around the table

Notice about moving

2011-03-15T15:38:00.003-06:00

Hi.
Today I have something to notice you.

This blog has been consolidated into one with my another japanese blog, flower child.
And the new place is here.

I've already started the new place, and now it has two languages, English and Japanese for one picture.
I hope you'll come to see me there.

With leaving here, I want to say many thanks to you all who has been with me here till now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

Sincerely,
Tomily

Earthquake

2011-03-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

今朝いつもの朝仕事を終えてから、テレビニュースで日本を襲った地震の映像を見て、愕然となりました。

長く遠く離れて暮らしているけれど、その月日と距離の長さに比例するように、母国への愛おしさはどんどんと膨らみ、そして今回のニュースに、悲鳴をあげている母国の姿に、涙が止まらなくなりました。

今のわたしを取り巻く環境との兼ね合いもあっての涙かもしれません。

勝手ないいぐさですが、「わたしの日本が。。。。。愛おしい国の人々が。。。。。」という台詞を何度も何度も頭の中で繰り返し、映像の前にぽろぽろと涙をこぼしつづけ、しまいには頭がぼぉうっとなっています。

できるだけ多くの命が救われますように。

皆の暮らしができるだけ早く穏やかに再開できますように。

皆の心の不安が少しずつでもやわらぎますように。

祈ることしかできませんが、それでも、ただひたすらに祈っています。

**********

This morning, I was violently stunned with the images of Japan.

It was crying over the damages the strong earthquake had made.

Muddy streams were washing the land and furious fire were raging.

Houses, cars and creations by people were devastatingly broken and laid mercilessly.

Japan was crying, and is still crying now.

I just wish our people over there are safe.

Wish as many lives as possible are saved.

Wish they have their families safe, home to go back, food and water to live.

Wish the fear they've just experienced is consoled.

Even though all I can do here in the U.S. might be just praying, I'll never stop praying.

I'll be with them.

Please, please, please our people in Japan, be patient, be strong, don't give up.

Past pictures with Pen-FT -vol.2

2011-03-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

Hi.
As I told you last time, here's another 10 of pictures taken with Olympus Pen-FT in early summer of 2009.
They are actually from test rolls for the camera after having gotten it.

When I got these images back from photo service, I wasn't able to like them very much and I've left them till yesterday. (Though some of them were uploaded on either of flickr or blogs.)
Then yesterday, I started to like them when I looked over past pictures and found them from a bunch of past images.
I think you can understand how this sort of things happen.
Just time and the whimsical feeling can bring you this happening.

I took some pictures with Pen-FT recently and I've already had the film developed and seen all the images.
They look way far different from pictures above in color and focus, though I didn't figure out what elements exactly affected it. (But I guess it's maybe because I didn't rely on the light meter of the camera, but trusted on my own sense for exposure, and chose rather medium aperture (like from f4 to f8) to get fairly good range of depth of the field this time.)

I think I'm going to use Pen-FT more often than ever.
Now I don't dislike the pictures Pen-FT renders at all.

Have a nice week, guys. :)

Past pictures with Pen-FT -vol.1

2011-03-06T10:58:00.004-07:00

Hi.
Are you having a restful weekend?
I hope all you guys are enjoying the first weekend of March.

This morning I talked about photography with my husband over breakfast.
And I was suddenly inclined to look over past pictures after that and came across these taken with Olympus Pen-FT.
These are from the trip to Northwest in the summer of 2009.
In very first day of the trip, I met the camera at a photo shop which I always visit whenever I stay in Portland.
And though I didn't have any plan to buy a camera at that time, I couldn't help myself wishing if it were to be in my old camera collection.
So I got that and started to use in the trip immediately.

I don't have much to say about the pictures above.
I just wanted to make sure how this camera takes lovely images.
I picked and am showing you first 10 today, and I'll show you another 10 in the next post.

I hope they add some extra on your weekend.
Have the good rest of weekend.

The Oscar night and the feast

2011-03-05T10:00:00.006-07:00

A week ago, My husband and I had a very good excuse to have another feast.
The Oscar night.

We didn't watch almost any movies that had nominated, but the event gave us the feeling of festivity enough.
We shopped for a bottle of cheap but our favorite champaign earlier the day.
And we didn't have to think much about what to eat, because it was Sunday.
On every single Sunday we eat pizza, and the day's pizza was "pizza ai tre formaggi". (not quattro. I didn't have four kinds. ;P)
We didn't forget arugula for our cheese pizza as always.

I really like to follow the Italian way to eat our course.
Appetizer first, pizza second and finish with salad.
Salad, especially if it has some refreshing fruits in it, always washes our mouth, especially when you've eaten cheesy dish before it.
I fixed grapefruits and olive salad, and the dressing was made from the juice of grapefruits, maple syrup, salt and pepper.

For the appetizer, I didn't buy anything special but placed ordinal things lying around the fridge.
I just made smoked salmon dip for boiled broccolis and carrots.
The narrow and long white plate, which I've possessed for 8~9 years, is very good for pickled veggies and olives.

The feast was very good, and I don't remember much about the Oscar nor watched till end of the show. ;)

An unchanged favorite sandwich

2011-03-02T15:11:00.003-07:00

The moment I fell in love with one sandwich came to me almost a decade ago.
At that time, I didn't know much about bread and cheese, and I even don't remember of the name of the sandwich.
But I just fell in love with that sandwich and still remember how it was good.

Now I know a little about bread and cheese, and I can guess what that sandwich called.; "Caprese", probably.
It has slices of tomatoes, brie cheese and basil leaves, and the bread was artisan whitish bread which had crisp but not too crunchy crust and elastic crumb.
I remember very well how speecheless I was and how much I was concentrated on just chewing it down.

I fixed a very similar one yesterday for my lunch, and it reminded me of a-decade-younger-me.
I think I'll remember that young me whenever I eat this sandwich.
And I'm sure I'll always happy with it.

*******

As I told you in the last post, I'm using various cameras in turn recently.
I took today's pictures with Olympus Pen-FT.
It is a half-size camera as you know, and I had a problem with a CD the images were loaded onto.
I just wonder how people who use this type of camera get images after developing.
I myself scanned the negative, but it was too much work.
Usually I order developing with prints or a CD for my negative film, and as I didn't think one-hour-photo service can make half size prints, so I asked them to make a CD this time.
But it actually didn't get images correctly, I had a lot of half-chopped images.
So I needed to scan the film by myself.

Thus I know film photography needs a lot of work compared to digital photography, but what or who can make me apart from film cameras!

Outing

2011-02-28T07:59:00.012-07:00

Hi.
Today I'm happy to begin a week with these pictures taken on the weekend.
On the past Saturday and Sunday the temperature was quite low as teens, but we had a plenty of sunshine on both days.
So in spite of the cold air, my husband and I were drawn to the outside by the bright Sun.

A several days ago I told you that I've recently made some changes, like having had an account with Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr, and maybe the biggest change of all is having started to use a digital camera.
For me all the changes connect closely each other, because I started the one and then the next was followed one by one kinda necessary way.
I started to be adjust to these new things at the same time, and then now I'm facing the difficulty to manage them.
The biggest problem here is this; I can't feel joy with taking pictures with a digital camera.

I started to have that feeling a few days ago, and I suddenly started to take a lot of film pictures with my old cameras.
I put my head into the closet to find some of my old 35mm film cameras, then I'm using them in turn.
I think I'm doing that maybe because I need to feel again how film pictures are pretty, how I love film pictures, how fun taking pictures with old film cameras is, and so on.

So the bright sunny days of the weekend was such a prettiest gift could've been given to me if any.
I brought different film cameras with me all through the weekend, and took a lot of pictures and got them developed quickly.

As I told you in my area the weather is sill of winter, and we don't have a lot of color outside.
So I tried to collect cheerful color and pretty objects, and those are in the pictures up there.
All these were taken on Saturday and to tell the truth it was quite tough for us to take a walk and take some pictures because of the low temp.
But the pictures taken totally paid off the effort, I think.

I'm looking forward to outings when some signs of the coming spring start to show up.
And...... I'm still not sure how I'm going to do with all tech things and a digital camera.
Maybe you'll ridicule me of my incomplete changes, and I'd rather be happy with it because that's just the way how I'll be if I choose the way which is comfortable for me.

Have a good start of the week, friends. :))

This is how I ate a loaf of pain de campagne by myself. -vol.2

2011-02-25T15:24:00.001-07:00

It's Friday and I'm happy with it.
And I thought I should be done with this series of posts before the weekend.

