Chinese New Year

Since I was away from my family this Chinese New Year, I had to look up some Chinese Traditions for Chinese New Year online. In my family, we don't observe the 15+ days of new year traditions and rarely do we find fireworks in LA. So from the info I gathered with the help of wikipedia, I decided to do Chinese New Year with my one Chinese friend in Botswana, Sunny.

I had not made any of these things before in the past so we had a crash course. We made Chinese BBQ Pork Dumplings, Noodles Filipino Chicken Adobo style, Spicy Szechuan Eggplant w/ zuchinni, and rice cakes which I happened to find in Gaborone over New Years. Rice Cakes, also called Nian Gao, I didn't know signified starting New Year on a high note. Since Chinese depends on tones, which cannot be spelled out in English, I thought the Gao was for "Cake" and not for "High". Thanks again wikipedia....

Nian Gao - Chinese Rice Cakes with Black Bean Sauce