Family and Food

The Sister is in town again, this time accompanying the Brother in Law, who’s in London to attend a conference. They will be here throughout the coming week, which coincides pretty neatly with my Reading Week, or mid term break.

It marks the run up also to Chinese New Year, and I’m especially grateful to have family around. I met her today for Sunday dim sum lunch at Royal China, and then headed back to her hotel where a bag of festive goodies from home awaited me. There was a consignment of bak kwa, plus an assortment of love letters, pineapple tarts and nonya kueh. Yum.

I had her bring over a couple of packs of lo hei too, complete with the necessary sauces. The few of us in the hall will try to rustle up a simple reunion dinner this weekend, and I’m glad to be able to supply the lo hei. We’ll need to get some extra ingredients, such as carrots and slices of yu sheng.

That’s the easy bit. But does anyone remember the exact wordings for the Incantation of the Lo Hei, as I call it, that we need to recite when preparing the dish at the beginning of the meal? Answers please! And quickly too!