Julie Ann Events: Chinese New Year

Showing posts with label Chinese New Year. Show all posts

Friday, February 8, 2019

Chinese New Year Fortune Cookies DIY.

The fortune cookie is so iconic to Chinese cuisine in North America, but a completely foreign concept to the authentic Chinese diet in China. We still decided to include it on our dessert table for our Chinese New Year Party. However, we thought we would dress the common fortune cookie up a little using the colors of our party, of pink, red, and gold.

We laid out our unwrapped fortune cookies on parchment paper, melted a pack of white and pink Wilton Candy Melts in a double boiler on the stove, and had fun dipping the cookie into the chocolate. Immediately after the cookie came out the chocolate we added colored sprinkles in varying textures and set them out to dry on a clean sheet of parchment paper.

This was our first time tasting chocolate dipped fortune cookies, and like most things chocolate, you just can't go wrong with such a fun addition. This dish added such a fun pop of color to our table and helped to tie the colors of our party together. Let us know if the comment section if you decided to give this a try! We'd love to hear how it turns out!

Bamboo Steamer - Amazon {here} :: Authentic Chinese Rolling Pin - Amazon {here} :: Fortune Cookies - Amazon {here} :: Chinese Take Out Containers - Amazon {here} :: Pink & White Paper Lanterns - Amazon {here} :: Cupcake Wrappers - Amazon {here} :: Hanging Dragon Decoration - Amazon {here} :: Dragon Puppet - Amazon {here} :: Dragon Dog Costume - Amazon {here} :: Red Ribbon - Amazon {here}

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Yarn Tassels As Chinese New Year Decorations.

Fireworks are a huge part of warding off the bad spirits and keeping away evil during the Chinese New Year holiday. You will hear them all over the city and will be able to see their beauty in the sky throughout the night. For our Chinese New Year Party, we wanted to incorporate some modern decorations into the theme. We created these yarn tassels as a nod to the fireworks that play such an important role in the celebration. Our party colors were pinks with a touch of red, and so we chose our yarn colors accordingly.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Chinese New Year Dessert Table.

Dessert tables are one of our favorite to style for any party. This past week, our Chinese New Year dessert table was no exception. We tried to remain as authentic as possible with the theme of this event. Bamboo steamers were used to serve cupcakes and little candies from. We purchased almond cookies from World Market. Sweet rice crackers offered a gluten free option for those with special dietary needs.

Oranges are considered one of the lucky fruits to eat during the new year celebration. The round orange symbolize fullness and wealth. In Chinese, the sound of the word orange sounds very similar to the word success, and even has a symbol in the word orange that also has the word luck in it. These golden fruits are synonymous with the holiday.

It is very traditional to pass out red packets with money inside to children or to employees during this season. The red packet is to bring good luck and well wishes to the person it is being given to. For our dessert table, we added a bowl of chocolate coins in homage to the hongbao tradition. The final element to our dessert table was chocolate covered fortune cookies that we decorated with sprinkles. The fortune cookie is iconic in North America with Chinese food, but it is such a foreign concept in China.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Year Of The Pig Chinese Cupcakes.

Using our {Amazon Influencer List}, we purchased these adorable cupcake holders for our party. The holders were perfect with year and the animal stamped on the side of each holder. We made white cupcakes and a vanilla buttercream icing. A red fondant emblem was cut and we wrote out different messages on top with an edible ink gold pen. Messages that say Happy New Year, Peace, and Love on the top.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Chinese New Year 2019 - Year Of The Pig.

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè! Happy Lunar New Year! It's the year of the pig and we celebrated it with a small dumpling making party in our home for friends and family. After having learned several times from several different home cooks back in China, how to make dumplings from scratch, Mister Julie Ann Events and I tried to pass our knowledge on to our friends. We had a fun evening rolling out dough and pleating the little packets into dumplings that would taste good and hopefully stay together once we cooked them!

For our menu, we offered a variety of authentic Chinese dishes for our guests. After a successful trip to the Asian food market in Wilmington, North Carolina and the Hong Kong Supermarket in Myrtle Beach, we had fresh vegetables, herbs, snack food, and spices that are all authentic to China. We offered a variety of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free menu item as well as food items for the meat eaters in our party. The one glaringly inauthentic menu item was in our appetizers of hummus and kalamata olives. We served tiny cherry tomatoes which is a food item that provides the lucky red color important in Chinese culture.

For a fun touch, we had passed our take out containers and chopsticks for people to eat their meal with. The meal consisted of bok choy, sesame mushrooms, steamed rice, tomato & egg, Chinese pancakes, and pork spring rolls. Since it is the year of the pig, we all made pork dumplings. The vegan option was a pumpkin, mushroom, and brussel sprout medley.

Thursday, January 10, 2019

How To Throw A Chinese New Year Party For 2019 Using Our Amazon List.

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Have you ever celebrated Chinese New Year? After having spent the past 4 years in Hong Kong and Beijing, we have been introduced to this wonderful celebration that we plan to continue back here in the United States.

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Full blown fireworks displays would be set off on every street corner that would last for hours and begin again early in the morning while you were still laying in bed. Red packets filled with money would be handed out to our children and which we would also hand out to our housekeeper, the doorman at the entrance to our apartment building, and the shopkeepers of the places we would visit regularly. Banners on red paper with Chinese lettering would be hung on either side of a front door and above the door. There would be intricate laser cut paper decorations in red that would be attached to the glass panes of windows. Dragon and lion dances would be performed in public places on the street or in shopping plazas. There was a mutual celebratory feeling hovering throughout the air.

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This year, we are celebrating the Year of The Pig by having friends over for a dumpling making party. You know we can't have a party without decorations, so we put together a list of the items we ordered from Amazon. We're planning to go with a pink and red color scheme, incorporating some traditional decor items and putting a modern spin on other items like pink paper lanterns with red ribbon. You too can shop our full list for your party by clicking right {here}. Chinese New Year is officially February 5th, which means you have time to order your items and get them in time for your event.

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Monday, February 16, 2015

Chinese New Year Dinner Party.

This week we're celebrating Chinese New Year, here in Hong Kong. I thought it would be fun to kick off the week by hosting an intimate dinner party for some of my girlfriends. We had a great time picking out decorations from our local market in Sham Shui Po. The shops were full of red and gold and I found some of the shop owners to be friendly and helpful to this naive expat.

For our centerpiece, we used gold branches and some flowering branches that we purchased from the flower market in Mong Kok. We then added a red ribbon with Chinese writing in gold to the vase and hung little red lanterns from the gold branches.

The little red lanterns on the centerpiece mimicked the red lanterns we hung on the two light fixtures in our dining room.

We made our table runner out of sheets of red wrapping paper that had gold Chinese characters written on them. We then layered some red circle cutouts that also had Chinese writing on them and looked as though they had been cut with my Silhouette Cameo I left back in the United States.

Each place setting had a little red money packet tucked into their napkin. I also placed a little gold money chest on top of each napkin as well. The red packets are supposed to be lucky money and the money is given out to children from their parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts.

My favorite detail of the evening was the little goats/sheep that I tied onto chopsticks and placed in each glass as a stir stick. This is the year of the goat/sheep and I loved that little touch as an homage to the new year.