2011 - February 6, Lunar New Year Festival

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Contents 1 Event Captains 2 Event Description 3 Shopping List 4 Performances 5 Attendance 6 Notes

Event Captains

Stephanie Ku (stephku@mit.edu): Logistics

Linlin Huang (hylinlin@mit.edu): Performances

Victor Hung (vhung@mit.edu): Setup/Clean up

Emily Yang (epyang@mit.edu): Food

Event Description

To celebrate Chinese New Year, which was on Thursday, February 3rd this year, we hold our annual Lunar New Year Festival. Although we did not have the event last year, we hoped to revive the tradition. Typically, the event, which has been held in Lobdell in the past, attracts about 120-150 people lasts for a couple of hours on a weekend. This year, we had the event on Sunday and scheduled it to go from 7-9pm (we actually started pretty on time, 7:15), but we ended a little earlier than 9pm. To promote ticket sales and advertise the event, we sell Bao Bao pastries (Wed-Fri). During ticket sales, we advertise that the Festival will have lots of homecooked food, great performances, and a mini mystery hunt, which was created by Victor this year. Due to reservation conflicts, we were not able to get a table in Lobby 10, but instead had to sell in the Student Center. Tickets were $5 and $7 pre-sale for members and non-members, respectively, and $7 and $9 at the door. Because of our location, we did not sell many pre-sale tickets. However, we continued to sell tickets at Next House during the weekend, and many more people showed up at the door.

Prior to the event, a google form is sent out to gather volunteers, who get in for free. After deciding on what dishes to make based on what volunteers and exec want to cook, we rent a car and go on a big shopping trip, usually to Costco and some other Asian supermarket. On the day of the event, volunteer cooks and exec begin preparing dishes in the morning at Next House country kitchen and McCormick country kitchen. Setup begins around 3 (if people ever show up). During the event itself, besides having lots of awesome food, we invite a variety of performers (who also get in for free). This year we had chinese instruments (MITCE), chinese dances (ADT), Chinese yo-yo (Wei...), and a capella (Syncopasian).

Shopping List

Appetizers

1. Potstickers (Qian Long, Stephanie Yu, Catherine Fan)
   • 3 bags LingLing potstickers from Costco
   • 1/2 bag left over because we were running out of time and getting tired of making them... make sure to get pans with lids and not to let them burn!
2. Dan Bing (Stephanie Yu, Emily Yang)
   • 3 packages (of 10) 12" tortillas + ~50 eggs + 2 bunches of scallions
   • We made these on a griddle because we didn't have enough stove space. There were 5 left over (unused) tortillas.
3. Tea Eggs (Stephanie Yu, Emily Yang)
   • 60 eggs + 1/2 bottle soy sauce + sugar + salt + 2 lu3 wei4 se4 packets (from a box of 3) + 10-12 tea bags
   • Made these the night before. Hard cooked eggs in multiple pots (about 7 or 8 eggs per pot) before combining with seasonings, simmering for about an hour, and letting sit at room temp overnight. We peeled and cut each egg in half so we could serve more people.

Vegetables and other random dishes

1. Tomatoes and Eggs (Ginger Yang)
2. Bok Choy (Ginger Yang)
3. Cauliflower (Emily Yang, Qian Long, Joy Chen)
   • 5 cauliflower + garlic
   • We didn't use 1 cauliflower but probably should have...
4. Jiu cai with dou gan (Angela Chang)
   • jiu cai + 6 pack of doufu gan
5. Vegetarian Mapo Tofu (Peter Tia)
   • 2 tubs (of 6 pieces) silken tofu + scallions + 1 jar soy bean sauce + 1 jar hot bean sauce

