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'Bay Area Bites' is part of KQED's Blog Authors Collaborative. Blog contributors and commentators are solely responsible for their content. If you're interested in writing or contributing to a blog on kqed.org, email us with your idea.
'Bay Area Bites' is part of KQED's Blog Authors Collaborative. Blog contributors and commentators are solely responsible for their content. If you're interested in writing or contributing to a blog on kqed.org, email us with your idea.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Getting Ready for Tet
With only one week left before the Lunar Year 4705 begins, there's still a lot to prepare. I need to finish everything by February 18, the beginning of a particularly auspicious Year of the Boar. Some of the more important items on my TO DO list...
- Scrub, dust, mop, and wash everything from floor to ceiling.
- Invite my first visitor of the year. Alex (my smart, successful, super-nice doctor friend) moved to L.A., so I'll have to find someone else to carry luck and prosperity into my home.
- Prepare banh chung from Andrea's hardcore, traditional recipe in her new cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. It's four pages long and includes instructions on how to make your own mold. We've already exchanged some notes on our favorite techniques and ingredients (remember the pork fat!) as well as some major no-no's (forget the green food coloring). If I'm feeling flush, I might even try making the more difficult shaped banh tet.
- Fill every room with flowers. Stop at the SF Wholesale Flower Mart for good prices on quince blossoms, forsythia boughs, bright red gladioli, narcissus bulbs, and bamboo.
- Call my mom to ask for her recipe for caramel daikon pickles.
- Buy new clothes for the new year.
- Pick up the polymer plates, mix up some pink and red inks, and finish printing our Tet cards.
- Track down one of those mommy pig sweet buns at a Chinatown bakery.
- Relax and enjoy the start of another wonderful year!
Labels: holiday, thy tran, vietnamese
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7 Comments:
This reminds me a little of a to-do list before Passover. But what, pray tell, is "Tet"?
2/12/2007 12:05 AM
Tet is the Vietnamese name for the lunar new year. Basically, it's very much similar to the Chinese New Year, with our own little spin on things.
2/12/2007 3:18 PM
Where can you buy the mommy pig sweet bun??? Thanks!!!
2/12/2007 4:38 PM
Where can you get the mommy pig sweet bun? Thanks!!!
2/12/2007 4:41 PM
Hi "Little Pigs": I first found those very adorable buns years ago at a bakery in Chinatown, San Francisco. You're going to hate me, b/c I can't remember the name. But I definitely know where it is: On the south side of Broadway between Stockton and Grant. Does anyone else know the name of this bakery? They make them every year. I've also seen similar porcine rolls at other large Chinese bakeries, but that one on Broadway had the prettiest pigs. They're often filled with sweetness, like lotus seed paste, and they last forever. I actually never got around the eating mine because it was just too cute. Happy hunting!
2/12/2007 8:20 PM
If you want more information on the Viet spin on Lunar New Year (food, traditions, myths, etc.), peruse the Vietworldkitchen.com
homepage. Gotta get cleaning and cooking...
2/13/2007 3:14 PM
Those pig buns are out of control. I love them!
It was so fun to be in Vietnam during the lead-up to Tet. As the days went by, the country was working itself into a greater and greater state of celebration.
2/19/2007 11:08 PM
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