Chinese New Year’s Day, 2021, came and went quietly. Other than the fireworks and firecrackers at the stroke of midnight, noticeably a whole lot less than in previous years, and sporadically throughout the whole day, it was just like any other day. In our lane, I think only a couple of my neighbours bothered.
We had our traditional Foochow longevity mee sua…
…in the morning and we asked my sister to hop over for this so she would not have to cook her own.
Even though we did not hold an open house and was not expecting anybody to drop by (and of course, nobody did), I took out the cakes and the cake serving tray, sliced them and arranged them nicely like what I would do every year in the past.
We did not bake/make any of our own but we sure had a lot to go round. There was the intoxicating fruit pudding…
…that my cousins made, from my uncle and his family in Kuching. It was so very strong on the liquor that I could not resist asking them how much they poured in when the mum was not looking. Yes, it was very nice, soft and moist and not hard and dry like some fruit cakes and I bet many would love it a lot! “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” LOL!!!
My girl loved this prune layer cake…
…that Daisy and her hubby, Tham, and son and Daisy’s mum, Mdm Chua, gave me and we got this from my in-laws – the berry berry yogurt cheese cake…
…which was very nice too, something lightly fruity and not sweet.
We also got this…
…from my paternal cousin.
I was told that it was the steamed kek hati pari/parek Sarawak but upon opening it to slice, I was quite sure it was kek belacan, our favourite – it did not have any raisins nor prunes in it and no, for the uninitiated, it is NOT made from belacan (dried prawn paste) – it only looks like it and some not-very-creative people saw it fitting to name it kek belacan when they could have given it some very nice names like Black Magic or Black Beauty or even, Hitam Manis. Maybe some of you would like to try making it – it really is very very very nice and definitely not as tedious to make as those gaudily-coloured kek lapis Sarawak!!!
Of course, we still had those left over from the Reunion Dinner the night before and we also had all the cookies and tarts that my missus made and those given to me, all the snacks, the keropok and the acar. Yes, it sure was very quiet this year but we sure were not short of things to munch and enjoy!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
So many cakes to savour. I want the fruit pudding too. 🙂
You’ll have to ask my aunt for the traditional family recipe…but you know old folks, hard to follow – everything agak agak!
All the cakes looks so good. Of all, I love the prunes layer cake. I guess it is the same as sancha layer cakes or we call it masam manis layer cake over here. Though a quiet CNY, you still got a lot of cakes, cookies snacks to enjoy.
Yes, it’s like any other year except that we can’t go out and nobody drops by. I love sancha cake too – these days, the Malays make it in a different pattern. They call it sisik ikan. I bought that last year…
https://suituapui.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/cookies-and-cake/
Wow! So much cakes and cookies to enjoy! Even though there’s no visitors, you still keep the festivity alive! Same as us, we enjoy munching all the cakes, cookies and snacks ourselves. Haven’t tasted kek belacan or kek hati pari yet. It’s quite popular here, nonetheless.
Just to keep the heritage alive, our tradition. I really shouldn’t be eating so much of the cakes, cookies and what not. Sweet and all the deep fried snacks too but ah well, it’s just once a year! LOL!!!
What a scrumptious variety of cakes! Yeah, too bad no open house otherwise your guests would enjoy all your homemade goodies!
We had a good year last year, 2020…before the outbreak. We did not celebrate the two years before that because we were mourning the demise of my parents, first my father and then my mum…and before that, we did not really celebrate full swing as often, my mum was ill and was hospitalised around the same time every year. Hopefully, we shall be able to go all out and celebrate next year, 2022. We sure have suffered a lot already.
No cakes at home this year but we got to enjoy some yesterday at an uncle’s house. Yes, quieter compared to last year.
You mean the fire crackers? If people, it was good here, 100% compliance, no visiting!!!
I had a chance before to experience a Malaysian CNY, yes it was noisy, a lot of fireworks similar to New Years in the Philippines.
But Christmas in the Philippines has got to be the best, second to none!
Yes, it was a bit quieter over here too this year.
Sad. Hopefully, things will get better soon. I guess it will never be normal again but at least, it should be good enough to let us get on with our daily lives minus most, if not all, of the restrictions.