Pottery Class

After three sessions of playing and knealing clay, I got three plates and two vases. On the triangle omusubi (rice balls) shaped one, you can see through the three feet undearneath because of the Xray effect on my camera...kidding. I think I squeezed the feet against the plate too hard when I attached them.

I drew sakura flowers on the vase on the right but cannot really tell what flowers they are because glazing was too thick and filled the thin lines but I liked the colors. Next week, my bowls will be ready to come home from the studio :)

Steven's cooking class

Welcome to Steven's Cooking Class! Today we are making Polish Potato dish. First, slice potatoes, onion, Kiebasa (polish sausage) and shred cabbage. Layer them in the pan and make white sauce and yada yada yada....Here is hearty warm potato and sausage dish! Mmmmmm, yuuuuummyyyyyy! It goes well with the salad Mikako made :) Thank you, my dear!

Sakura -- the time we met

Steven and I love sakura and when we first met, sakura was fully bloomed in Tokyo and the petals were falling on us when we did a river ride on Sumida River. It was very romantic and the sakura made us feel closer to each other so since then sakura became not only our favorite flower but very special to us :) One of these days, we will take a month off and chasing sakura from south of Japan to North. Usually sakura start to bloom in the middle of March in Okinawa and in the middle of April in Hokkaido.) Since we cannot go to Japan to see sakura this year, we went to Hakone Garden but it was too early because of cold rainy weather we have this month. However we found a sign of Spring such as cute pink sakura buds on the tree and buds of Wisteria.















And this is our spring brunch before Steven went to his biz trip to Shanghai. Notice the sakura shaped chopstick rest, sakura gohan (rice) and sakura shaped ninjin (carrot)

--MENU--
(from top left)
strawberry
Nasu dengaku (grilled eggplant with miso paste)
Kyuri to kani no sunomono (Cucumber and crab meat vinaigrette salad)
Asparagus no gomayogoshi (Asparagus with sesame sauce)
Tai no misozuke yaki (Broiled Miso marinated red snapper)
Shitake, ninjin to kabocha no nimono (stewed Shitake mushroom, kabocha pumpkin and carrot)
Sakura gohan (Rice with dried sakura)
Okura no misoshiru (Miso soup with Okura)

Happy St.Patrick's Day!!

Green cookies for St.Patric's Day. This green is not from food color and it is Matcha color!!! Matcha is tea powder for tea ceremony in Japan which has bitter and strong taste. They usually use half a table spoon of Matcha for 80 ml hot water to make Matcha. Since Starbucks promotes Macha drinks a lot, Matcha is well known drink now. Anyway, I baked a lot of these cookies and take some to office. We ALL are going to have a sleepless night tonight but it is OK because tomorrow is a holiday for me!!!

Girl's nights

The cats and I are waiting for Steven to come home from NY where he is in for his business trip. We miss him so much....Since he was gone, we, girls have been watching chick flicks.

Tonight, we are going to watch Elizabeth Town .
Where is popcorn?

Now living room...

We got a new couch set today. It made our living room almost ready. We still need to hang Noren (Japanese tapestry) on the wall and add some lamps. Our home is some how mix of western+Asian and both of the taste mingle together well and it bring up warm nice feelings...Like Steven and me :)