Moon cakes and pleasant surprises
Wednesday, 7 September 2022 12:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elusivekI've always had the vague idea that "Mid Autumn Festival is next week," but I don't know exactly which day it is. Then it dawned on me that Monday is a "compensated" holiday. And as "compensated" holidays only happen if the statutory holiday falls on a regular day off, it means it was either Saturday or Sunday. And since for Mid Autumn Festival, the actual public holiday day is the day after (because, on the Mid Autumn Festival day it is celebrated by staying up late looking at the moon... so the public holiday is the day after so you can sleep in), so, conclusion, Mid Autumn is on Saturday, the day-after public holiday is Sunday, and therefore Monday is a "compensated" holiday.
Moon cakes. We are getting inundated with Moon cakes. So the boss receives these hampers and the first thing I do is mark down who sent, let the boss know, then open them up and spread the love (give everyone something). Sometimes there are expensive stuff in there. But other bosses may get envious or something, so it's important to disperse of everything asap.
I guess I've managed to by-proxy-ly get up somewhere on the corporate ladder as people have sent some moon cakes to me specifically, but those are low-value and just a moon cake box (not hamper basket) so I've been sifting them through. I brought 2 boxes home and the others have left in the office.
But still, Dad receives moon cakes as well because he does have some clout (the "grandfather" of western cooking in Macau LOL I'm kidding, but, he somewhat is). Mom used to receive a lot because she was a school principal but since her retirement she's been receiving less, and when her subordinates of her time have also gone into retirement she hasn't been receiving moon cakes.
Like all Moms, she's always asking "you only have these moon cakes? You haven't received more?" "I need one more box to give to who-and-who." Yes. Mom loves receiving free moon cakes because then she gets to gift them to other people. I like to tease and say 借花敬佛... who am I kidding, it's not teasing, I do mean it at some level LOL. Literally, it means to "pay respects to Buddha with borrowed flowers". In essence, it means to offer something that one has received to someone else. But anyway, moon cakes are high calorie and full of sugar and whatnot so we shouldn't really eat that much anyway, I don't really care if she gives them all away.
One of the moon cakes I received is a Snoopy crossover, complete with a Snoopy mold for their moon cakes. But it's just plain lotus paste filling, no egg yolk.
There was another box (oh, there it is, above, behind the Snoopy box) that's a runny egg yolk custard thing, one of the newer kinds of moon cakes, that we've finally finished. We’re slowly conquering the moon cakes we received. There are some newer fancier ones. This year the weird contestants I’ve seen include a pandan moon cake, a “lemon tea flavor” moon cake, and a Taiwanese Pineapple cake type of moon cake. A few years ago, the "new hit" was "snowy mooncakes" were I think it's essentially just iced moon cakes with the fillings of.. cream or maybe even ice cream.
My friend's cake shop also has a Mid-Autumn Festival product, but I'm not posting them here yet. I think she's underpriced her product and it'd be very nice for families with children and I've told her that already, but she can't do anything about it now as it's mid-sales already. She'll take the comments into consideration for Christmas or Chinese New Years.
Not wanting to open a new post for this, since this is still food related. But... probably offensive to any vegans out there, so this is under a cut.
My impression of a lot of foreigners (mainly foreigners/westerners) seem to be revolted by chicken feet and innards? When we go for dim sum there's this dish where you have a mix of many innards of beef. Lungs, intestines, etc. I remember when there were more expats working here and when we went for dim sum they'd always say, "no innards, no chicken feet!" I'd understand not wanting to have chicken feet because it could get messy and I know in western dining etiquette you do not "spit out" stuff and it'd not be worth it eat chicken feet with a fork and knife, but it's by no means disgusting. When we were still able to go to Hong Kong, I loved a restaurant called Yardbird and had like gizzards and hearts and those were just yum.
Moon cakes. We are getting inundated with Moon cakes. So the boss receives these hampers and the first thing I do is mark down who sent, let the boss know, then open them up and spread the love (give everyone something). Sometimes there are expensive stuff in there. But other bosses may get envious or something, so it's important to disperse of everything asap.
I guess I've managed to by-proxy-ly get up somewhere on the corporate ladder as people have sent some moon cakes to me specifically, but those are low-value and just a moon cake box (not hamper basket) so I've been sifting them through. I brought 2 boxes home and the others have left in the office.
But still, Dad receives moon cakes as well because he does have some clout (the "grandfather" of western cooking in Macau LOL I'm kidding, but, he somewhat is). Mom used to receive a lot because she was a school principal but since her retirement she's been receiving less, and when her subordinates of her time have also gone into retirement she hasn't been receiving moon cakes.
Like all Moms, she's always asking "you only have these moon cakes? You haven't received more?" "I need one more box to give to who-and-who." Yes. Mom loves receiving free moon cakes because then she gets to gift them to other people. I like to tease and say 借花敬佛... who am I kidding, it's not teasing, I do mean it at some level LOL. Literally, it means to "pay respects to Buddha with borrowed flowers". In essence, it means to offer something that one has received to someone else. But anyway, moon cakes are high calorie and full of sugar and whatnot so we shouldn't really eat that much anyway, I don't really care if she gives them all away.
One of the moon cakes I received is a Snoopy crossover, complete with a Snoopy mold for their moon cakes. But it's just plain lotus paste filling, no egg yolk.
There was another box (oh, there it is, above, behind the Snoopy box) that's a runny egg yolk custard thing, one of the newer kinds of moon cakes, that we've finally finished. We’re slowly conquering the moon cakes we received. There are some newer fancier ones. This year the weird contestants I’ve seen include a pandan moon cake, a “lemon tea flavor” moon cake, and a Taiwanese Pineapple cake type of moon cake. A few years ago, the "new hit" was "snowy mooncakes" were I think it's essentially just iced moon cakes with the fillings of.. cream or maybe even ice cream.
My friend's cake shop also has a Mid-Autumn Festival product, but I'm not posting them here yet. I think she's underpriced her product and it'd be very nice for families with children and I've told her that already, but she can't do anything about it now as it's mid-sales already. She'll take the comments into consideration for Christmas or Chinese New Years.
Not wanting to open a new post for this, since this is still food related. But... probably offensive to any vegans out there, so this is under a cut.
My impression of a lot of foreigners (mainly foreigners/westerners) seem to be revolted by chicken feet and innards? When we go for dim sum there's this dish where you have a mix of many innards of beef. Lungs, intestines, etc. I remember when there were more expats working here and when we went for dim sum they'd always say, "no innards, no chicken feet!" I'd understand not wanting to have chicken feet because it could get messy and I know in western dining etiquette you do not "spit out" stuff and it'd not be worth it eat chicken feet with a fork and knife, but it's by no means disgusting. When we were still able to go to Hong Kong, I loved a restaurant called Yardbird and had like gizzards and hearts and those were just yum.
