A pot of goodness

I'm talking about steamboat, of course! =)



A favourite to eat during Chinese New Year, it's not necessarily as simple as it looks, because the more "goodness" you add to your steamboat, the more work it is -- preparing the different ingredients, and washing up afterwards!

And I do miss, and appreciate, the labour of love from my MIL and stepmom, when quite the spread they would prepare for the reunion dinner that we had back home -- at my MIL's on the eve, and days before the eve at my dad's (only way for us to be at two places). Steamboat it was at our place back home, too, before Jon came long, when it was our loved ones' turn to come knock on our door before the 15 days were up!



For what a tradition it is, steamboat would also have been nice to do for our reunion dinner, had the eve not fallen on a schoolnight. Finally, we did have a good enough one on Friday night , when there was no school the next day. Not exactly a spread, but flavourful soup like this -- the more ingredients, the richer and sweeter the stock becomes -- is always what Ben and Jon will eat! And oh yes, there were "long, long noodles" (vermicelli) as part of the pot of goodness, too!



But owning up...


Ours wasn't made true to what steamboat really should be -- where everyone would huddle over a stewing pot, and be cooking all at the same time! Because too many cooks spoil the broth, and more because ours was cooked over an inexpensive electric burner acquired at a sale recently, it worked OK, not great, I ended up cooking most of it on our kitchen stovetop instead! Haha! Whatever works!

We are looking forward to the real thing this weekend, when we come together at a friend's place for a steamboat-cum-potluck. And she has all the neat steamboat ware, that might have been from another part of the States, because the few I've seen here are really old-fashioned. And I do mean archaic... will you fork out US$80 for a 1970's model? Think not your Cocoa steamboat, but the kind used in the back alleys of Geylang, back in those days when you could still eat there... I have a vague memory of that...!