Happy Year of the Pig!
Hello, Friends of The Mala Market!
The Year of the Pig starts February 5, and we're here to help you gear up for the celebration.
Preparations for Chinese New Year begin with cleaning the house from top to bottom and offering some treats to the Kitchen God. We can't (and don't want to) help you with that first one, but we can supply a Kitchen God, the deity who watches over cooking and family from his perch in the kitchen altar and reports back yearly—a week before the Lunar New Year—to the uber god on how you've spent your year.
Aside from the eavesdropping, we can all use a little good cooking karma, which KG also provides. Although the Kitchen God tradition is waning and it's difficult to find one in China nowadays—much less one as lovely and carefully made as the one above—a friend of The Mala Market had these specially made from vintage ceramic molds to bring the tradition back.
Let the Kitchen God watch over you in 2019 as you make all the classic Sichuan pork dishes below or partake in the merriment of hot pot with friends and family.
Xin nian kuai le!
🌶Taylor & Fongchong 🌶
|