Prosperity Burger is back again!

It is that time again - that time when your office receives boxes and boxes of mandarin oranges, and Petaling Street is filled with cherry blossom and money plant, and bookstores stock up on red packets for sale. For me Chinese New Year is an event to look forward to.

Not just cause I'd be able to visit my Ah Lek who used to bring grocery for us, "Uncle Hollywood" my kuay teow chef extraordinaire, Tang Kau the old taxi driver and Su Yin our ex-dressmaker. Though it's a sure thing that I can get at least RM5 from each one of them - I know Tang Kau would give more if his mind wasn't stuck in the '80s.

Not just for all the cool Cantonese movies they'd be showing on TV. Though now that Channel 9 and 8TV are operating regular hours I have five channels to flick across in case ASTRO's down.

Not just for all the lovely Chinese gal friends I'd be bumping into at Jaya Jusco Ipoh soon. Though many of them are here it's still more fun to come across each other in our own hometown.

To me Chinese New Year also means the comeback for McDonald's Prosperity Burger! I know by right I should not be associating a simple fastfood item to something as auspicious as a festival celebrated by more than a billion people in the world, but I can't help it!

If you know me well enough, you know how much an item as ordinary yet versatile as food means to me. Even if you don't know me, my email address includes the word food - doesn't that tell you something?

I love food but I love good food even more. I find new delicacies very exciting. I find destinations that offer lovely gastronomical selection worth the trip. I find authors who use food as simile brilliant (check out Rosie Haslina Nasir, Roald Dahl and Peter Mayle). I even find my job, which entails a lot of discussions and info grovelling over hors d'oeuvre, worth waking up in the morning for.

Tender piece of meat, dipped with spicey gravy, laced with onions, clapped by halved buns, hot from the griller. Count in the twisty fries and the peach-orange sundae. Down it with Vanilla Coke. And that, is the beauty of the Prosperity Burger meal... don't miss it!