Osechi Dish of 2008

Japanese prepare osechi dish for New Year and it consists of many common ingredients. Some of them are kuromame (black beans), kuri-kinton (mashed sweet potatos with chesnuts),　and kohaku-namasu (red and white pickles).

Although I did not have the chance to get enough ingredients to make osechi dish, I think I did a pretty good job this year!

From left to right:
First row (two colored egg, tataki gobo, and shitake mushroom)
Second row(bamboo shoots and carrots, konnyaku, subasu, and kohaku-namasu)
Third row(kuromame, kurikinton, and tender chicken)

Gobo is burdock in English. Tataki is a way to prepare burdock. You need to smash gobo with a Japanese wooden pestle!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

This holiday season was very quiet, because my husband and my daughter had spent time in Japan. As I had just gone there in Nov. my son and I have decided to stay here. So, I did a lot of baking and cooking!

Here are some of the pictures of Christmas goodies I baked for Christmas.





Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer!



More cookies! These white round cookies are called 'Secret Kiss Cookies', because Hershey's kiss chocolates are wrapped with cookie dough.



At the end of the year 2007 I threw a Sushi Party for my son and his friends.



They were having the best time rolling sushi and eating them!
Ingredients are as follows: sweet egg omelet, smoked salmon, masago(fish eggs),avocado, cream cheese, imitation crab meat, umeboshi or pickled plums,leaf lettuce, cucumbers.
No raw fish this time!

For dessert we had Marble Brownies which my son's friend's mother baked and Strawberry Short Cake which I baked.



I will update our Japanese New Year dish, Osechi Ryori, so look forward!

Golden Anniversary

My parents in Japan had celebrated their 50th. Wedding Anniversary in November.
I had decided to go visit them and be a part of the celebration!

My friend in San Francisco had come all the way to perform the koto with me at the Golden Anniversary Recital. My friend from NY was there also. She had invited her friends from South Africa and we all had a great time together.

The concert was called 'Scramble Concert', because every kind of instruments were mixed together like scrambled eggs. This time my nieces played the cello and the clarinet, while my sister played the piano, my father, the flute, my mom, the shamisen, and I played the koto.

Tamarindo

August 2nd. 2007

I bought a bunch of beautiful flowers that went well with my old table cloth.
This blue cloth is a special one, because we purchased it in France when four of us went there to celebrate our 10th. Wedding Anniversary. It is getting old and even has a little hole, yet I like the color and pattern so much that this is one of my favorite ones.

Does not it look gorgeous with mimosa like flowers I got from HEB?

But half a day passed and this is how the table looked like......

Even Tamarindo joins the scatter.

My books! My homework!

Tamarindo seems content among the scatter.

He looks so sleepy.

A big yawn!

Trip to California

My son and I went to visit my daughter in mid July.
She is taking Summer Sessions @ UCI, in California.
We stayed most of the time over at my friend's in Sherman Oaks.

After John and I met Christine at LAX, we went up to Sherman Oaks and picked my friend, Kaori. We four went down to Irvine and joined her son and his girlfriend for dinner. Mampuku Restaurant in Costa Mesa is wonderful! Yakiniku, or grilled meat, over coals at the table were all delicious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakiniku

Japanese Style Calbi was our #1 choice!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galbi

Ishiyaki (in a heated stone bowl) fried rice was something else!

On Thursday Christine, John, and I went to Santa Monica Plaza.
No car is allowed to the street. You see interesting street performances.



John and I had the chance to go to Warner Brothers VIP Tour on Monday.
We went there with my friend, Wendy, and her family who live in Burbank, CA.



This, off course, is the car you see in Harry Potter!

Does anyone know the TV program of this setting?

I do not watch TV show often, so I really have no idea..., but it was pretty!

The famous WB Water Tour.

After the tour Wendy's husband took a shot of us two.



On Tuesday John and I headed down to Irvine.

We stayed there for 2 nights and 3 days, because I could not stand the heavy traffic in LA !

The second day in Irvine, which was on Wednesday, I have decided to throw a Sushi Party!

Surprisingly14 people gathered at the party!
We made California Rolls, Queso(Cheese in Spanish) Rolls, and many many more Original Rolls! Oh, by the way, do you recognize what this table really is???

You can get such a wide variety of ingredients!

We had raw fish assortment and they all loved it!

We rolled umeboshi or pickled plum. They are sour!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umeboshi

"It's good, but it's sour!!!", says Jialing, one of Christine's roommates.

When we went to Santa Monica the following day and ate at a Greek Restaurant.

The appetizer was delicious!

On Friday while Christine was having her hair cut at a Japanese Hair Salon in Torrance John and I had a little snack at a Japanese Restaurant.

They had Anmitsu, Japanese sweet agar-agar dessert with fruit and sweet beans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anmitsu

I almost felt like I was in Japan!

It is hard to see in the photo, but a rainbow welcomed us back at the McAllen International Airport. The whole week we were gone, they say it rained so much in South Texas.

The weather in Southern California during our stay was just fantastic!

Gotta bake more!

John's birthday cake was so delicious that it was gone before we realized.
Since Jun and I both like the other recipe that does not contain any corn starch, I baked another strawberry short cake two days later! It was less dry and went very well with heavy cream and strawberries.

Doesn't it look good?

Happy Birthday, John!

Last Saturday we celebrated John's last birthday as a teen.

When Christine, John's sister in CA, called him he was taking a shower and could not answer his cell phone. Then she called my cell, but I was taking a nap. So she tried to call her Dad's cell phone, but he was in another room when it rang. She decided to call our home phone and finally reached to her Dad.

'"So, where ARE you all?"
Christine asked overly frustrated.
"Home?"
my husband answered in wonder.

I baked him a strawberry short cake, using 6 whole eggs!

It was a huge one.

Strawberry shot cake is John's favorite cake.

He looks happy, right?

It was delicious!