Food: Hot Pot

February 3, 2011 is the Chinese Traditional Spring Festival.I thought we should do something to celebrate it. Chinese people always eat dumplings during the Spring Festival, so I post my status on Chinese Facebook “Today is our Chinese new year. Come to my dorm to make dumplings tonight!” Emily responded: “Why don’t we make hot pot and eat together? I miss Chinese hot pot! Yummy yummyyyyyy~~” Then within half an hour, I found there are 50 messages on my Facebook. Some of my friends began to plan tonight’sthe night’s Hot Pot feast .
Undoubtedly, the most important part of Spring Festival is getting together. So eating hot pot isa good  way to celebrate Chinese New Year because we need to eat around one big pot and share the delicious food together. There were no Asian supermarkets in Flagstaff so we went to Safeway to buy the fresh basic vegetables and meats.You can find Chinese cabbage, Shanghai baby bok choy (it is common in China and necessary in the hot pot) green leaves

 (Shanghai Baby bok choy)

vegetable, different kinds of mushrooms, lettuce, potatoes. Flagstaff has different kinds of potatoes. But I feel that the big brown one is closest to our home flavor. You also can find Tofu here, sounds
great!
After the vegetable part, comes the meat and seafood part. I recommend you to choose pork because the taste of beef and chicken is dry and unpleasant. It’s better to choose the pork with bones because the bones can be used to cook the bottom soup which can add to the flavor of the hot pot. If you don’t want to eat meat, especially for those who are dieting you can choose
shrimp and crab sticks.
We took the vegetables, meat and seafood back home. My friends washed the vegetables and cut the meat into thin slices. I was responsible for the soup which was used to cook other materials. I took out my secret weapon—Xiao Feiyang hotpot flavoring which comes from the most popular
hotpot restaurant. I bought it from the Asian Supermarket in Phoenix. I keep a feast three of the flavorings in my storage. We used the electric cooker to cook because it is more convenient. I brought a bag of XUAO FEIYANG  with 4 or 5 times amount of water to the boil. We put the pork first because it is not easy to cook. Then we added the seafood and tofu. When I put the vegetables into the pot ,took them out quickly because vegetables could lose their nutrients if it is cooked too long.
Everybody stood around the hot pot and I believed it satisfied everyone’s belly because we felt warm not only for eating the hotpot but also for getting together to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Tips: If you invite some of your American friends to enjoy hot pot, you should know that they may not be accustomed to share food with others. Maybe you need explain the hot pot custom
firstly.