around the neighborhood

The weather has been kind of weird, raining off and on and blustery and the sun making candid appearances. Plus, the trees still think it is autumn, some still have their leaves and the ones that didn't get to change color have started--and it is almost Christmas!....I think something is broken...

I wanted to share with you some sights from around our neighborhood.

A persimmon tree that lost all of its leaves and still had TONS of fruit.

Tsubaki (camellia) trees in both dark and light pink.

A gingerbread house in front of a baking class. Seeing this brought back memories of the Christmases where we would get together with several families to make gingerbread houses. One of the mothers would bake the parts for the houses, others would bring the candies. We would all then gather at one house and each family would put their own house together. It was tons of fun! We used royal icing to put everything together then stuck candies on the roof and walls. It was interesting, most of us had never seen or played in snow because we grew up in Hawaii, and all of our houses had icicles hanging off the roof and there were snowmen on the front lawn.

Tonight's dinner was kind of an ad-lib. I intended to make gyoza (pot stickers), but the wrappers I had in the freezer were freezer burnt or something, they were REALLY hard and not pliable, so I had to throw them out. Left with only the filling, I decided to pan fry these up...gyo-burg (gyoza burgers). With a glass of Minoo pale ale, they were delicious!

Hope you have a great week!