I've noticed that the pictures uploaded here look more saturated than the original because of the reason I can't know, but actually I don't dislike it.

Well, now I should resume the series, shouldn't I?
Do you remember that we've done with Day 2 last time?

Day 3:
The top picture is the one from the breakfast on the day 3.
I'd decided that I cut slices just before I ate those, and this morning I cut 2 thin slices.
Then I toasted them, smeared butter, put thinly sliced avocados and finished with freshly ground pepper on top.
For this menu, "thin" is good for both bread and avocados.

In the evening of the day 3, I was inclined to have something warm and comforting.
So I fixed soy milk clam chowder.
You can make it easily and quickly with a can of chopped clam.
Can you imagine how the dinner of soup, bread & wine is good?

Day 4:
In the morning, I had to think about what I wanted.
Also as the bread was gradually getting stale, I needed to use my brain to make my breakfast something palatable and exciting.
Then the idea of French toast came to me.
For this one, a bit thick cut worked.
After soaking in the mixture of eggs, soy milk and sugar, I panfried them slowly.
I thought slices of banana and good amount of cinnamon would work, and so did they.

At lunch time, I thought maybe I'd better have some of the rest of the bread for my lunch so that I would be able to skip it in the evening.
This is bread salad.
I firstly met this menu at my favorite cafe at that time when I was a college student .
Since then, this is one of my favorite way to eat old bread.

I put romain lettuce, diced tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, sliced kalamata olives, corns and cubed bread.
Then I tossed altogether with salt, pepper and a good balsamic vinegar.
Sprikling parmesan cheese at the last moment is going to give you more flavor, and I did it.

Day 5:
So I skipped the bread the night before and the morning of the day, I had my last pieces of bread for the lunch on the day 5.
As you can guess easily, the bread was fairly stale.
But it was still good enough to be happy to eat when you knead your brain.
Eating the last pieces in bread gratin was a quite good idea.
And who can imagine I used the leftover of soy clam chowder from the day 3 for the sauce!
The cubed bread soaked the soup and got soft, but the top is crisp with melted cheese.
This was very good lunch item you can fix quickly, if you have some old bread and the leftover soup.

This is all about how I ate a loaf of pain de campagne all by myself without being miserable. :)

Stay warm and have a good weekend, friends!

This is how I ate a loaf of pain de campagne by myself. -vol.1

2011-02-23T14:00:00.002-07:00

In January, for the latter half of the month my husband hadn't been here for his business, and I had stayed in our home in the midst of struggle with some problems to be faced.
I was so frustrated and needed to find something that would comfort me a bit, so I bought a loaf of pain de campagne at my favorite co-op store, though it hadn't been planned.
Well, there was actually another excuse to do that, and it was the small jar of honey which a kind friend of mine sent me several days before.
She sent a note with it and it recommended me to enjoy honey with toasted bread.
I definitely wanted to follow the suggestion, and that way I had two big reasons/excuses to buy a loaf of bread.

If I could, I didn't want to buy such a big loaf of bread with my husband's absence.
I wasn't sure if I would be able to eat it all by myself without him or freezing it.
I didn't want to freeze any because the bread was really artisan, and should be eaten fresh even though it gets old, I thought.
Even above all the consideration, I found myself couldn't help buying it.
And I ate it all fresh, a bit old at its last minuites, and enjoyed my days with the bread.

Here is the record how I ate the bread for first 2 days, and the latter part is going to be followed by the next post.

This is the first dinner with the bread.
In the evening of this day, I went to the co-op store for some other purpose to be done there.
But as soon as I entered the entrance, I found myself to go straight to the bread shelf in spite of having prohibited me from doing so in advance.
I got a loaf of pain de campagne that way.

That night I was so pleased with the bread, I didn't cook much for dinner.
Just a simple salad and sauteed veggies.
And a piece of soft cheese and a glass of red wine for the bread.
Simple but yet perfect dinner for myself.

Day 2.
In the morning, needless to say I ate slices of bread with honey I talked about before.
It was awesome, bread and honey well matched.
They were so warm and comforting.
Eating a small bowl of yogurt with some fruits or fruit jam/preserve every morning has been my habit for quite some time.

I fetched a portion of salmon at the grocery shopping of the day.
I thought it would be great with bread and read wine for dinner alone, and it really was.
Though I usually don't care much about seafood, I always think special dinner has to go with some seafood.
On the plate, there're blackend salmon with sour cream and mandarine orange preserve on top and sauted veggies.
A slice of lime is the one I got in the same box that the honey was shipped to me from my friend.
Everything there was very feast for me that night.

And more of the rest is coming soon.

Stay warm and have good rest of the day, friends.

Random thoughts and a bit about pockets

2011-02-18T15:14:00.005-07:00

I've had quite strange weather for last two days.
It rained, sleeted, even hailed, sometimes shone with the bright Sun, but mostly cloudy.
It's rapidly changed and so has my emotion.
Busy days.

- I wished I had a lot of pockets with me.
I'm not talking about my clothes, but myself.
I have a lot of thoughts to be thought everyday, and I don't want to give up thinking about those, but am just short of time and energy both.
Then I thought if i had a lot of pockets that I can store them for some time after fold all them down to small.
Even though they are sorrow, worriment, and that sort of things.
They all are important things that feed me, but I just can't handle them right now.

- Then I remembered that I thanked pockets on my clothes when I was a child.
Since I was a very picky girl for my food, I had a lot of food that I wasn't able to accept.
Whenever I had meat on my plates at school lunch, I put them into my both right and left pockets on a jacket.
I can't or don't want to imagine that now, and my mom had been astonished and stumped by that strange habit of mine, but young me appreciated my pockets as if it had been a life line.
Of course, I don't do that now though I still don't eat meat.
I have a right to say "I don't eat meat." now.
I'm glad to be an adult.

- Sometimes I notice that pockets on my clothes and aprons ate some food, like 2 grains of rice, a chip of bread, a piece of cabbage, and so on.
When I found them, they are totally dried out and shrunk.
And I heard someone tweeted on its Twitter page that "the food you find sticking on your elbow must be emergency provision.".
I love that idea so much.

-When I start to think about something, like pockets this time, I'm inclined to think about all the possible consideration over the thing.
So I've been thinking about pockets all the day today.

Have a pretty weekend, friends!

Today's thought and an outline over the changes (so far)

2011-02-16T11:59:00.002-07:00

Today the temperature has dropped down a bit, I'm watching it's sleeting lightly.
Cold, gray and closed.
Complete cliches for this winter.

But I'm not actually bored with these, because I know I'll soon miss these in cheerful spring and summer days.
And I've been thinking about a lot of things lately and my heart has been taken over and messed around by those, I rather feel comfortable with this cheap last winter day.

As some of you've known that I've made some changes lately, I've been thinking about those aimlessly.
Am I right in those?, am I OK with those?, where am I going to?, is this what I really want?, and so on.
Every single questions that were made for me by me are roughly same.

I've kept on putting myself apart from the world which technology takes over for quite some time.
Even though my second photography life started with a Nikon digital camera several years ago, I soon gave up with it because I wasn't able to feel comfortable.
Old cameras compensated me for the awkward feeling, and I swore i'd go with old analog cameras forever.
As I've been in that promise, I've also always been in wonder if the decision is really meaningful.
Sticking only with old school and keeping on being stubborn are good idea?

Then recently.
I suddenly shifted my idea which have dominated me for so long slightly to the milder attitude.
And I've just started to use a digital camera, made a Tumblr account to upload digital photos, got a Twitter account to announce my most current activities and also to be connected to interesting people, started to make an inspiration board on web with Pinterest.
I know, so much changes were made at the same time.

Some of you might have been disappointed with such my radical attitude.
Since I've been stubborn to go with old school in every aspects other than owning 2 blogs, those who have felt comfortable with such my position might have felt left behind or deceived softly but with an enormous impact.
I know, I know, friends, how you're feeling.
Because I've been such a person who had been softly crushed same way.

There're some to tell you.
To my surprise, I'm feeling good with the changes.
To be honest with you, I haven't changed my style though a lot of technological method have entered in my life now.
As long as I keep on using a digital camera in all manual mode (no aperture/shutter speed priority, no auto focus, no bracketing), it's fine to use a digital camera. (Only feature I appreciate is the setting for a white balance. That's really nice, I think. )
I haven't changed the way how to use a camera from when I only used manual cameras.
As long as I don't rely too much on Twitter to connect with people, it's also fine to tweet or to hear people's tweets.
Actually some of tweets make me laugh loud, and I want to say thanks to those who make my days cheerful. (FYI, I'm really really enjoying tweets from Moomin!! )

Actually I don't know how long I'll keep all these, because I'm just at the start point.
But I know that I'll keep on using my old cameras and loving those and pictures they render.
I just quit to hate technology.
I just quit to be stubborn and old.
Could you understand me?

