last night ended the spring festival here. the 15th day of the new year is the official close of the celebration, and what better to close a festival than another festival. this one- the lantern festival. last year 2 of our local neighbors had us over and made us the customary food for the lantern festival and then we went and shot fireworks. since one of our friends almost shot his head off (seriously, folks) we opted out of the fireworks this year. and we had a party instead!
a couple we are friends with that lives in the town near us came over early to help me make dumplings. even though i have learned this a number of times, the wife showed us how to fold them shut after stuffing them with the meat and veggies mixture and my friend lindsey and i thought we were doing great when the wife came over and then declared to her husband that we were doing it COMPLETELY wrong. not just wrong, completely wrong. i wondered out loud if she forgot that i could understand or if she was just that exasperated. at 6 everyone else showed up for dinner, jiaozi (dumplings) and tangyuan (i'll let you look at a picture and guess). it was a packed house with 24 people, but it was so. much. fun. i really love every person who came and am so thankful that we have been blessed with such amazing relationships with local people here. one of our favorite appearances was our friend Will who introduced us to tangyuan at last year's lantern festival, is a dear friend, and just moved back to the area. max was excited to see him again too. maybe even as excited as he was to see max! we capped off the meal with an ingenious idea from danielle. dessert dumplings! instead of meat and veggies, these were stuffed with cinnamon apples. instead of boiled or fried, these were deep fried. and instead of being dipped in a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar, these were rolled in cinnamon sugar. the best jiaozi ever! some of the asians thought they were strange, but we didn't care, it was the best "asian" dessert i have ever had! leave it to north carolinians to come up with asian deep-fried apple pies. yum! and perfectly on time at 9 pm, the fireworks commenced and we saw a show worth thousands in america right from our porch. i love asian holidays and i love asian friends!
