迎春送冬 :: 吃火锅

'Reunion', designed by Leng.

Took the old folks on my roster out to lunch. I do that once a month anyway. So this is like an additional makan session since it's the festive season, same same for Diwali, Hari Raya Puasa and the January 1st New Year.

Steamboat it was. The easiest thing to match all diets. The servers were able to come around and help out, to minimize accidents, and the old folks didn't have to handle all that hot soup and pots by themselves.

I see these old folks often, but less so last year. I was caught up with a flood of work and traveling. Also, after a few deaths, I wanted to take a step back to reset my frame of mind before getting so involved again. The team kept me updated and luckily we had enough volunteers to go around. I'd like to get back into the pace this year. The old folks have given up trying to sneak me ang pows. NO NEED. What they keep doing, is to give me little bottles and tubs of food! AIYOH. Okay lor. That I gratefully accept. Especially if they've taken the trouble to prep, fry or marinate/ferment/preserve. I'm now looking at five tubs of udang krupuk and laughing. Shouldn't have raved about krupuk to them. There's going to be a constant supply of that all year.

Of course the old folks were given ang pows. Not so miserly lah. Not just from me, but from the team, rather. They've got food packs too, distributed by various corporate donors. Hesitated for a bit before deciding on giving them a plate from Supermama's 'National Collection' as well. I pushed for that.

The recipients were intrigued by the little icons on the plates. They aren't really sure they should be eating off them. Hahaha. Yes, you can! Bought the plates in a few designs. 'Jiang' (将), which depicts a Chinese chessboard like those seen on tables at void decks of HDB flats was well received, along with 'Jia' (家) which shows a stylized block of HDB flat. Leng's 'Reunion' has plenty of steamboat stuff that fascinated the folks, along with the Pearlyn Sim and Lim Ting's 2015 'OneSingapore'.  Quite surprised that they love the designs. Thought I'd be roundly scolded for 'wasting money' on 'useless things'. Heh.