I spent all morning with my mother navigating pre-lunar new year traffic chaos on Valley Boulevard (the main drag for Asian businesses in the San Gabriel Valley) to shop for the big day-before-new-year’s-eve dinner. The big dinner should be on the day before the new year, but with the craziness that is Los Angeles traffic, we had to move it up a day to get everyone back to school by Sunday night.

The ethnic enclave economy is on overdrive in preparation for the new year. Poultry shops like Chinese American Live Poultry (華美雞鴨欄中心) in Rosemead are open starting at 5 am and there are lines out the door by 8. They even take pre-orders, because you don’t want to risk offending your ancestors with mushy, insipid “white people chicken” from Ralphs.

Since I write about food blogs so often, I wanted to share some of my favorite lunar new year-related food blog posts:

• From Taiwan: Golden sesame sticky rice (黃金三寶油飯) by JJ. Lymm of Taiwan Duck
• From Singapore: A whole host of Chinese New Year recipes from Noobcook
• From Northern China: Dumplings by Carolyn J Phillips
• From Vietnam: An explanation of mứt Tết (Vietnamese candied fruit) by Mai Truong of Flavor Boulevard
• For dessert: Glutinous rice ball dessert (如意果) by Justin of Oh My Food Coma! and Chinese walnut cookies by Food Endeavours of the Blue Apocalypse