Meat and Fish

1. Tilapia (Stephanie Chang)
   • 2 trays tilapia fillets from Costco + scallions + ginger + soy sauce
   • Stephanie undercooked these slightly and we put them in a moderately hot oven so they would finish cooking that way.
2. Pork ribs (Angela Chang)
   • 1 really big cryovac-ed rack of spareribs from Costco + soy sauce + garlic
3. Oyster beef and broccoli (Garret Lau)
   • ~5 lbs flank steak from Costco + 7 or 8 heads of broccoli + 1/2 bottle oyster sauce + soy sauce + garlic + cooking wine
   • Garret marinated his meat and blanched his broccoli in advance because he had to leave, and we put the dish together for him later.
4. Chicken with mushrooms and bai cai (Stephanie Chang)
   • 1 family pack (individually wrapped) boneless, skinless chicken thighs from Costco + 1 bai cai + 1/2 large pack of shiitake mushrooms
   • Soaked an entire bag of mushrooms... so we didn't use half.
5. Mapo tofu (Peter Tia)
   • 2 tubs (6 pieces each) of silken tofu + 1/2 lb of ground pork + 1 jar of soy bean sauce + 1 jar hot bean sauce + scallions
   • Could have used more meat because we bought 2 lbs for the dish, but we forgot about it in the refrigerator.
6. Pearl balls (Emily Yang)
   • 4 lbs ground pork + 3/4 cabbage + sesame oil + 3 cups sticky rice (soaked the night before) + scallions, ginger, garlic + handful of extra mushrooms + 1 bai cai
   • This dish took wayyyy too much time and since the steamer didn't have a lid... it was interesting and we had to use foil.

Rice and Noodles

1. Vegetarian fried rice (Stephanie Ku)
   • 1 tray of rice + 2 bags frozen vegetables + 18 eggs + soy sauce
   • We didn't end up turning an entire tray of rice into fried rice. And we ended up with a couple bowls extra fried rice after the event.
2. Nuo mi fan (Emily Yang)
   • 12 cups (normal cups, not asian rice cups) sticky rice + 2 packages chinese sausage + 1 large pack shiitake mushrooms + 1 bag dried shrimp + 4 cups chicken stock (from bouillon) + soy sauce
   • Soak the rice the night before. We did this in 4 batches. the rice tended to stick and burn on the bottom of the large wok when the heat was too high. The large wok didn't have a lid to go with it, so we had to improvise with foil, which was a hassle because we had to keep uncovering it to keep the rice from sticking. We ended up with a couple extra bowls after the event.
3. Vegetarian vermicelli (Annie Ouyang)
   • 3 packages of mi fen + 1 bai cai + 2 carrots + 2 onions
4. White rice (Peter Tia, Stephanie Yu)
   • Bought a huge 20 lb bag of jasmine rice and had ~1/3 bag left over
   • We made about 1.25 fulls trays of white rice and then added some more when we didn't use all of the rice intended for fried rice. We only ended using less than a tray, which could have been because we put the rice at the end of the line of food at the event... bad idea...

Desserts

1. Nian gao (Christine Lai)
   • 3 bags glutinous rice flour + 1 bag (uncooked) azuki beans + 7.5 cups of 2% milk (~half gallon) + brown sugar + baking soda
   • We ran out of this quickly. Make 4 or more 9x13 pans next time. Had to borrow a pan from Random Hall and Christine provided her own measuring cups and actually started baking earlier than the rest of us started cooking.
2. Mochi (Catherine Fan)
   • 2 bags glutinous rice flour + 2 cans unsweetened coconut milk + sugar + 2 cans red bean + potato starch (for rolling)
   • We ran out of these really really fast since we only made 2 batches, and the mochi was quite sticky and frustrating (time intensive). Catherine provided her own measuring cups and a 9x13 pan and we got a 9" round pan from Random, a 9x13 pan from Emily, and a 9" round pan from the McCormick Annex.
3. Almond tofu (Emily Yang)
   • 8 boxes instant almond tofu + 2 large cans of fruit from Costco
   • Made this first thing in the morning so it could set up, but since the milk tea made the refrigerator kind of warm, it didn't set up very much. Mixed the fruit into the almond tofu at the event, so remember to bring a can opener if we decide to do this in the future.
4. Almond cookies (Sasha Targ)
   • 1 (5 lb) bag flour + 3 cups sugar + 2 (1 fluid oz.) bottles almond extract + 3 cups butter + slivered almonds + baking soda + 6 eggs
   • Sasha made a total of 3 batches of these at Random with a friend. Gave her ingredients and a chafing dish the night before.

Drinks

1. Milk Tea (Stephanie Yu, Emily Yang)
   • 60 bags of tea + 2 of ATS's largest pots filled with water + 4 cans condensed milk
   • Do NOT put hot milk tea in the refrigerator!!! Boil smaller pots of water separately before combining in a large pot. Tie tea bags together close to the bag itself to minimize tangling and for easier fishing out later. We had to transfer some of the milk tea in a drink dispenser because one of the pots didn't have a lid.
2. Purchased drinks from Chinatown (a box full of bottles...)