Oh, I haven't mentioned about today's pictures any.
They were all taken last year with one of my favorite Polaroid camera, Polaroid 180.
It takes peel-apart films, and my most favorite peel-apart film is this "blue" film.
I know how pictures on papers are pretty like this way. :)

What I enjoyed lately.

2011-02-15T09:30:00.005-07:00

I'm just stepping in to let you know what I enjoyed lately.

Here's a short list.

- This video.

- And this video, too. They both are worth watching.
It's really interesting to know how 2 fashion blogger take their photos on busy streets.

- This article featuring a magazine "Haper's Bazar Spain, February 2011". Because I chopped my hair off recently, looking over these pictures is fun to learn how a girl with short hair gets gorgeous.

I think I'm really ready to take my body and soul outside with warm weather lately.
That's why, these links are here.

A red toaster and bagels

2011-02-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Hi, friends.
You might have seen these pictures sometime past in my either blogs, but I dare to drag them in here for today's talk about bagels.

The other day when I was looking over one of my everyday blog readings, I came across one enticing topic.
That said "the great bagel debate", and as soon as I recognized it, I couldn't help poking my head into there.
The article consists of the writer's insistence over toasting a bagel and inquiries made for several bagel makers mainly around NY area.
As I've been kinda fanatic of bagels for last 5~6 years, it was worth reading.

It began with one declaration of not toasting bagels if they're fresh.
And he also said that if bagels are not fresh, they're not worth to be eaten.

Then question.
What should people do with not-fresh bagels if they live in such cities or towns that don't offer fresh bagels every morning everywhere.
Well, as I myself is such a person who brought a red toaster with me to the vacation to the remote area made with a car in last summer, and was fully satisfied with not-fresh nor artistically made ones.
Of course, idealistically speaking, I wish I could follow the way the guy (writer) insists, but my situation doesn't allow me to do so.

Besides the guy's ideal world, I was interested in the inquiry made for one bagel maker who is actually Jews.
He confessed that he himself toasts his bagels! ( I think almost everyone knows bagels' origin is in Jew countries.)
Real Jews, Real New Yorkers, and real way to eat bagels!
Where and what is real??

All in all, I believe every food matters are 80~90 % personal thing.
They're depending on individuals.
They're just preference.
I think I'll bring my red toaster with me in vacations in future if they'll be made by a car, and be willing to eat mass-produced-not-fresh-bagels!

p.s.
I can't believe, but I've just started to bring a digital camera into my photography life.
I've been disliking it for quite a long time and try to avoid to use it as if i'd thought it would take my pure soul away from this world.
But some changes recently made gave me to take an opportunity to enter into the current stream.
I'm enjoying taking pictures with it by setting all the feature manual mode, and I'm vigorously uploading them onto my new creation "flower child express".
If you have some spare time, let's check it out!

Cozy winter days

2011-02-08T07:52:00.005-07:00

Hi, friends.
How've you been doing lately?
Did you get any tiny signs of coming spring?
I had a few.
One is a pretty Saturday with rather warm air last weekend and another is the symptoms of my husband's nasty allergy.
I feel the air is getting softer and softer day by day, and noticing that is one of the prettiest events of the year for me.

These pictures were taken this winter.
From the top to the bottom, 1- an inspiration wall in my studio, 2- a cyclamen that my friend gave me for the new home, 3- a large grapefruit and 2 persimmons by the window, 4- our 8 year old cat, Hamme loved sitting on my husband's lap while we're eating, 5- a rose tree in the garden with a light snow, 6- milk was napping on our bed.

We didn't have much to do these winter days, but we enjoyed our new life in the new home together.
We started to feel the ultimate coziness here.

Making an inspiration wall is always fun.
Since I've been a collector of pretty postcards since a child, do photography myself, and some of my friends are genius photographers and crocheters and those sort, I'm never short of art works to make the wall.
An inspiration wall is not necessarily full of stuff gives me mere inspiration but love, too.
Winter is such season people pile up their motivation to create something in coming seasons, reorganizing one's possession and making sure what they really want to create by making an inspiration wall are very suitable activity in winter, I think.

When I got a pot of cyclamen from one of my friends, to be honest to you, I was puzzled with it.
Since I came to be aware what I liked or disliked, I haven't felt even tiny fondness for cyclamen, or rather felt unwelcome to the indescribable balance of its gaudy flowers and the deep and dark leaves.
I remember that I told my friend a thanking word with a best smile as I could make at that time in spite of the difficulty.
After that, I kept considering how to live with it in my room ( as you can easily imagine, its pink was standing alone like a girl who would never be the part of fellows in a class room.).
It's not true if I say I never thought of eliminating the plant which would have withered from the room superficially because of the way of nature, but actually the owner's apparent intention.
As I was considering that way, I actually kept watering and clipping its finished flowers.
And one day I came up with the idea to replant it in the old tin plate bucket which I bought several years ago in a local antique shop.
I wrote some words with tiffany green paint on the side, and made it looked much prettier and hippier.
This way she's surely become a part of our family.

I like our 3 cats being relaxed at their each favorite places alone, and also I love them having contacts with my husband and me in their own ways.
Hamme is a guy to feel awkward to be with human beings all the time, but he loves to sit on my husband's crossed legs on the chair, sniff the food out of mere curiosity and never eats, gaze what's going on at the table without any interest.
I know how it works for him.
He knows that the body temperature is going up slightly while people are eating, and he enjoys very the warmth produced that way.
Especially in winter.

Winter is the cold season, but I don't dislike its cold color.
I love the transparent bluish air outside and inside. ( just as seen in the 3rd, 5th and 6th pictures.)

I liked winter this way this year.
And now I'm looking forward to living in warm Spring.
I'm so ready.

Via Margutta

2011-02-02T09:02:00.006-07:00

These pictures were taken in Rome last spring on my and my husband's second visit there.
They're all about via Margutta.

Via Margutta is famous partly because the film "Roman Holiday" was shot in 1950'.
And the reason why I strolled the street is just because I've adored Audrey Hepburn for long time.
The street is located just off the Spanish Steps.

Though the first motivation came from such girl's fanatical adoration for her star, It was clear that I'd come to fall in love with this street because of its plenty greens if there'd not been any other reasons.
On the street, I enjoyed the fresh light and air.
I didn't expect this type of pleasure there since the place is just the center of Rome.
It's quite a hidden forest in the middle of the big city.

I highly recommend you to stop by this pretty and cozy street when you're in Rome.

Missing cafe days

2011-01-27T20:56:00.007-07:00

Good evening.
I'm watching an NBA game on TV and considering which team Boston Celtics or Portland Blazer I should root for with drinking wine.
As I used to live in Portland and stil love the city sooooo much, I can't decide that though I usually root for Celtics.
I like Celtics, love their green.
(FYI, I really love to watch sports games on TV though most of you might not imagine.)

Well, I'm enjoying my last night of being alone ( with 3 cats) this way, and at the same time I'm a bit missing my very last cafe day and expecting a near future cafe day.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that my husband has been in Singapore for about 2 weeks now and now he's supposed to be heading back to the home now.

Below is how we enjoyed our last cafe day on very sunny early fall day.

I was extremely pleased with a tag for our order.
It was a hand drawn cat!

He's so ready for his order with a bottle of spicy sauce.

Don't know why, but I love taking pictures of someone's table just left.

Him very ready to eating and his favorite dish, Spanish wrap dish. ( 2 whole wheat tortilla with scrambled eggs, cheese, avocados, tomatoes and side of fruits.)

I'd prefer going with the lightest dish of the cafe, whole wheat toast and fruits.

At this cafe, water is always served in a jar.
That's just cool.

This place is filled with a lot of junk (like signs no more effective nowadays).
And I love boy's curly hair very much.

It was as unbelievably sunny as I can't remenber now as I've been having a lot of rainy and cloudy days lately, and I can't see this picture straight because it is too bright!!
Could you get me a pair of sunglasses, someone please?

A happy finding

2011-01-26T13:33:00.005-07:00

As my husband and I are originally from Japan, we've consistently followed the traditional way to celebrate a new year's day by having a special feast even after we came to the U.S. 11 years ago.
The picture above is that of 2009.
And today I came across an interesting article whose content is about some interesting soup.
As our special feast for a new year's day contain the one (most left orange one in the picture) which is based on the similar idea as it, I was so pleased to find the article.
In the plate in the picture, I topped mashed sweet potato which contain juice of squeezed orange and a bit of Grand Marnier (orange liqueur) on a sliced orange.

