Chi­nese New Year falls on Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 10 this year, when we kick off the year of the snake. Snake per­son­al­i­ties are known to be acute, cun­ning, aware, proud, vain, and vicious at times. My mother was a snake, so besides the fact that my teenage years rep­re­sented an era of non­stop nuclear war­fare in our house, I appre­ci­ate this cycle of the Chi­nese Zodiac much more than most.

I’m ready to kick off this lunar year in DC right, then. There are cer­tain foods one must eat dur­ing Chi­nese New Year to bring in luck for the home and the fam­ily, and to be frank, for one­self. And though the New Year is a one-day hol­i­day, cel­e­bra­tions often extend for a week before and after — which means a lot of eat­ing poten­tial. While it seems like every sin­gle food­stuff has a cor­re­spond­ing sym­bolic mean­ing in the Chi­nese cul­ture , I’ve selected a list of 8 the most sym­bolic foods to eat over the hol­i­day, where to find some of their best iter­a­tions through­out the city, plus why exactly you’ll be eat­ing them in the first place.

Noo­dles

We here in DC look to cities like LA and NY with ramen envy. So instead of that brothy, porky, noodly combo, let’s stretch our imag­i­na­tions and parla Ital­iano for a sec­ond. Leg­end has it that Marco Polo brought the con­cept of spaghetti to Italy via China, so we’ll play that card here. DC has no short­age of Ital­ian gems, but this year’s stand­out has got to be Fabio Trabocchi’s Fiola. If you haven’t heard of Fiola yet this year, you’ve got to be liv­ing in China or something.

Noo­dles are a sym­bol of longevity. The longer, the bet­ter. So order up some spaghetti, buca­tini, or fet­tucine on Fiola’s menu, and leave that short stubby orec­chi­ete stuff for another day.

Whole Fish

Thank you Chesa­peake Bay, for your abun­dance of seafood. Thank you for your oys­ters, your crabs, your whit­ing and your hake. Thank you for pro­vid­ing the folks here in DC with an orches­tra of tasty delights from your waters. Finally, thank you, Farm­ers Fish­ers Bak­ers, for open­ing this past year and bring­ing us the most sus­tain­able of your daily catch.

In Chi­nese, the word for fish is a homanym for abun­dance, and sym­bol­izes just that. Tra­di­tion­ally fish is served steamed, always whole — rep­re­sent­ing pros­per­ity for the whole year, from head to tail.

Peaches

It’s win­ter. Where do you think you’re get­ting fresh peaches around here? Now’s the time to look for the lit­tle sug­ary fruits baked into pies! Dan­ger­ous Pies DC, with it’s rock star men­tal­ity and hand made pies, is serv­ing up both sweet and savory desserts as a part of H Street’s grow­ing food scene. If you can’t get out to H Street, don’t fret. — Dan­ger­ous Pies is now going mobile, bring­ing a bit more abun­dance of good­ness to my stom­ach, and unfor­tu­nately, my thighs too.

Peaches are often brought as house­warm­ing gifts, as ances­tral offer­ings, or dis­played in the home, sym­bolic of youth and eter­nal longevity. China is the num­ber one pro­ducer of peaches in the world.

Dumplings

Mmmmm… lit­tle pack­ets of meats and veg­gies wrapped in a thick fluffy dough. Hey now, we may be stretch­ing our imag­i­na­tions for a bit, but isn’t the empanada, like, the dumpling of South Amer­ica? Check out DC empanada’s new out­post at Union Mar­ket, with a rotat­ing menu ready to please all senses. Favorites include the WMD– Weapon of Mass Deli­cious­ness (Chili and cheese), the The Badass (Buf­falo chicken and blue cheese), and the Tio Shawn (black beans, rice, cheese, chipo­tle). Yes, that last one’s veg­e­tar­ian, but yes, it’s tasty and a per­sonal favorite.

Tra­di­tional dumplings resem­ble the ancient golden nuggets used as cur­rency in medieval China, and are sym­bolic for wealth and pros­per­ity. Mo’ dumplings mo’ money (I think this expres­sion just might catch on).

