how are you?

We’ve been laying low.

On New Year’s eve day, the package that Aunty M sent us in December, finally arrived. (thank you!)

Apparently, it had a 3 week "vacation" in Los Angeles...boy, it was a little nerve wracking seeing it hover in Los Angeles...

At about lunch time, we had flurries! for like 5 whole minutes.

Satoshi was not excited to see them…ha! needless to say, I was bummed there wasn't much snow after that.

After dinner, we watched a “Midnight Diner” marathon, “Kodoku no Gurume” special & the Red & White song festival.

On the first day of the year, for our osechi, I had bought mostly everything, but made some tataki gobo & namasu.

I also made some dashimaki tamago (egg with stock)

And we had this reishu...Shirakami Sanchi, a sake from Tohoku.

Instead of buying a whole daikon, I found these cute & pretty turnips called ayame yuki, that have a purple tinge on the outer flesh, I used one to make the namasu. 

Also since I had kept some yuzu peel in the freezer, I put some into the namasu.

Breakfast on the first 2 days of the new year was ozoni.

On the second day of the year, with the leftover kuromame I made some muffins with mochiko, kinako, black sesame seeds, the kuromame and some yuzu peel.

We ate 2 when it came out of the oven and I put the remaining 4 into the freezer.

I reconnected with an instant curry called Bon Curry, the neighbor of my host family had introduced me to this many many moons ago.

Today will be the first time we go outside since "last year"...the markets are open.

Hoping 2022 is off to a nice start for you.