新年快樂 Menu

...or why to acknowledge the Chinese New Year

While we are looking at the new year, planning how to organize our months and almost in the rhythm of every day life, people from far east are preparing the most significant celebration of the year for them - the Chinese New Year. This tradition of New Year's festival has stayed for centuries and is a reminder of how ancient and wise the culture of Asia is.

What I love the most about this celebration is the existence of the colours - mostly bright red with gold incrustation, but also the prints and blossoms as a reminder of the upcoming spring. The festivities are busier and more colourful with every day passing and "the cherry on the top" is the Lantern Festival. It seems like a gentle and romantic way to close the ceremony.

I could not resist the temptation of representing some of the symbols in a super welcoming menu-organizer. 

It does take a lot of effort to prepare a festive dinner. Why not showing off with a menu?! I live in a country where people from all corners of the world, or I would even say from different worlds, meet and celebrate together. Sometimes it is hard to accept a different cuisine - food that one is not used to is not always delicious. I am excited to learn all kinds of cooking tricks (after all, I am firstly a food/desert preparing passion-ist). I find it easier to fight the fear of trying new food, when get to know what it is.

The menu serves two purposes - presenting your guests with the information of what they would be served, and, of course, a little formal, and also joyfully innocent show off. Before we come to the stage of assembling the menu, we get to use it as a notepad carrier and organizer.