dumplings!

It's here again! "Dumplings Festival" as the current post-80s generation call it. But really, its "Duan Wu Jie". Yeah! Yummy, oily, pork-belly + salted egg + chestnut + dried shrimps + mushrooms all tumbled up in a wonderful triangular glob of fragrant sticky glutinous rice!!! Sinfully Out of The World! (especially when washed down with hot chinese tea) =)

I love 'ba zhangs' (glutinous rice dumplings as they are affectionately called), & have tried eating them for breakfast-lunch-dinner all on one day (but beware the accompanying indigestion, unless u drink copious amounts of tea...) Today, there are increasingly different types of 'zhangs'. Previously, there used to be only salted meat zhangs, nonya (sweet meat) zhangs, & gee (blank, or sometimes with red bean paste) zhangs... but now, there's also roast duck zhangs, vegetarian zhangs, mixed bean zhangs, char siew zhangs... weird. Dumplings are becoming like 'baos' & mooncakes... all sorts of flavours, you name it, you get it. Hmmmm... I'd stick to the originals, thank you.

Before we get lost in the world of yummy zhangs, we should probably revisit the root of it all. Who Mister Qu Yuan is, what he does, why people eat zhangs & row dragonboats on the 5th day of 5th lunar month and all.. But I shall not preach here. U go find a secondary 2 chinese textbook & flip. I remember I learnt it then. Provided the Ministry of Education has not scrapped that part out yet... Save Qu Yuan. Save the dumplings.

Happy Duan Wu Jie, everyone! Remember to eat a dumpling & row some boat this sat, 11/6.