Chef Kiki Aranita starts Lunar New Year with spring rolls and tradition

I am not one for carrying on traditions far away from family. When a holiday rolls around, I find it difficult to muster the energy to fuss with a Christmas tree, an Easter egg hunt or preparing the house for the Lunar New Year, clothing the walls and mirrors in red banners and sweeping it in advance for just my fiance and me.

All the holidays of 2020 were reconfigured due to the pandemic, and now, it is Chinese New Year’s turn.

When celebrating the Lunar New Year with my large, extended family, there is a lot of protocol. You recite a litany of well-wishes and blessings for health as you accept red envelopes of lai see, monetary gifts from your elders and the married couples in your family, always with two hands and a grateful bow. You loudly admire the dizzyingly fragrant blooms of auspicious narcissus flowers on the family altar so that your aunts who set them out to honor your Buddhist ancestors can hear you even though your family is Catholic. You poke fun at your cousins and friends for getting married before Chinese New Year because they are now culturally obligated to give you money.

Then of course, there’s the food. The table of my aunt’s house is filled with porcelain dishes stacked high with spring rolls that resemble gold bars, enormous meatballs made according to my grandmother’s recipe that represent the heads of lions, and noodles to signify longevity. Side tables are punctuated by small dishes filled with sweets wrapped in paper, gold Ferrero Rocher chocolates, seeds, and nuts. Each of these delicacies heralds a new year hopefully filled with luck and riches.

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Last year, my aunts gave me jade charms to offset potential bad luck during the Year of the Rat, which was also my zodiac year. (It’s often said your zodiac year of birth can be unlucky and filled with obstacles.) Since 2020 gave the world a pandemic, and I was forced to close my Rittenhouse restaurant permanently, I suppose that belief can be upheld. But I also got engaged.

As I dwell on these thoughts, the good that can come out of this for me is the opportunity to share my traditions, and the happy memories of past new years. The pandemic precludes any ability to gather around a table with my American friends and churn out dozens of dumplings.

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But I will be celebrating — virtually and with new friends — and I hope to inspire many other New Year’s tables to be filled with dishes that will bring us all luck and fortune in the Year of the Ox.

Join Chef Kiki Aranita for a series of virtual cooking classes and seminars for Chinese New Year. Spring rolls: 5 p.m. Feb. 18; Folding wontons: 5 p.m. Feb. 28; Simmering congee: 1 p.m. March 3; Poke bowl: 11 a.m. March 14. Classes are $36.50.