A New Year's day tradition for our family is that we gather at mom's house to eat ozoni with mochi she makes herself, and the food she prepares. The foods prepared have meanings to them, such as: long life, good luck, prosperity, strength, good foundation, stamina, perseverance, and fertility. There are certain colors to incorporate as well. The one most important thing that my mom has passed down to me (like many households do) is giving me the measurement of how I season food. It could be salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, the simplest thing in cooking is how much salt or seasoning you use. I almost never had to use salt on the table. My Chinese grandfather did the same for me, and it also helped me in a different way when my mom remarried a Filipino man and started cooking Filipino dishes for him. I am collecting some of moms recipes that she tries to give me, and she always says that it's not easy because that’s now how she cooks, everything is eye-balled and to taste, a little bit of that and a little bit of this. It took her a good three days to produce the meal we had yesterday, many of them little small dishes. Moms all over the world that cook for their families make the best food. My mom, she can cook.