But other than this astronomical phenomenon, I was super excited yesterday because it was the Mid-Autumn Festival, which means . . . moon cakes! The Mid-Autumn Festival is the second biggest celebration in Chinese culture after the Lunar New Year. One tradition during the festival is the sharing and eating of moon cakes with friends and relatives. As someone whose holiday preferences seems to revolve around food (Thanksgiving's my favorite US holiday!), it shouldn't be a surprise that my favorite part of this holiday is being able to eat moon cakes.
Moon cakes are delicious pastries that have a pie crust-like outer shell and fillings of different varieties.
My favorite filling is red bean paste (pictured above). Other fillings I also like are lotus paste and green tea paste. Another common aspect of fillings, although I'm not a fan, is including hard boiled egg yolk along with the paste. I just generally prefer my desserts to be sweet and not have anything savory added.
This year I had quite a journey to Chinatown to find my beloved red bean paste moon cake. I went to at least five bakeries, a grocery store, and two impromptu street stands, not having much luck finding what I wanted. The vendors either didn't have what I wanted, had what I wanted but the way it was made didn't seem like what I'm used to enjoying, or were sold out of the red bean variety. Finally I found a place that had what I wanted (I got the last one!), although the moon cake was square rather than round and they charged more than any of the other stores, but I only have this treat once a year, so I splurged.
Then I was looking around online and discovered that there are kits to make moon cakes! I like baking, but I don't know if I'm that dedicated. Who knows. If it continues being this difficult to find the ones I want, maybe I will try making my own one day. Or I can plan better and not wait until the last minute to go searching for red bean moon cake.
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