Day (break) & moon(cakes)

I woke up, cold. Is it fall already? I like the fresh morning air, but I'm typically cold. I headed to the gym. Every Friday has been the same and I haven't missed one Friday yet: 24 SET and TurboKick.

24SET is starting to become more familiar and bearable. I just power through it and feel great afterwards.

TurboKick was so much better. I was more present and active. I even got that consecutive knee and back kick that was trouble for me.

I came home and decided that since I was still sweaty, I would get my 30 Day Shred done for the day. Done.

I ventured out with mom to pick up mooncakes, which were all wrong. We had to go through all of them to find the mixed nuts or five kernel. Apparently they're more expensive than the mung bean kind that they accidentally included.

Fillings:

• Lotus seed - traditional, expensive
• Red bean/mung bean
• Five kernel - filled with nuts, seeds, and dried fruits as well as jerky
• Durian - ate this; typically mixed with a paste, but I had it full-on and in a snowskin like crust. Because it's perishable, it had to be frozen. Since it's only durian, the filling gets icy in between little crevices

Crusts:

• Chewy - the usual type I see, which is Cantonese
• Flaky - prevalent in Taiwan
• Snowskin - made of glutinous rice flour, like mochi

Mooncakes also have egg yolks inside, either one or two. They make vegetarian ones without egg yolks though.

My aunt told me that she made some once, but in order to make it, you have to prep the sugar months in advance.

Okay, the big question is Why are we talking about mooncakes?

We are celebrating the mid-autumn festival, which is partly a harvest festival.

The other part is a story of our earth and its 10 suns. They alternated in heating the sun until all of them met and scorched the earth. We were saved by a man who shot down 9 of the 10 moons. He attained an elixir of life that another man tried to take. The other man kills the first man, but his wife drank the elixir and floated to live in the moon.

As for moon cakes, they were baked as a means of communication between rebellion leaders during the mid-autumn festival. The Chinese were unhappy about being ruled by Mongolians so they planned their attacks with messages on the cakes.

Hm, I thought it would be more interesting. Oh well. I want a snowskin mango mooncake that was advertised on TV, but it's only available in... Singapore? I haven't seen a lot of unique mooncakes around here though. :/