Chinese New Year...what is your favorite?

My boyfriend is half Chinese and they usually have fried rice, sweet and sour pork, and soup.

My family is all American, except for my sister-in-law, she is from Beijing.

Since before she and my brother met, may family has been celebrating Chinese New Year-- we're a little odd.

On the first day, or as close to it as our schedules will allow, we have a big feast! Mostly it is my brother who cooks, since he is the best chef in the family and has spent a lot of time in China, but we all help.

This year we were really busy so it was sort of impromptu. We had shaomai, minced chicken, fried fish with honey glaze, shrimp lo mein, stew (fried tofu, rice dumplings, carrots, ginger, short ribs . . .), and some other things.

It was delicious!!!

I think my favorite memory was two years ago. He made a soup with a whole fish and some REALLY hot peppers. The peppers looked exactly like some sort of string bean, which was also in the soup. I bit into one . . . it HURT a LOT! Despite that, it was really funny and the rest of the food was REALLY GOOD.

- Dried oysters with lettuce, chinese mushroom and dried scallops (cooked in oyster sauce).

- vegetarian dish made (cauliflower, snow peas, baby corn, dried tofu, chinese mushroom, carrots, etc). cooked in a fermented (red) tofu paste/sauce