odds & ends

Well, I think I have grumbled enough about the heat and humidity this year...I will now put it away until next summer.

The weather has taken a 180 and gotten cooler! The chirping of the cicada has been replaced with chirping of suzumushi and korogi (types of crickets)....Ahh...autumn...we can finally sleep with the windows open and the a/c off! In Hawaii, this season is non-existent.

I enjoy taking autumn/winter clothes out of the closet and putting the summer ones away. In Japan, this is called koromogae. Lots of good stuff (foodie stuff and visual stuff, like the colors changing of the leaves) can be found in autumn.

Autumn also brings all kinds of chocolate-y goodies...Meiji's Fran is a pretzle stick type chocolate. This year's autumn version is called "extra". The pretzle is chocolate, a coating of whipped dark chocolate, and a coating of 70% cacao and nibs....there are only 12 pretzle...you may not want to share....I didn't!

Meiji also makes a candy called Cho-pan. The name comes from Chopin the composer and pan (dish). These dark chocolate cups hold a chocolate ganache and a flaky cocoa pie crust-like topping...there are only 4 cute little dishes of chocolate...definitely not for sharing!

Another non-sharing chocolate is Glico's Mousse Pocky. Another pretzle type chocolate with whipped mousse-like dark chocolate on the pretzle sticks.

I bought this bar awhile back...Hachez, a German chocolate, their Cocoa d'Arriba is a 77% cacao. I thought it would be really bitter, but it was actually really creamy.

Also bought awhile back...Chocolina is an Austrian chocolate made with sheep's milk. The dark with rose buds (left) is a 67% cacao with real rose buds in it. I didn't like this one too much because it was really perfumy. At first, I was a bit leery about buying this one because I thought that the sheep's milk might be a bit smelly, but it tastes great except for the rose perfuminess. I can't wait to try the one on the right, it is a 65% cacao and has pumpkin seeds in it.

Wednesday, Satoshi had a business meeting in Nagoya. I asked him to bring home some chicken wings from a place called Furaibo. This place fries the chicken then dips them into their special sauce...delish! I never noticed this on their website before, but they have franchises here and there in Japan and even in California! If you are in the L.A. area, you may already know about this....

He also got me Kuri Dainagon, a cake filled with adzuki beans and kuri (chestnuts), very light, fluffy cake that is not too sweet.

Yesterday was bead stitch class. Here are a bracelet and earrings that I made using the brick stitch. Somehow while weaving this one, I made a boo-boo--turns out the teacher loved my originality!

And a pearl bracelet using the right-angle weave.

We have a 3-day weekend here--although Satoshi has to work on Saturday.

Enjoy the weekend!