I don't remember exact when, but I came up with this idea several years ago to substitute for the menu which is usually included in the traditional special new year's feast.
It is so-called "Kuri-kinton".
"kuri" is a Japanese name for a chestnut and "kinton" is the name given to mashed Japanese sweet potato.
So "Kuri-kinton" is the dish the both are mixed , and this dish is usually quite sweet because "kuri" candied in advance and "kinton" has a lot of sugar in it.
When I was a child, I hated this dish because it was too sweet for me.
And I also couldn't understand why this dish was dished up with other salty and savory dishes in one plate as if it had been a side dish as well.
For me it should've treated as a desert rather than a side dish.

Anyway, in the U.S. it is difficult to get chestnuts and Japanese sweet potatos (Japanese ones are different in color and texture from those of U.S.'s) in a good timing, I need to replace that side dish with something new that I can make with the ingredients which are easy to get here for me in the end of December.
Thus I came up with my new creation, "Orange-kinton".
It is definitely for adults, because I use sugar modestly to bring out the natural sweetness of sweet potatoes (actually I use honey not sugar) and drizzle one or two tablespoons of Grand Marnier.
My kinton is kinda dip, and we eat our Orange-kinton like we eat "chips and bean dip" or "strawberry and melted chocolate".
I have to wait this side dish ( "Kuri-kinton" or its sort) became one of my favorite new year's feast till my creation showed up.

We've been pleased with this new version of "kinton", I just haven't been sure if this is acceptable for other people or not.
Because it's not Japanese or American, and the idea was accidentally introduced to the world, I was just curious about that.
But today, I made sure that it's OK.
I don't know how many people accept or are pleased with this idea, but at least one cook has adopted and introduced it to the world, and it's enough for me to be happy. :))
(The second picture is the version of 2010's new year's day.)

Crazy about eggs

2011-01-25T12:55:00.005-07:00

I've adored eggs since I was a child.
And it's not an exaggeration to say that almost only protein I could eat in my childhood was eggs.
Though there's the time I had been apart from them for a while (4~5 years), the most powerful attraction which pulled me back to the normal diet from macrobiotic/vegan was eggs.

I know I've sometimes made the repetition of this kind of confession here.
So some of you may have been tired of hearing the same word from me.
I'm sorry for that, but as eggs have quite a big roll in my everyday life, I'll even do this sometime in future.

When I eat eggs, it is mostly at lunch time.
Since I've been very concerning about my husband's cholesterol level (he once had a much worse number than we'd been afraid.), I'd rather eat eggs for lunch by myself than for dinner together.

And when I eat my eggs for my lunch, I have the urge to take some pictures of them almost all the time.
The only thing makes me feel awkward to do it is my inner voice to tell me " hey, you took the same picture 3 days ago!"

In spite of that inner voice, I can't help but take a picture of it.
And even worse, I'm enticed to take another picture when I break an egg and find its yolk is very pretty yellow.

This way, I have a lot of same sort of pictures of my lunch with eggs.

Do you think this is kinda addiction?

Winter prettiness

2011-01-24T11:44:00.003-07:00

If you have some time and bravery to wade across wilderness in spite of the harsh winter weather,
you'll find something pay off.
You won't get only satisfaction of good exercise outside, but also the feeling of admiring how wild animals live and enjoy their life in the midst of harshness.
The moment that we come to know that we're the same creature which live on this earth as those animals is simply precious, isn't it?

And I think, winter is just such season tells us a lot.

Love your winter and neighborhood. :)

My 2011

2011-01-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Today's title isn't necessarily suggesting that I'm going to talk about something like new year's resolutions or that sort.
And also, all of you know that it's too early to look back the year this early.
I told you that I've finally started to feel a big Monday has come, and I know I'll have Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,.... and another big weekend in 2011.
But.
I've already felt I lived so hard and long in 2011.
I feel I don't need Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,.... and even weekend this year.
Too much things already happened and I'm tired to be worried and crushed.
Once it went, then another come so soon.
So, I can't help but ask someone invisible what the heck day today is.
Then I hear faintly but surely, "Oh, well..., it's January 21, .... still the start of 2011." someone awkwardly answers.

I know, I and all the people around the world are still at the start of the year.
Some people may be full of hope and will for the year.
And some people may already have been discouraged to go on further more, just like me.
The thought that I may not be the only person who feel like this, and, things go just they are in spite of our hope or expectation ease my discouraged soul in some degree.

I'm sorry I'm talking this kind of profound feeling without touching any detail.
I just can't do that now.
You know, once you make a negative word over the thing which is now ongoing, you'll be possibly trapped by the magic of the word.
All the things that I or such people can do now is just watching closely what's coming next and never give up to work with that.
Maybe, at the real end of the year, I'll be able to talk to you what exactly went on at the very beginning of the year.
Time is simply necessary, right?

Our new year's days

2011-01-19T16:30:00.003-07:00

19 days have passed since 2011 started, and now I'm feeling a big Monday finally.
Once Mondays have come after weekends, I always feel some kind of relief and calm.
Weekend is almost always fun and filled with something exciting, but it drives me to somewhere restless and unfamiliar.
Sometime from around Christmas till now, those days are a big weekend and today is a big Monday for me.

Anyway I'm ready to look back and talk about how the big weekend was.

In top picture, it shows our traditional new year's feast this year.
They are so-called "Osechi-ryori" and "Ozoni", and they're so traditionally Japanese, they always need me to make an effort to prepare. (Obtaining necessary ingredients is the most difficult and important part.)
I always complain about that, but I somehow manage to serve to my husband whose one of favorite food(meal) is this feast.

Well, in the picture you can see my husband and the oldest (8yrs) and our first cat.
I don't exactly know what they were doing on the sofa, maybe dancing together, I took this without any intention.
They were just cute and full of peace.
We took a family(2 people + 3 cats) picture some hours before this, which has been our custom for a new year's day, on this sofa.

Our newest family member, Maple is looking through the window.
Every cats like that place, but Maple dominates there.
She is the bossiest cat I've ever met and other 2 cats are subdued, so she can enjoy the fresh look of the outside all by herself.

My husband and I did a word game over and over with some tea and snacks.
As we had been so restless over a big concern which hit our heart devastatingly, all we could do to spend time without collapsing to cry was a word game. (I don't exaggerate at all, but it might have been only me who inclined to cry.)
"Scrabbles" was really nice for us.
I made one "bingo" and that victory brought me a faint but certain hope for near future in the midst of that situation.

I finally opened the Japanese snack I brought back to the U.S. last April.
It's so-called "Yo-kan", which is one of traditional Japanese sweets.
It's made of adzuki beans, sugar, agar agar and a bit of salt. (Please imagine very hard version of Jello.)
The one we ate this time had the enhanced salty flavor, and it really went well with authentic green tea.
Oh please don't worry about the expiration date if you're concerned with its long period of having been left in the pantry!
It was the end of January 2011, so it's barely OK. ;P

Milk's pretty face suddenly appeared up on the table when we were eating the rest of Osechi-ryori for our dinner on a new year's day.
We burst into a big laugh because she was as if she had claimed us that we should had invited her for sharing the feast together.
She's always been such full of playfulness, and entertained us a lot regardless of her unintended thoughts.

Thus our new years days have gone, and we've gone back to the swing of everyday.
Happy new year and happy unchanged everyday!

A change has adopted.

2011-01-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

I've just come up with the idea that I may adopt a change for this blog.
After 2 years of blogging here, I realized that my everyday life is not necessarily related to something around the table.
the events take place around the table are just part of my life.
Since I'm not a vigorous cook nor a fashionable kitchen prop decorator, I'm sometimes at a loss to talk about. (only very sometimes, because I've talked about a lot of random things ever here.)

Though the stories talked here have included many different things, I mostly uploaded the pictures only around the table.
I've kept the rule strictly for the blog name's sake.
But now I just wonder if I really have to stick to the rule and if so, what's the significant meaning to do so.
I took and will take a lot of pictures at somewhere other than around the table.
Like around the fire place, by the window, and outside the home.
I want to share those pictures that make me happy with you here.

So, from now on, I'll adopt a small change for this blog.
I won't change the blog title or main parts of this space, but each post will have more pictures in bigger size.
As you've already known or just noticed, all my pictures were taken with old manual cameras that I adore, and it won't change, either.
So the change is as possible as minimum, just the quantity and the size of pictures, and the widened variety of the topics.

