march

 Hope your March started like this too.

beautiful

So happy I woke up to see this, this morning.

Hope you can view this too.

this and that

Found this assorted peanut snack, some peanuts are covered with a rice cracker shell, there are also some peas in there too, love it. 

Supermarket wood oven style pizza...loved the crust! and that this quattro formaggi (4 cheese) came with a little container of honey to drizzle on the pizza after heating up.

I do think they need to note that there is that container of honey included AND they need to put instructions on how to warm up the pizza...

The fence at nearby Kumano shrine is metal! it looks like a woven cloth, yeah?!

Bummed that I had to throw out 1 blood orange...

saw this interesting objet...the title of the piece is "toraboruta"

if you look carefully at it...it is a tora (tiger) that is bolted (chained up).

"toraboruta" is also the pronunciation of travolta, as in John Travolta...ha! 
 

The sunrises have been pretty spectacular...

I found taiyaki filled with sakura filling...stashed a couple in the freezer.

There are 2 more weeks for the State of emergency, but it seems that Tokyo has plateaued at 300 cases a day...hopefully we can get our number down even lower.

Japan has finally started to vaccinate but at the pace they are going the experts say it will take a couple of years?! 

Hopefully they will be able to get things moving...

Hope you are doing well, have a safe weekend.

sunrise

This was the sunrise this morning.

Pretty yeah?!

It's still blazing and humid here.

Hope you have a safe weekend.

 

that condo

When I first noticed it, I thought...wow, everyone in "that condo" is up already, all their lights are on...then I realized it was the reflection of the sunrise...

Whenever I see the reflection, I go to the other room in our apartment and check out the sunrise...

Have a nice (safe) weekend everyone!

good to be home

It's like 10 degrees cooler than Japan here...bonus: I got to see this beautiful sunrise glow from the right side of the plane.

I'll be posting from here for awhile, but the dates and time will reflect Japan time.

Have a good week!

hawaii sights

Some days all you need to do, is just take a look in your side mirror

Or just take a look outside to see a beautiful Hawaiian sunrise...

Hope your day is a happy one.

friday

Friday...

The sunrise looked like this.

Except for the rainy days, most mornings the skies have been clear, no clouds, which means it is very cold outside.

During the day, there is still a nip in the air, but indoors, you don't need to turn on the heater because the heat from the sun warms the room.

And dusk looked like this.

With a rather large full moon (though it looks teeny in this photo) in a cloudless sky.

I missed capturing the blazing sunset, but loved the bluish-purply sky.

Hope the first month of 2010 was good for you.

sam choy's blc

Saturday morning the sky was clear, no clouds and the air was crisp. It looked like the makings of a beautiful sunrise.

We met some of my aunties and uncles at Sam Choy BLC (Breakfast, Lunch & Crab) for breakfast.

Every year about this time, my aunty on the mainland sends some monies to another aunty for my dad's birthday breakfast. (Thank you!)

I was surprised at how slow business was there and how high prices have gone. I had the fried rice with 2 eggs (US $6.50 + tax). The fried rice has pretty much everything in there (spam, lup cheong, char siu, kamaboko, green onion). This dish was really filling and delicious. It was nice to be able to take my leftovers home. (In Japan, they don't have "doggie bags", for fear of food poisoning complaints.)

It was nice to be able to visit with some of my relatives on this trip home, while celebrating my dad's birthday.

Sam Choy's BLC : UPDATE 2013, this restaurant is no longer in business
580 N. Nimitz Highway
Honolulu
Phone: 808.545.7979

stollen

Last year I made stollen and posted about it here. This year, I found another recipe from a Japanese cookbook I have and tried it instead.

Stollen adapted from "Baked goods with Salt and Spice" makes 2 loaves
220g flour
50 g sugar
3g dry yeast
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
20 grinds of cinnamon
1 egg
65 cc milk
75g butter

50g diced almonds
50g diced yuzu (citron) peel
50g dried cassis
handful of nibs

25g butter, melted
powdered sugar for dusting

Put the first 7 ingredients into a bowl, then add the egg and milk. Mix well.
Add the butter and with your hand start to knead the butter in. It will be hard at first, but with the warmth of your hand it will work itself into the dough.
Knead the dough a bit more.
Add the nuts, peel, nibs and fruit to the dough and knead.
When the dough comes together, put a piece of plastic wrap on top of the bowl and leave in a warm place to rise for about 1.5 to 2 hours.
When the dough rises 2-3 times the size, cut the dough into two. Take one of the pieces and flatten, fold into three overlapping the ends. Do this for the other piece.
Leave in a warm place for another hour.
Bake in 180C (350F) oven for 30-40 minutes, making sure that there is a nice brown color.
When the stollen comes out of the oven, drizzle the butter over the two loaves.
Dust with powdered sugar.
Enjoy!

The stollen in the cookbook looks a bit hard, like a country bread, but mine came out more like a cake/bread, with a nice muffin-top like crust.

Here is yesterday's sunrise...all peachy, orangy and warm.