odds & ends

It is the end of September...just thought I'd post about some things that I haven't had a chance to.

Pretty chopstick rests from my friend, Mihoko. Her computer was acting up, so she decided to "write" to me by snail mail and she was nice enough to enclose these pretty rests. (Thank you!)

If you like to travel then this book is for you. I first heard about Bill Bryson from Rowena & Bea--I think they had commented on one of his books. He fills his book with lots of history, trivia and fun narrative. I've bought some of his other books and can't wait to read them!

My mom recently sent this cookbook to me. It is a collection of stories and recipes taken from the Honolulu Star Bulletin's column: "By Request", written by Betty Shimabukuro. The stories are great and the recipes pretty straight forward. Can't wait to try some of these!

As I said before I saw this book on Nordljus' blog, it is a collection of interviews of and recipes by Australia & England's finest foodies. A recurring theme throughout the book is how each enjoys food simply--when you take a look at the recipes that they share most are very simple and sound really good. I'm glad I was able to get my hands on this one.

My student, Yoshimi gave me these millefeuille from Reman (Thank you!). These delicate, flaky layers of pie crust have cream and chocolate in between each layer, then is dipped with milk or sweet chocolate, the top is a toffee with almonds. Millefeuille means a thousand leaves. Delicious!

Bigot's macarons. He is a French baker in Ashiya, a ritzy suburb area in Hyogo prefecture. The ganaches in these were very sweet. Clockwise: dark pink = vanilla, dark brown = chocolate, white = vanilla, yellow = lemon, lt. pink = raspberry, lt brown = coffee, green = pistachio & beige with cocoa powder = hazelnut.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend! Tonight's dinner is pizza...stay tuned!