Gathering

Today is dumpling day.

Dad will make the dough, two hours ahead.

Mom will make the filling. Today it'll be pork and celery. Lightly doused with soy sauce, two tablespoons of salt. Mix well...

She'll also roll out the dough and cut it, then roll the small pieces into flat, round little cakes for the skins of the dumplings. Then the kids gather round, everyone gathers round... and we all make dumplings. Each person's dumplings are diferent, Mom's are delicate and crafted, Dad's are big and sturdy, the kids are just plain unpredictable.

But they're dumplings, and everyone is making them together on this night.

The water boils!

Plates of dumplings, all shapes and styles of dumplings, they slide off the plates and plop into the bubbling water below. They begin to eminate their dumpling-aroma. Everyone waits...

And then, out they come, one by one, two by two, three by three... Shining and glistening. Plates and plates of homemade dumplings.

Some are broken, some are perfect. Everyone made them together on this night, Chinese New Years' Eve. In the background, the TV, tuned into the Chinese national TV station via satellite, announces the break of a New Year in the venerable Lunar calendar.

It's the year of the Horse, or perhaps it was the year of the Snake?
The dumplings await; we gather 'round again, the dumplings at the center of our table.