup of rice
5 cups of water
5 small dried scallops
1 to 2 sticks of dried bean curd


Wash the rice, dried scallops and dried bean curd
Break the dried scallops and dried bean curd into pieces
Put everything in the slow cooker
Set high for 8 hours
Add salt for flavor when ready to serve

I usually do this before I sleep and jook is ready in the morning

You can substitute the dried scallops and dried bean curd to other items or you can remove these items and make plain jook.  However, this was the jook I made for my patient's spouse when I said my good-byes.