Chinese new year 2

It is seasons like this that makes us remember the times spent in our country of origin. As a child I remember the exciting preparations for celebration of Chinese New Year, the menu is almost always the same, it is the time of Spring in China,(not that I grew up there) the food available are the food of Spring. There is the proverbial night market, on the eve before the eve of Chinese New Year where we would stock up on food for the celebration, or else the markets would be closed for days and there wouldn't be any food in the house. The eve of Chinese New Year is the time when families get together, everything must be new, new clothes, new everything. Red is the color of Chinese New Year, the red fire crackers, the red lanterns.... I have vivid memories of the making of the rice cakes from scratch. We would soak the rice in water and take it over to my uncle's house, he has a milling stone in his back yard. It is 2 huge milling stones on top of each other with the one on top having a hole from which the wet rice is fed through and the stones rub against each other and mill the wet rice. Then sugar is added and the whole mixture is poured into tins and steamed. It is an outdoor affair because the wok is usually too big for the kitchen and the cakes are steamed for hours, almost 6 hours or more and firewood is constantly being added to the fire. The cakes would become this brownish colored thing, the long slow cooking allows complete caramelization and they become so tasty. We would eat for days and being a large family of kids, it doesn't last as long as it should. They were so tasty. Today I can buy the same rice cakes in the oriental supermarkets but these are cooked so hastily that they don't taste anything like the ones of my childhood. I bought this, took a bite and threw the rest away. It is just not the same. I don't think anyone in this world makes the rice cakes of my childhood anymore. The taste of those days are gone forever.