Monday brings the Chinese New Year; we say good-bye to the Year of the Goat and welcome the Year of the Monkey.
In honor of that, last night my family had one of our much-loved Special Dinners. K-daughter is allergic to soy sauce, so the only traditional Asian food we had was actually an Asian beverage: a sweet soda-like thing made with aloe pulp, bought by our host daughter Y.
Instead, we had the "Monkey Dinner".
I didn't take many photos, aside from Baby-A's toy monkey, which decorated the table. The menu included
In honor of that, last night my family had one of our much-loved Special Dinners. K-daughter is allergic to soy sauce, so the only traditional Asian food we had was actually an Asian beverage: a sweet soda-like thing made with aloe pulp, bought by our host daughter Y.
Instead, we had the "Monkey Dinner".
- Monkey Brains (stuffed peppers, with faces carved out of them like Jack-O-Lanterns),
- Monkey Bread,
- Bananas
- Chunky Monkey Ice Cream. Oh, yeah.
We played "Hey Hey, We're The Monkeys" several times (basically, until my husband begged us to stop), and at dinner we all described things we'd done recently that began with the letter "M". The dinner was fab -- more fun than a barrel of . . . well, you know.
I love hearing about your special dinners!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad. These dinners are a LOT of fun for us -- with a family that's as cobbled-together as our is, building these traditions and stories is really important. I love that when we sit down, one of the first things that happens is the kids launch into descriptions of what their friends said when they heard about the dinner: "your family is so interesting". This is a point of pride and belonging for them.
DeletePlus, chunky monkey ice cream . . . I mean, really.
Big splurge on the ice cream! Sounds lovely. I know you've posted about monkey brains before, and I think you included a picture then.
ReplyDeleteI love, love the idea of these dinners. Another thing I'm mentally storing for when my kid(s) is(are) older.
My other hope is to raise a family full of singers by having singing time in the evening and/or singing nights. Of course, that means I also need to convince one of them to learn the piano if we want any sort of accompaniment. I can plink out a tune, but good playing is so lovely.
Penn (I'm in an airport, and for some reason can't "reply" but only do a new comment . . . hmmmm): Oh, right! I had a (gross) picture of Monkey Brains at a Halloween Special dinner.
ReplyDeletehttp://miser-mom.blogspot.com/2014/11/great-green-globs-of.html
I totally love the singing idea. Maybe we ought to have a singing special dinner? I'm going to think about that one . . . "Sing For Your Supper?"