VANCOUVER Last year, when Vancouver chef Regina Lee was forced to close her artisan pie business, Gaia Kitchen, because of COVID-19, her hectic lifestyle came to a screeching halt. It was a tough decision but it meant she could spend more time with her husband and two teenage daughters, something she’d been missing out on while operating her business. One year into the pandemic, that’s still as big as her in-person circle gets a very unusual circumstance for her and other families at Lunar New Year. “Even though I have my immediate family with me, I do miss the big family gatherings,” Chef Lee said. “That’s very important in the Chinese New Year, to see your grandma, uncles and aunties, people you don’t see for a whole year, that’s the time you meet them.”