Winter Solstice
Was surprised when Uncle N picked up the call - I'd thought I'd accidentally dialed him and not home! Then, it dawned on me that his family had made the trip back to Penang to celebrate Winter Solstice with gramps - sweet and typical of Uncle N. Now I wish I were back home as well with my cousins and family....damn.Anyways, winter solstice has always been one of those fun chinese festivals when grandma would allow us to get our hands dirty rolling flour balls the night before. We normally rolled white, pink and green balls, which we patiently lined in circles on plates. It was quite easy to differentiate those done by grandma and those done by us kids - hers were dainty and pretty, ours were larger and when cooked, er pretty tough to swallow! hahaahhahahaha....of course when we were younger, we couldn't understand the fuss on making round small balls but come makan time...hahahaha...we were always smart enough to choose grandma's handiwork, leaving the poor adults to stomach ours!
Grandma used to cook the balls in two ways - one is sweet in syrup and served chilled, the other is savoury and boiled in soup with liver, chicken etc. To be honest, I was never much of a fan of either, but that never did stop us kids from pleading grandma to mix another lot of dough for us to make more ...ahahahahah...again poor adults.
Guess mum will be rolling the flour balls with my cousins tonight.
Simple sweet memories...unfortunately such traditions do not thrive in a metropolitan like KL..well, maybe when I have a family of my own next time, it would be a worthy practice to rekindle.
munsta ramblings @ 7:55 pm
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