In celebration of Lunar New Year, the chef and cookbook author Natasha Pickowicz reflects on celebrating her favorite holiday with hot pot in an adapted excerpt from her new book, Everyone Hot Pot: Creating the Ultimate Meal for Gathering and Feasting, published by Artisan Books.
Growing up in San Diego, I counted down the days for the Lunar New Year to begin, because it meant that we would have hot pot. In the temperate climate of San Diego, the cooler months took their sweet time to roll around, and I longed for “real” weather—hot pot weather. The closest we’d get in La Jolla was the thick, wet fog that crawled towards the coast most mornings, or damp, long nights that left our front lawn sticky with dew.
When the Lunar New Year finally approached, there was one certainty in our home: the hot pot would come out. Hot pot is the ancient cookery method of rapidly poaching bite-sized morsels of fresh vegetables, meats, seafood, and tofu in a communal tableside broth. It’s the strongest tradition we have in our family, stronger than Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, and Mother’s Day combined. My love for hot pot grows exponentially every year, as I introduce new people to it. The love expands, the circle widens, the tradition shifts.
My mother, Li Huai, an artist born in Beijing, and my father, Paul Pickowicz, a New England-born Chinese film historian, fed me with their homey Chinese cooking. As a child, my mom made almost all of our meals, preparing simple, delicious things like soy sauce-braised chicken drumsticks and lap cheong fried rice; soft lobes of tomato folded into scrambled eggs and chili; whole steamed sea bass, stuffed with scallions and glossy with black bean sauce.
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But it was hot pot that I loved the most above all others, because it meant that a party was just around the corner. As an only child, the anticipation of an impending hot pot night was thrilling. I’d sit down at our long dining room table, claiming a seat inches from a simmering pot perched over the exposed flickering flame of a small camping stove. Endless platters stretched before me: woven bundles of translucent noodles, frilly clusters of mushrooms and cabbage, tissue-thin slices of raw lamb, pork, and beef, plus my personal dipping bowl, painted with creamy, nutty white sesame sauce, as thick as a smoothie.
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As the hours went by and the grown-ups’ laughter grew louder, the windows fogged over with the billowing, aromatic hot pot steam, like we were in our own heaven, floating away on a cloud we had created.
Hot pot was the real reason why Lunar New Year was my favorite holiday of the year. Lunar New Year meant two ecstatic weeks of gifts, celebration, feasting, family, and friends. My parents were known for their epic new year party, my mom making hundreds of dumplings by hand, often supplementing that with a whole suckling pig and endless bottles of baijiu, a powerful sorghum liquor. I’d watch, wide-eyed, as my dad belted out Beijing opera classics alongside his colleagues, who leaned unsteadily against our piano.
Even though my parents were very strict in my day-to-day life, Lunar New Year was the one time of the year they truly let loose. Their parties became notorious even in my own cliques; my parents knew to expect at least a few dozen teenagers crashing their party, sucking down all the noodles, and sneaking beers in the canyon down below.
I wanted to bring this feeling of abundance, vitality, and pleasure into my new cookbook, Everyone Hot Pot. We timed the release of the book to sync up with my favorite holiday, and this is the year of the fire horse: a time for galloping, momentum-building change and energy. I’ve already been on tour for weeks, but most of all I can’t wait to travel home during the Lunar New Year to visit my parents, where they’ll host a hot pot feast for a small group of friends, serving up all of their signature embellishments, like their antique copper hot pot, its burnished sides stamped with darting koi fish, and tiny blue shot glasses, their porcelain sides as thin as paper. And I’ll bring a bit of myself to the table, too, like scattering edible flowers on the platters of thinly sliced lamb, stretching sesame-crusted flatbreads by hand, and roasting bones for the broth, heavy with aromatics and smoky spices.
My love and approach to hot pot has grown and deepened as the years go by, and naturally, hot pot has made its way into my own New Year’s celebrations. From Ithaca to Portland to Montreal to NYC—all cities I’ve lived in as an adult—hot pot was the way I made friends and created community, especially during the Lunar New Year. I’ve converted soup skeptics into hot pot fanatics. I’ve romanced boyfriends with an intimate hot pot for two (a little sliced steak and scallops go a long way). Like my parents, I hold no greater pride than sharing my hot pot with someone who has never experienced its magic. Somehow, this ancient cookery feels like it belongs to everybody.
My life has been shaped by my love of bringing people together and hot pot is the ultimate manifestation of this desire. By hosting and sharing, we create moments that are bigger than ourselves, bigger than a single ingredient or dish or tool. It’s true: something ineffable happens over every hot pot. People leave relaxed and loose, their eyes heavy and belts tight. My dad always says that at the hot pot table, you could sit next to a stranger, and by the end of the night they’d be your best friend. Now, more than ever, we need these moments to bring us together. Hot pot is the way to do it.
