On the second day of CNY 2009

I was expecting SOME visitors for the whole day, but when the visitors started showing up, we were overwhelmed. Mum got up early and cooked a whole wok full of vegetarian. It had wood's ear, tong fun (a kind of vermicelli), beancurd skin, beancurd and spiced with fermented bean curd (fu yee) and Chinese cabbage. I estimate that it would be enough to feed an army. I had no idea how right I was!

8th Aunty volunteered to help prepare the vegetarian dish. She turned up with 8th Uncle-in-law and 3rd uncle close to 9am. Mum left her the task of preparing the roast pork and the Nian Gau ( a sticky treacly new year sweet). Nian Gau is traditionally offered to the kitchen god on new year's eve so that his mouth is all gummed up and he cannot report to heaven about the BAD things one has done.

Nothing much happened until 11.30am or so. Then Frankie and family showed up. And very soon after that Danny, my brother. So they started the steamboat first. There was also the vegetarian dish, together with roast pork, kau yoke (another pork dish with fermented beancurd and wood's ear). For the steamboat, we had meatballs (prawn, fish and combos), vege - lots of vege. And mushrooms - at least 3 different variety.

Before this group of 5 finished, the Tehs, Yeohs and Campos showed up - adding another 8 or so to the crowd - still manageable. Siew Yong came later. Then came my former landlady, Ah Seong, with kids in tow. And before long, Janet and Stefan turned up. Madeline and Vincent followed closely after. And Vincent's parents dropped in too.

Managed to squeeze in some group photos with the Tehs, Yeohs and Campos. And then 5th Uncle (maternal) showed up with his family. Following close behind was Elaine's family.

For Elaine's family, almost all the meat for the steamboat had already been consumed. So I added in freshly squeezed juice for them. Ah... Harrison and Esther just love the taste of fresh squeezed juices (no water or sugar added). She is now budgeting for a similar juicer.

And to round off the day - 4th uncle (maternal) showed up. And that was just the crowd that was not formally invited!! Almost everyone knows that we would be at home to receive guests for the whole second day. Glad that all the food we prepared were more or less finished.

That's one LONG day.