I promise you'll find more fun here!

a white coffee filter holder

2011-01-18T08:36:00.004-07:00

(taken with nikon f on kodachrome 64)

hi.
it's been rather warm lately here.
i even see the sun sometimes shines modestly.
i appreciate those days as a treat in the midst of winter days.

when i took this picture in december, i was so excited with this old coffee filter holder.
as i don't like to make coffee with a coffee maker, i usually prepare my coffee by using a coffee filter holder.
i used to use a very cheap black plastic one sold in a supermarket for $2~3, and i hadn't been very happy with that.
because it has only one hole in the bottom, which means it drips coffee very very slowly and serves coffee not hot but rather warm, and it lacks attractiveness visually.
so i was very pleased to find this old white porcelain one at the local antique shop.
it had a price tag that said it's from 1960's as well as the price of $8.
it's an old melitta.
i'm not sure if mine is really that old or not, but i'm just fine with it irrespective of that matter.
because it is simply pretty!

btw, i liked the motion picture of the melitta's top page that i've linked above.
isn't it cute?
i want to enjoy my coffee like that. :)

the guess game

2011-01-12T11:40:00.006-07:00

(taken with nikon f on rdplll)

have you ever experienced this happening that you took a picture of some food, then after finishing some rolls of films including the one which you took the picture of "some food" on you shipped them to some lab to have them developed, you waited some days to have them reached, developed and returned to you, and when you finally see the slides or prints you can't come up with the idea what the "some food" is?
yes, i myself have.
a lot.

so the today's picture is among the ones.
but fortunately i can come up with the idea.
it's oatmeal topped with pan fried egg white with figs and onion.
to get the idea, i had to look closely the relation between the pictures taken before and after this one, and recall what food i adored most at that time.
now, i don't adore this food at all because of the season and my taste.

since i only do film photography, this kind of happenings are so common, and i enjoy this guess game all the time.
i even find the significance of film photography in it. :))

my first meal of the year

2011-01-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

(taken with polaroid 690 on 600 film)
hi, friends.
i know i'm too late to say this, but let me say, happy new year to everyone!
my husband has been back to the work after the new year's holidays and i'm going back to the swing of everyday.

we had a lot of events and incidents over the holidays and had rather been out of mind.
we missed the days without fear and tears, but was brave to make a new step to be settled in the new situation surrounding us.
i don't think the new year has already failed, at all.
we try to make another year full of happiness.

by the way, our first meal of 2011 was pancakes in spite of the apprehension for the new year's feast felt at the end of last year with so much pressure. :)
the feast was fortunately and successfully ready to be served on new year's day, but we were not in the mood to eat them for our breakfast at the very early in the morning.
so i made pancakes.
and they were so nice.
and pretty. :))

bananas were in the basket on the kitchen counter, butter milk, which i don't usually stock, was in the fridge, and i recently made a big decision over if i was affordable to pay for about $20 for a 32 oz bottle of maple syrup.
everything favored pancakes utterly.
and i got a gift of the recipe of the ultimate pancakes on the very first day of the year.
i tried some time by changing some of ingredients, and i finally made sure this is it.
it is an unanticipatedly pleasant gift, isn't it?
i'll never look back with this ultimate recipe which was created after the incident of spilling butter milk over the counter. ;P
and, i want to share this recipe with you wishing your happiness and yumminess of the year.

=puffy fluffy pancakes=

[ingredients]
yield: 4~5 large(app. 4" size) pancakes

(dry)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (white whole wheat flour will do)
11/2 tablespoon cane sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

(wet)
11/8-11/4cup butter milk *
1 large egg (beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon butter (melted and mildly heated)

[recipe]
1, set a pan over medium to medium high heat.
2, prepare wet ingredients except butter in a small bowl.
3, prepare dry ingredients in a large bowl.
4, pour wet ingredients mix into dry ingredients mix and combine lightly with spatula. (never overmix, small lumps here and there are totally fine.)
5, pour butter onto the dough and fold in 2 or 3 times.
6, ladle the dough onto the heated pan and flip them over when you see a lot of small bubbles on the surface approximately 4~5 minutes after.
7, when you smell good fragrant and find prettily swollen pancakes, now's the time to dig in!

* i tried with soy milk instead of butter milk before, and it turned out to be bulky and too moist, way far from "puffy fluffy". if you want to try with soy milk or regular milk, i recommend you to dilute them with some water to reduce their density though i don't guarantee.

amidst festivity

2010-12-28T11:04:00.002-07:00

(taken with polaroid 180 on chocolate film)

hi.
how's your holiday season going on?
here snow has just started to rage around in the air, and it's a quiet wednesday morning.

not many words have come to me lately, so i've been rather absent here.
today i don't have much to say yet, just a small talk over the christmas feast we've just had a couple days ago.

as we decided to be as simple as possible to celebrate christmas, so was the feast.
we started with 2 kinds of cheese (brie and blue cheese) and fresh fruits, crudites with hummus, artisan country bread and champaign.(the picture above is of those.)
for main dish, i fixed seafood pasta.
it was satisfying and cozy meal.

oh, i have to say this!
we're really pleased with panettone bought at the co-op a couple weeks ago.
as i told you before, i whipped heavy cream with good pinch of kirsh and topped slices of them.
the subtlety of combination of those was beyond description.
it must be repeated next year.

now i'm feeling too much pressure over the new year holidays and trying not to get irritated.
i suggested my husband that we should chose either christmas or a new year's day to celebrate because it's too much for me to celebrate both.
i can't help but feel this is the japanese wife who lives in the u.s.'s sad fate.
am i too fussy over these things and you're willing to celebrate both?

stay warm, keep satisfied.:)

random thoughts for christmas

2010-12-23T15:52:00.003-07:00

(taken with minolta autocord lll on fuji pro 400nc)

hi.
today i don't have much to say.

i've just cooked very quickly for holidays and now the room is being filled with god damn nice smell from the oven.
and cats are roaming around the pie dish put on the counter from the oven.
they know it'll be yummy. ( hopefully.)
when it turns out to be good enough to share with you, i'll tell you about the recipe sometime later.

even though i don't expect a christmas present from my husband, i'm very happy now.
i'm living in our new home with our 3 cats.
i don't think of happier situation than this.
tomorrow i'll be very lazy with them.
the day after tomorrow i'll drink champaign with some good food.

oh, i said that i'm not gonna have anything for christmas, but my husband allowed me to buy this.
after spending a lot for the house, i've stayed away from this thing till now.
i love polaroid(now should i call "impossible"?), but they are now far from affordable for me nor trusty enough as they are still at the experimental stage. (i was a bit disappointed with the quality of their first color film, "color shade first flush".)

i hope you'll have the merriest christmas in either case you expect a big present or not. ;)

a cake i made for christmas in the past year

2010-12-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

(taken with nikon fe2 on superia 400)

three more days to christmas.
and how're you doing?
i'm quite slow on everything, and enjoying everyday with my cats and crocheting.

i like to scroll my food portfolio these days, and today i came across several old photos probably taken 3~4 years ago on the christmas day.
i think i was more strict over my diet at that time, and this cake was kinda vegan cake.
i don't remember exactly what ingredients i used for making this cake, but apparently this seems to have been a vegan apple cheese cake.
i didn't really use cream cheese but tofu and soy milk and some other veggie products instead of dairy product people usually use for making an usual cheese cake.
doesn't it look perfect real cheese cake?

actually, i haven't really liked to make cake or that kinds.
for one thing, i don't care for sweets at all, and another thing it's hard to make these yummy and healthy as well.
also as i used to be vegan, macrobiotics or such kind, making sweets were always full of ambition and fear.
so you want to ask me why i made this cake, don't you?
the reason why i made this cake is just to lift our spirit up for the special day.
i didn't care, and my husband didn't ask me nor expected me to prepare a cake, but this unexpected feast must have added the festive feeling to us.

this year, i've already bought a box of panettone to follow my husband's request.
so i don't have to think about cake anymore.
but as store-bought cake made me feel kinda guilty and lazy, i bought a carton of heavy cream last weekend.(though i'm still not good at dairy products, occasional and festive consumption of them are ok now.)
i'll whip the cream with some flavorful fruit liquor and put it on top of a piece of slices of panettone.
i like to do decoration for sweets this way.
it's quite easy, but brings gorgeousness and the courteousness.

