Throughout the Asian world, the Lunar New Year- Spring Festival is observed on the second new moon after the winter solstice. In Chinese the holiday is called Chun jie, in Korean Seol-na, in Vietnamese Tet, in Tibetan Losar and in Japanese Risshun. According to Chinese and Korean tradition, this is the year of the hare; for Vietnamese and Tibetans, it's the year of the cat.
In San Francisco, the dark days of winter are quickly becoming lighter; the plum trees are in full bloom, and the energy of spring is in the air, even though the official first day of spring is weeks away.
Noodles are among the traditional foods eaten on Lunar New Year; for instructions on how to prepare soba noodles (in less than 10 minutes) see post entitled "Soba Noodle Basics".