Overall

We had enough food for everyone to go through the food line at least once and some people came back for more. Performers didn't have that much to choose from =/

• Keep food warm in low ovens (200-250 degrees). We bought 2 large bottles of soy sauce and an additional large bottle of oil from Costco to split between McCormick and Next.
• Leftovers: LOTS of white rice, less than 1/4 tray of dan bing, a couple bowls of sticky rice and fried rice (respectively), some mi fen, some mapo tofu, some chicken and bai cai, a couple pieces of pork rib, about a bowl of beef and broccoli, a couple pearl balls, and half a bottle of aloe left over. But it wasn't an excessive amount of leftovers, so exec and hungry people who stayed after were able to deal with most of the extra food (except the rice... so much rice...).
• We did not have enough: desserts and veggies.

I think we had had about the right amount of food, considering the lowered attendance because of Super Bowl Sunday. Maybe have less dishes next year with more quantity (2 chafing dishes per dish instead of 1)

Performances

Groups

1. MITADT
2. Syncopasian
3. MITCE
4. Cathy Cao and Mingshu Zhan did a duet

Equipment

1. borrowed sound equipment from Crossproducts ($100) because ACF had a retreat

Notes

1. Start contacting performers at least a month in advance
2. During event, I had to run the sound. It would be a good idea to learn how to do it beforehand.

Attendance

2011 I have no idea you should really ask... the sheet of paper with all the ticket sales

Notes

General Notes

• Sent out volunteer google form for cooking (where, 2 hour time slots from 10pm on, what they want to cook, ingredient lists in a separate email), serving (1 hour time slots, but after the first hour, servers are unnecessary) and setup (1 hour time slots from 3pm on) 2 weeks in advance and sent out reminder about 3 days before set deadline (3 days before event). Using Excel spreadsheets was very helpful. It may have been helpful to also include if the person was a performer or emcee so we knew how much volunteering to assign them. Could have probably sent out more reminders.
• Need to advertise more! Printed 30 posters but didn't post them all... emails... Facebook... SPAM!
• Try to get Lobdell NOT on a Sunday (especially not Super Bowl Sunday). And pastries sell better in Lobby 10 (but we couldn't get it this year :()
• Renting or borrowing a car is ESSENTIAL.
• Have setup people bring plates, utensils, cups, and napkins well before the event starts

Food

• Shopping trip: prepare shopping list and print out a couple copies, bring a cooler on the shopping trip even if it's cold outside. We had to borrow someone's Costco card and pay with cash from the cash box. We also tried to go to Chinatown after Costco, but got super lost and ended up going to Super 88 instead, which worked out okay except we had to pay a toll.
• Try to prep as much as possible the day/night before (soak rice, make tea eggs, milk tea?)
• Get enough volunteers for cooking and setup (because some will inevitably cancel on you), send out lots of reminders, preferably well in advance so we can figure out what to do if people cancel, and make sure those signed up actually come (harassing phone calls...)
• Make more people come from Next House to McCormick (so volunteers have time for lunch breaks because they started eating burnt potstickers >_<)
• We borrowed 4 or 5 rice cookers.
• Have rice and noodles first in line when serving food, and instruct servers on portion sizes (don't let people tell you how much they want, unless of course it's less than what you intended to give them)
• The second round of servers never did show up, so people started getting second helpings themselves, which was fine. So we probably don't need servers after the first hour (maybe just some people keeping an eye on things)
• Get pots with LIDS (because steaming with a foil cover is hazardous) and oven mitts for removing filled chafing dishes from warm ovens. We used ovens in the McCormick Country Kitchen, the Annex, and the second floor of east tower.
• Don't put hot milk tea in the refrigerator because the refrigerator becomes very unhappy... it's better to put the milk tea out in the snow
• We soaked way too many mushrooms both at Next and McCormick and ended up with a huge bag of soaked mushrooms that we couldn't use. We also ended up with too much rice, but that may have been because we put the white rice at the very end of the line of food.
• Make sure sauces/bottles of seasoning that need to be refrigerated after opening are refrigerated so we can use them again
• We used chafing dishes to hold large volumes of uncooked (but not meat) items like soaking mushrooms and sticky rice and washed vegetables. We instructed volunteers to wash the chafing dishes before putting food in them (just because some had been in the closet for a while)