the picture right above is the sliced and put on a plate version of vegan apple cheese cake.
this picture makes me sure how i was and am me.
beside the slice of the cake, i put a scoop of soy vanilla ice cream, and the sauce around them must have made from balsamic vinegar, apple sauce, maple syrup, grand marnier and roughly cracked pepper.
i love add a pinch of fresh ground pepper on my dessert and liquor is always necessity for my dessert.

here's my recommendation for liquor for your pantry stock if you're curious about.
;grand marnier or cointreau, kirsch, vanilla liquor, kahlua or other coffee liquor, rum and brandy.
i've never been short of flavor with these above.
promise. :)

pizza and sunday

2010-12-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

(taken with mamiya m645 on rdplll)

hi.
do you remember that i complaint about this year's wet weather?
and today's paper favors me with one information.
it says that this year is on track for being the city's wettest year since 1998.
see?
i don't really dislike rainy days, but this year's are too much.
so, i'm feeling sooo good today because it's sunny!!
i'll make most of this pretty weather though i'll be stuck in my home. ;P

i've been talking about the feasts we're going to have in next 1~2 weeks lately.
and i told you yesterday that we're going to eat traditional japanese style feast for the first 3 days of new year.
with regard to this, my husband asked me a few days ago if we eat our sunday pizza on January 2.
the moment i heard that question, i answered without any hesitation "yes, of course!".

i can't remember when the sunday pizza started within us.
3 years ago?, or 4??
anyway, we have been stuck with that habit for quite a while.
that long we are accustomed to having pizza on every single sunday, i'm afraid that i feel my hands are shaking like a symptom of addiction on sunday without pizza.
i definitely need pizza even sunday falls on a new year's day or the day after.

well, the picture was taken at the brewery restaurant which features their handmade pizza in portland, oregon when we visited there last march.
as we eat our own pizza every sunday, we seldom eat out for pizza in our own town.
but i think we'd better do that sometimes in the coming year.
that doesn't necessarily mean that we're bored with our own pizza but doing so will help to make our pizza better than ever.
actually i have some pizza places that have drew my attention in my town.
the most competent candidate is the one my husband's co-worker and his wife opened recently.
he is a beer guy.
he brews his own beer and is trying to serve that in the restaurant.
and when their restaurant was picked up for the featured restaurant in the local free paper, the menu selection listed there seemed to be so nice. (how about pesto, apple, walnut and spinach on a whole wheat crust? yum!)
i expect them to be artisan pizza and beer makers.

i've already been excited with pizza life of next year!

wagaya-no-ozoni （我が家のお雑煮）

2010-12-20T11:35:00.005-07:00

(taken with contax-rts on fuji superia 400)

i successfully did some grocery shopping for the x'mas holidays and a new year's day over the weekend.
though i was so busy to prepare season's greeting cards and didn't make even only one step outside on saturday, i was busy to go back and forth between one grocery store and another on sunday to the contrary.

in addition to the last post and the yesterday's grocery shopping episode, i want to talk about "ozoni" today.

"ozoni" is defined as a soup dish which has mochi (rice cakes) for its main ingredient, and its style differs depending on regions and families.
i'll omit the story about its history so that i don't make this post long-winded and bore you.
speaking about its ingredients, though it depends on regions and families as i told you, they are basically mochi, some meat or seafood, 2~3 kinds of veggies, and something which adds flavor like yuzu (a citrus fruit which is largely cropped in japan.) or mitsuba (leafy green which has a very similar look to cilantro, but has much milder flavor and bitter taste.).
for the soup, it also has 2 major kinds of "sumashi" soup ( transparent and has simple soy sauce flavor) and "miso" soup.
all in all, "ozoni" surprisingly varies from one family to another, and that makes me feel "ozoni" is the family food.

my ozoni is different from that of my husband's parents' and my own parents', but my original.
of course, only i haven't made my ozoni, but my husband has helped to create our own ozoni after the marriage.
usually, ozoni is created like this; a husband had eaten his mother's ozoni before the marriage, a wife had eaten her mother's ozoni the same way, and after the marriage they exchange and mix their own familiar ozoni styles and create the new one.
isn't it romantic as well as interesting?
oh, so, a part of today's title of "wagaya-no" means this romantic part. (literally it means homemade or original.)

here's our ozoni;

1, ingredients;
-mochi (i can get this at the co-op. it's regarded as health food or macrobiotic.)
-anko (sweet adzuki bean paste; i make this from scratch by getting organic dried adzuki bean also at the co-op.)
-ikura (salmon roe in english. i don't think it's common nor both parents' style, but we love this on ozoni so much.)
-flowery shaped daikon radishes and carrots, lightly boiled snow peas and shiitake mashroom.

2, how mochi is served;
either style of being lightly toasted and put in the soup or simply and easily poached in the soup are fine.
but we prefer the former way because of the slightly burned surface of mochi.
it offers flavorful aroma and pleasant crisp texture.

3, soup varies day by day;
because we follow a traditional way of eating "osechi-ryori" and "ozoni" for the first 3 straight days of the new year, we usually change the soup day by day, like sumashi-miso-sumashi or sumashi-sumashi-miso.

4, leftover anko's future;
this part is not exactly related to the topic, but i like this part.
as i make more anko than we really need for ozoni, i divide the leftover anko into 3~4 flat sheet on plastic wrap and wrap them up and put them in the freezer.
every weekend after a new year's day, i thaw one and use for our weekend breakfast to eat "anko-pan".
"anko-pan" is, i think, like PBJ sandwich's japanese version. ( i mean sweet sandwich not savory one.)
i put anko, lightly kirsh(cherry liquor) added whipped cream and a drop of orange marmalade between bread.
it's yummy!

so, i'm very ready to make and eat ozoni and anko-pan!
can't wait!!

cooking madness

2010-12-17T08:59:00.005-07:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

this time of the year i'm stunned by a lot of consideration to be made over cooking.
the closer it draws to the end of the year, the more disorderly my mind is cluttered.
x'mas holidays, the new year's day, .... ah...
what should i prepare for x'mas feast and how should i manage to fix the traditional japanese style new year's feast?!

the picture was taken on the new year's day this year.
as my husband and i are japanese by origin, we've kept eating this traditional style of japanese food to cerebrate the new year's day.
actually, i don't care it at all.
but i know that my husband cares it a lot.
so i've kept following his internal request even after we came to the u.s.
my wish that i live in the west coast because there're abundant of japanese food and seafood is easily doubled or tripled or more especially this time of the year.
i try not to come to that idea usually, but i can't wipe away this seasonal and occasional envy.
after all the frustration and headache, i work very hard to make them from scratch every year.
and this year is also unexceptional.

so, i definitely have to make a cooking list and a shopping list so that i don't get slammed at very end of the year.
i always think that cooking is all about planning.
by reviewing with this picture, i'll make an ultimate lists later today.

hope you'll have an enjoyable weekend.
don't get hastened so much!

around the table lately

2010-12-16T08:16:00.004-07:00

(taken with nikon f on fuji superia 400)

i like white steam floating up in the air when i exhale, and today's a perfect cold sunny day to enjoy that.
under such low temperature, my cats seem to decided to be quiet at their each favorite places.

the picture was taken recent weekend.
word game's pieces and board cluttered up the table and it has often been seen lately.
this time of the year, it is so common for us.

maple is on one of the chairs.
she loves that place, and almost all through the day she's there.
other two cats also loved this place, but after we welcomed maple to our home, they seem to have decided to offer one of their favorite places to this pretty newcomer kindly.

i don't know which, but one of my cats licked about half of chocolate candy inside the glass container on the table. (the one at very left edge on the table.)
it has a lid, but he/she opened or slid it aside without breaking and licked candy one by one.
rough and foggy brown chocolate coating, which used to look slick and clear brown, showed the evidence.
when i first found the scene, i was very afraid that the culprit would suffer food poisoning, but seemingly everyone (every cats?) seemed to be very ok.
btw, the chocolate candy inside the container was "whoppers", and i like having 2 balls of them with a cup of morning coffee.
it is one of current "shoukakkou-小確幸-"s (which means tiny but sure happiness in japanese, the famous novelist "haruki murakami" created this word.) for me.
there used to be peanuts m&m inside the container before, but whoppers've took over its place since halloween.
yes i first got it from the left over candies supposed to be given to children and unexpectedly came to love it!

since the dining area is between the living area and the kitchen, i like sitting there. (actually, "here" is proper, because i'm always blogging here!)
from here, i can see what' going on where.
i can see all my 3 cats sleeping peacefully, plants by the window collecting precious light, a kettle hissing on the cooktop, and so on.
in winter, things around table are very pretty.

