Happy Lunar New Year! February 7, 2008 begins the year of the Rat [1], the first year of the Chinese zodiac, a time of activity and renewal. Today we’ll take you on a quick tour of lunar new year basics, factoids, and food traditions. It is said that this is a good year to make a fresh start, and after the year we’ve had, we couldn’t agree more! As uncertified joy practitioners, we here at Freshtopia.net love a good reason to celebrate and eat some delicious food. So why not wear a little red, do a spot of cleaning (a lunar new year tradition), bring some fresh blossoms into your home and enjoy some healthy, auspicious fruits and vegetables? In addition to tossing a little green, Tanja put together a wonderful, earthy, spicy parsnip noodle salad for this episode. We’ll be putting the recipe in the next edition of the Freshtopian, so if you haven’t already signed up, do so by entering your preferred address in the field at the site’s upper-right. [tags]chinese new year, lunar new year, year of the rat[/tags] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_%28zodiac%29