Sweets

That George­town Cup­cake line don’t lie, we Wash­ing­to­ni­ans need our sugar fix. Rather that a cup­cake though, I’d rather indulge in the cupcake’s dain­tier lit­tle sis­ter, the mac­aron. This French sta­ple has offi­cially arrived thanks to DC Patis­serie. Indul­gent enough to pass for a special-holiday treat, plus small enough to pop a few at a time, the mac­aron is the per­fect sweet treat.

Sweet desserts for a sweet year. Though the Chi­nese don’t often have an abun­dance of sweets and desserts in their cui­sine, the New Year is a time when they roll up their sleeves and pull a few tricks out from their sleeves. Tiny red-wrapper can­dies are passed out to kids, and cakes and tarts are baked for din­ners and parties.

Tan­ger­ines and Oranges

To bal­ance out your new diet of empanadas, pies, and mac­arons, maybe a lit­tle some­thing fresh would be appro­pri­ate. Thank­fully lit­tle clemen­tines are the win­ter dar­ling of the pro­duce world. I’m always search­ing to get my hands on a lit­tle extra Vit­a­min C in the win­ter­time, and pop­ping a few of these for an after­noon snack do just the trick. Korean gro­cer giant H-Mart car­ries these by the car­ton, and for cheap. That’s some good for­tune for both you and your wallet.

In Chi­nese, the word tan­ger­ine sounds a lot like the word ‘luck’. Addi­tion­ally, oranges rep­re­sent abun­dance. So pair­ing a bowl of oranges along with tan­ger­ines, means you’ll have abun­dant luck. Even bet­ter, the more leaves that are on the tan­ger­ines the bet­ter — those sym­bol­ize life and longevity! You know, in case eat­ing those noo­dles didn’t do the trick.

Nien Gao

A dessert with dates and beans? Hey, I warned you ear­lier, the Chi­nese don’t really do sweets and desserts. But actu­ally the float­ing red dates and sweet red beans sus­pended in gluti­nous rice flour is actually…well, quite good. You know who does gluti­nous rice and sweet red bean paste bet­ter than the Chi­nese, though? The Japan­ese, and their mochi (though, I might be start­ing WWIII with this state­ment). Tiny lit­tle Hana Mar­ket, tucked on a cor­ner of U street adja­cent to a fire sta­tion, is one of the only authen­tic Asian mar­kets in the dis­trict, and a good one at that. Stocked from floor to ceil­ing with hun­dreds of vari­eties of Japan­ese goods, you can find mochi in their refrig­er­ated cases.

Nien Gao is another homonym for good luck — actu­ally mean­ing “sticky cake”, it can also mean ‘high year’. All over china and beyond, Chi­nese eat this dessert for the new year to bring a tall order of good for­tune in the new year. I per­son­ally eat it with high hopes that in the future, I won’t find the Chi­nese lan­guage so damn confusing.

Stir Fry with 10 Vegetables

Both my par­ents rem­i­nisce of their child­hood New Year din­ners, when there was always a big plate of 10-vegetable stir fry on the table. Every Year. My mom fondly recalls her father metic­u­lously chop­ping veg­eta­bles the whole day into paper-thin slices, specif­i­cally for this dish. Tra­di­tion­ally made with ingre­di­ents such as pick­led mus­tard greens, lotus root, fresh bam­boo, bean sprouts, and shi­itake mush­rooms, it’s a light respite that is wel­come dur­ing feasts of rich seafood and meat. For this one, I say visit a local DC farm­ers mar­ket to pick out the 10 best ingre­di­ents, and make your own sea­sonal, lucky stir fry. Onions, cab­bage, parsnips, cel­ery, tofu, bean sprouts, pars­ley, leeks, mush­rooms, and car­rots sounds like a great win­tery combo to me. To the farm­ers mar­ket I go!

The num­ber 10 rep­re­sents com­plete­ness, and hav­ing 10 veg­eta­bles serves a pur­pose of being ful­filled in fam­ily and life. Plus this one hits close to home, which is good a rea­son as any to eat a dish.

So there you have it: Eight foods you should be eat­ing these next few weeks, and where you’ll find their best ver­sions in DC. And oh yeah, eight is very lucky in the Chi­nese cul­ture, because it sounds like the Chi­nese word for “pros­per­ity” or “wealth”. So yeah, it’s con­firmed that we Chi­nese are pretty super­sti­tious mofo’s look­ing for luck every­where we can.