yearning for italy

2010-12-15T10:21:00.004-07:00

(taken with nikon f on kodachrome 64)

hi.
today is very cold and beautiful day.
i feel the sun light.
the harshness of the cold air gives me a good stimulus.
i'm going to enjoy today as much as possible.

recently italy is growing on me more and more.
maybe because i like drinking wine lately.
and maybe because i watched the dvd movie, "eat pray love", which julia roberts stared, last weekend.
to tell the truth, i didn't really like the story itself, but loved the scenes shot in italy.
i definitely envied julia because she's in italy, eats italian food, absorbs the atmosphere italy offers.
just after watching the movie, i made a promise to myself to learn italian more seriously.
well, 3 days have past since then and i haven't started to learn it yet, but i'll .... yes, i'll do that!

my husband and i went to italy about one and a half years ago for the first time.
i suddenly came up with the idea to go somewhere in europe this time of the year 2 years ago.
i didn't exactly know where i wanted to go, but when i started to search air tickets to somewhere in the web, i typed in the word of "italy" in the blank of the destination.
my husband and i have been together for 17 years now, and before we got married we liked to eat out in the italian restaurant and talked like this; "sometime in future, we should go to italy, shouldn't we?"
then we got married and we had a 10 year anniversary last year.
as we didn't have honey moon trip when we got married (we even didn't have an official wedding party), i thought that the trip to italy to cerebrate our 10 year anniversary must be a prettiest idea.
this way, our destination fell on italy.

a year later since then, this year in other words, we went back to italy.
we could go somewhere other country in europe, but we didn't come up with that idea.
we slightly changed the destination within italy this year, but mostly the same region.
of all the places we've visited, we utterly fell in love with south.
puglia (the heel part) is amazing!
basilicata (the bottom part) is also pretty.
and next, i need to visit calabria (the toe part).

i was born and raised in japan and had been there for 25 years.
now i'm in the u.s.a. and have been here for 11 years.
i love both japan and the u.s., but someday in future, i want to be in italy as residents with my husband and cats.

so, what's your country you've wanted to live sometime in future?
if you have such dream, maybe learning its language might be a nice resolution of the coming year. :))

random thoughts

2010-12-14T09:06:00.007-07:00

(taken with hasselblad 500c on fuji 400nc)
hi.
today, i don't have much to say.
so i'll list up some random thoughts with a picuture i came across.

- last night, i was woken by dull pain with my chest in the wee hour.
i can't explain what it was.
it was tough to go back to sleep and i tossed myself about in the bed.
then i threw my pillow away and picked up one of pillows lying around the floor here and there.
i dislike my new pillow although my husband seems to like it (we bought same ones on black friday.)
i dislike it because it hasn't offered me comfortable sleep and has made my husband's snore louder.
yet, i can't explain what my chest pain was.

- i have about 10 pairs of glasses.
i've been wearing the red one in the picture lately.
i got it in austin, tx about 9 years ago.
it seems that my bad vision hasn't been worsened since then.
lucky me.

- i've been apprehensive about one of my cats' eating habit lately.
she's the smallest one of all 3 cats, and second oldest one, 6 years old.
she weighed only 6lb when we adopted her at a shelter about 2 years ago.
in spite of her small and skinny body, she showed us how she was glutton after coming to our home.
then she gained 3lb, and she started to look normally curvy.
and now, she seems to be distracted during her meal time. (i feed them twice a day, 6am and 6pm.)
she shows full appetite while i'm preparing to feed, and starts to eat willingly, but quits in the middle with about half the food still left.
.....
ok, the problem has been solved, i think.
while i'm writing, i had an impulse to look closely about their food nutrition and the serving suggestion.
and i found i was wrong.
i noticed that the dry food now i feed them has much higher calorie than the one i used to do.
so the reaction milk has made is just right.
and this finding brought me another apprehension.
what's gonna happen to my oldest(8yrs) and biggest(16lb!) cat who didn't change his intake after the change of the food??
omg.

- after moving in the new home, my husband and i haven't eaten out any.
because of our diet and my preference, we've rarely eaten out for our dinner all the time.
but we liked to go to coffee houses or bakeries for our lunch weekend.
before, we used to live a bit far away from downtown.
so every time we went downtown area for working in a darkroom, hanging around saturday market, and some other reasons, we'd prefer to stay in downtown and have light meal at pretty places.
then now we live really close to downtown, i can't find the excuse to go to such places.
maybe next spring or so, when i come not to mind paying $20 or so for cafe food, we'll go there.
now, i really mind $20 because of the new home!
so please allow me to dig old pictures of cafe scenes up and paste them here. ;P (yes, today's was taken on someday in the past i can't remember.)

- i've just used up the precious film which has been destined to vanish.
its name is "kodachrome".
only one lab in the world (it's in kansas.) can develop it, and they've already announced they'll quit to accept it at the end of this year.
now, i'm relieved that i'm in time for shipping all my exposed kodachrome to them, and sad to have said good-bye forever to my favorite film as well.
i can't help but heave a sigh for the irresistible force toward the digital generation.
i admit that i'm stubborn and outdated.

it's been raining all the day today.
it is another gray day.
hope you'll find cheerful color in your day.
see you later.

it was an unusual incident for me.

2010-12-13T08:40:00.007-07:00

(taken with nikon fe2 on kodak 400nc)
... to have chosen a piece of vintage blanket over a piece of vintage plate and a mug cup.

hi, friends.
how was your weekend?
i can easily guess that most of you felt to be hastened by something somehow, but hope you had a good rest.
for me, it was a relaxed and nice one fortunately.

so, as i told you first, i bought a pretty vintage blanket made in england, and gave up to buy another old plate and mug cup yesterday.
i've never thought i'd done such thing.
vintage hardware is my another weakness in shopping. (what is the "one"?, if you want to ask me that, you'll be able to get the answer for that in the last post.)
i don't want to say that i'm a collector, but i consistently love them.
btw, the plate in the above picture was one of old plates i possess.
it was first introduced here in this post.
the love letter from one gentleman to one lady is still in the back. (i've been making effort not to wash that out since then.)

the plate i was supposed to buy yesterday was utterly my type.
it was made in japan and blue roses and their vine were beautifully hand painted by the authentic craftsman.
i was not sure how old it is, but i don't care such thing.
though i slightly incline toward made-in-england plates, only thing i care when i buy them is pattern.
i love both simple and decorative ones, and colorful and monotone ones, so it just depends on my subtle taste for pattern.
yesterday's was just desireble to obtain without any doubt for me.
i was really supposed to buy that.

speaking about the mug cup i once held in my hand yesterday, it was the one i usually buy "automatically".
i can't explain why, but i love fire king very much.
and of all fire king series, i have the biggest weakness for "jade-ite" line.
i met the jade-ite mug cup (in the linked page, the milky green ones) with an affordable price tag yesterday.
jade-ite line usually has rather expensive transactional price tags, but i never reached ones with such price tags. (for me, the listed prices in the link page are of unthinkable.)
i seldom pay more than $10 for each pieces.
well, the price depends on which market place you're in, and i think i'm so lucky to be able to obtain them easily at very affordable price at a nearby local antique shop.
but against the favorable situation of yesterday, the jade-ite mug didn't come to me.
as i have a tight budget for my pleasure of antique shopping, i wasn't able to allow me to have all at once.
to tell the truth, i didn't buy a plate or mug cup, but bought a stuffed bear besides. :P
i can't explain why, again, i've had obsession with stuffed animals, especially secondhand ones.
i wanted the stuffed bear with the blanket and had both of them finally over the plate and the mug.

my first job of the week was washing the blanket and bathing the bear.
i think this is the prettiest job to be done on monday.
i hope you're having a pretty monday as well.

a squirrel notebook

2010-12-09T09:24:00.007-07:00

since i was a kid, i have had an unchangeable weakness for stationery.
especially for notebooks.
even if i don't really know how i'll use them for, i can't help myself from buying pretty notebooks.
i like the ones simply bound, rather thin, with inside pages free from any illustrations, and with a front page with a little pretty image and printed letters.
so, the one in the picture above is the perfect for me!

hi, friends.
today's story is about notebooks.
because i love to write something on notebooks at the table, i don't think this topic is inadequate for this blog even though here is the place mostly talked about food, isn't it? ;)

the size of the squirrel notebook is about 5'x7', and i bought that together with a bit bigger one with a deer image (about 7'x10') in its front.
they are from anthropologie about 1 year and some ago.
i seldom buy or am not fond of their clothes for some reasons, but i like to visit the store because of their stationery selection.
for those don't have this chain store nearby, i'll attach another link of their online shopping page for stationery.
not all are my taste, but i can find some of those hit my point.

in this connection i must add that the most regrettable fact about having chosen to live in the u.s. is that it's not easy to get pretty stationery as i was able to do in japan.

ok, let's go back to the original topic.
my husband and i have almost finished with the deer notebook.
i decided to follow his suggestion of using that as an our event record of 2010.
we filled it with the information for the trip to italy, some camera and lens research, occasional wishing lists, some curious drawings, and last but not least all about buying a house.
i'm so satisfied with the result of the deer note.

now, i've just started to use the squirrel one.
i'd been thinking about how to use it for long, but the idea was handed down on me 2~3 days ago.
first 5~6 pages have been filled with the information about house plants.
each pages contain one plant and tell how to care it .
after moving into the new home, i've added pretty house plants one by one, and now the number of the plants has come something.
i thought i need to know the right care for them not to lose them.
and i remembered the squirrel notebook lying around a bookcase in my room.
i thought i'd never come up with the better idea than using it for "a plant note".

every time i write something in the notebook, i sit at the table with gazing at the plants sitting by the window.
i love those moment and hope the note will be filled with a lot of plant's names in future.

i was a hopeless poached egg maker.

