2024, I did a poll in 2022. Will you cook, go to a friend’s place or other family member’s home? I will have family home meal, hot pot + sides.
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Hamburger helper at home probably.
Restaurants will be closed on new years eve and so it’s going to mean eating at home, and unless someone invites me into their home, I’m not going to be doing anything else.
Honestly I prefer eating hot pot in a restaurant, like at Chientu branch, because even if the price is higher than buying the individual ingredients, all the various sauces and condiments REALLY adds up, and those sauce is what makes hot pot good.
For example minced garlic and green onion. I love having hot pot in it in addition to the shacha sauce. Those are a lot of pain to prepare and neither lasts particularly long.
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Meal with my in-laws. And I will be drinking beer. I plan to get some good ale at Carrefour. It will be the highlight of the evening for me as I allow myself alcohol once a month. I will eat whatever is cooked. I don’t normally enjoy it but that’s life. I’ll be eating out and at good restaurants the rest of the time so whatever.
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The traditional roasted chicken, fish, and various other unidentifiable food that is seasoned using seafood flavor. I will inevitably eat this for multiple meals as it will all be reheated until it is finished.
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If I run out of food at home and can’t get anymore due to traditional markets and restaurant closing, it will probably be 711 food.
Since it’s going to be year of the dragon, play baldurs gate 3.
Like us this year, roasted chicken, fish and other
I added Southern Taiwan’s BB sauce
no duck meat, but saw the rubbers
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Last night I had sandwiches and beer, a personal favorite
Tonight was salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and frozen peas. Gravy came out great!
Total comfort food
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I knocked up pasta puttanesca.
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I purchased take-out from the La Boutique de Joel Robuchon in Taipei City’s Fuxing Sogo right when they opened (they were cleaned out completed by 3:00 pm the day before, as I sadly found out). For NT$160 I had a salmon and spinach quiche graced with kampot peppers from Cambodia. Washed back with strong hot Ceylon black tea, it was delicious. To finish, I enjoyed some delicious winter tangerines. 
Guy
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Homemade shakshuka! Which my wife and I both enjoyed much more than the traditional New Year’s meal her mother makes. Her mom’s a great cook - but when bound by the traditions of New Year, the food’s not so good.
And when we visit the in-laws in a day or two for the hongbao handover, hopefully we’ll get food more typical of her cooking.
I do need to get a new jar of smoked paprika. The cheaper spicy paprika I’m working with right now isn’t great - those square tin containers, often at City Super and ex-Jason’s, are much better.
Blueberry pancakes for brunch today. I hope Costco gets back the frozen wild blueberries. The cultivated ones are too big for pancakes, for my taste anyway.
I’m not sure I can think of a more trivial complaint than that one.
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I think you’re talking about these ones? If so, they’re also usually in Trinity and the Chimei baking supply store near Technology Building MRT - might be cheaper than Jason’s/City Super. (I don’t remember the exact price, but I’m guessing around NT$110-120 - it was close enough to the regular paprika that I considered buying it, and I’m cheap.)
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Maybe those too? The one I’m remembering has a more “rustic” picture on it, with frolicking farming lasses or some such nonsense. But the one you’re showing here is probably equal quality.
For many recipes, there have been enough spices mixed together that the quality of my current green jar of “spicy paprika” was fine (from Carrefour? Unsure). But there have been a couple of other ones - yesterday’s shakshuka, and for that matter just as a simple sprinkle on top of hummus - where I’ve decided, nope, even for my crap palate, the smoky paprika makes a difference.
Not a huge issue; it’s not like I’ve had trouble finding it. Just a mental note “Next time I see it, buy it.”
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My wife’s family buys expensive restraunt meals on chinese new year eve, they provide it as offering to the ancestors. The ancestors always take forever to consume it, so we have to microwave it afterwards. Is this normal, I don’t dare ask.
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Yes.
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Nothing special so far but today it’s off to the parents-in-laws. Every year my mother in law threatens not to cook as she’s too old. Well see in a while how many dishes she does.
Yeah, I think so. Lots of the dinner dishes are already laid out in front of the family altar when we arrive in the afternoon. Some, but not all, are reheated when we consume them later.
How on earth did these people survive before the invention of microwave ovens.
Then again: how did I survive before the Robuchon group elected to set up a branch here in 2009? 
Guy
I already ate all the pre-cooked meals I bought. It’s cooking back for me…