2010-12-07T13:05:00.006-07:00

hi.
today is a cooking consultation day.
the subject is poached eggs.

as some of you may have known that i'm crazy about eggs in recent years.
well, i have an interesting food preference history.
for first 20 plus something years of my life, i loved eggs very much.
i think only protein i willingly consumed was eggs.
and then i changed my diet and gave up eggs.
saying good-by to eggs was kinda tough decision for me.
but i've been rather stubborn and good at keeping promise to my self, i'd been away from eggs for 4~5 years.
unbelievably i hadn't had any fragment of eggs during that time.
then another change was made a couple years ago and i finally got eggs back to my every day food to have followed the advice made by my naturopathy docctor.
since then, i've really adored eggs.
as i'm still not good at taking protein from other food, eggs are the main power source for me.

i may say that i forgot how to cook eggs during the hiatus.
or i should confess that i'm not good at cooking eggs in spite of the love for them.
well, hum, yesterday i had 2 poached eggs on toasted multi grain bread for my lunch and i was so desperate.
i thought i made or tried to make poached eggs.
but they actually were boiled fluffy egg white and yellow yolk balls.
can you imagine what they were like?
they were hopelessly most miserable and desperate poached eggs i've ever seen.
needless to say, they crushed my little heart so relentlessly.

i started to consider about how to make "right" poached eggs after the lunch.
as i've been a good executant of feedback, firstly i doubted if something important was missed or something inadequate was overdone in my method.
i'm using a le creuset sauce pan to make poached eggs, and is that wrong because it keeps water temperature too high?
i always add 1 or 2 table spoon of vinegar to water, and is that unnecessary?
i get together egg white and try to coat egg yolk with it by using a folk, and is that inadequate?
so many doubts were there, but i didn't have any clue.

so i googled and checked some written how-tos and you-tube video tutorials as well.
i was totally amazed the number of people who freaked out over poached eggs.
what an honor for poached eggs to have won such dedication from a lot of people!
but unfortunately for me, there weren't any ultimate solution not to have "separate egg white and yolk poached eggs" there.
and that mean, next time i may have another desperate poached egg.
sometimes i'm a good poached egg maker, and sometimes i'm not like yesterday.
i just need a certainty and promise of having cheerful lunch time with poached eggs.
or should i give up to have those for my lunch?

(today's picture is nothing to do with today's story as you can see. it's a sunny side up!)

it has its season for me.

2010-12-07T08:10:00.005-07:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

today is a densely foggy day.
yesterday was a rainy day.
and i didn't see any sunshine in the weekly forecast in the yesterday's paper.
i don't remember if winter was always like that past few years here in idaho, but this year it seems to have decided to be gray almost all the time.
i definitely need vitamin d3 supplements.

a couple of years ago, i noticed that i enjoy shortbread cookies only in winter.
other than in winter, i rarely want them, or even hate them.
as i've been not good at the smell of butter at all, almost all the time i whimsically wanted something buttery and ate it, it's the unavoidable subsequence for me to be annoyed with the sticky buttery smell on the hands afterward.
croissant is the first on the list for those villains.
i sometimes want and eat it, and i'm bothered in some degree without fail.
shortbread cookie is sort of those villains.
well, except in winter.

what happened to me a couple of years ago is this.
one of my blog-related friends in england kindly sent me a gift of a set of place mats, a bag of tea and a package of shortbread cookie.
i was really pleased with her kindness and the prettiness of the design of those packages, and perplexed as well.
i've never bought shortbread cookie for me by myself because of the reason i told you above.
but i dared to confront the difficulty in this case because of the kindness of my friend.
and the package of shortbread cookie was the most fanciest i've ever seen in my entire life. (the one in the picture above is very that package. so, this pic was taken 2~3 years ago. ;P)
that was really of england.
i've been yearning for england since i was a child.
this state deserved to be given a brave try by me.

and that brave try paid off.
i became to love shortbread cookie only in winter.
i don't know exactly why only in winter.
partly because we generally need more fat in winter, partly because the cold temperature keeps buttery smell from rising up in the air, and likely because a cup of milk tea goes well with shortbread cookie.

one cold winter day with gray sky, having a piece of shortbread cookie with a cup of milk tea and cats beside must be irresistibly pretty treat.

monday after something unusual

2010-12-06T09:33:00.003-07:00

(taken with nikon-f on fuji superia 400)

hi.
are you having happy monday?
i like monday a lot, and didn't like it a bit as well.
monday always brings me back to the usual swing of the things, and that makes me feel so comfortable and secured.
needless to say, going back to the swing needs us to make some effort, and that makes me feel a bit tired.
but i like monday after all.

so, i had something unusual this past saturday.
i and my husband were attendants at the party thrown by my friend.
as i've never been good at participating something like that, i usually manage not to be involved in.
please don't take me wrong, i love my friends but i just don't like the "gathering".
as i'm such a girl and prefer staying at home by myself rather than going out for meeting, actually this kind of occasion doesn't occur that often.
over those background, i was somehow an occasional partygoer last saturday.
to be an attendant at the party was fairly tough.
i sometimes wasn't able to find where my heart was.
the only thing kept my mind stable was my old nikon f.
i decided to bring it with me mainly because i thought i needed something like a charm.
partly because i simply wanted to shoot something pretty with my film camera.
fortunately for me, though i haven't shot much color negative film recently (i prefer slide film for color photography), i was able to find some high speed color negative film in my film stock box.

though i felt a bit awkward when i found myself in the circle of unfamiliar people, i mostly enjoyed the party because of the food my friend carefully considered and prepared, and my old nikon.
she has a good memory and remembered that we are kind of vegetarian (we eat seafood but don't any meat product.).
almost all the food on the table was "well cooked" and could be eaten by us.
i was terribly stunned by the selection, and they were really well cooked.
in most parties, vegetarian food are celery, carrots and cucumber sticks, bite size raw broccolis and cauliflowers, leafy green laid under cold cuts and ...... well, ....that's it!
the food i had this time was not anything like that at all, and that actually was more than i expected.
as my friend has real considerateness and style as well, i had thought she would entertain us a lot.
and she perfectly did entertain us in a way that exceeded my expectation.

the party was such an enjoyable one, but i still missed every day and today's cold rainy monday.
on monday, the breakfast is more merciful and tasteful.
on monday, coffee smells more atmospheric.
on monday, cats seem to be calmer and more relaxed.
and i can't help finding tiny happiness here and there in my sweet home.

i hope you're having or already had a happy monday!

lovely persimmons

2010-12-03T10:31:00.005-07:00

(taken with hasselblad on fuji pro 800h)
hi.
today's a misty friday.
i'm a bit surprised with the fact that it's already friday, and especially that of december.
can you believe that we've already been in december?
gosh.

as usual for me, i tend to be engaged in something not very important this time of the year.
like knitting, some sort of word games, planting house plants, .... and so on.
i admit that i'm trying to flee from something important and something to be done.
if you're feeling guilty same way as me, you're not alone.
i'm with you. ;)

by the way, did i tell you about persimmons this winter?
i remember that i told you late fall that i was tired of figs and wanted persimmons instead.
in the weekend 2 weeks later i told you so, i got my first persimmons this year at an asian grocery store near my home.
though i live very close to that grocery store and i'm a japanese, i seldom go there.
only when i have necessity to go get something, i go there.
persimmons were kind of necessity for me at that time.

i made sure again that i love persimmons soooo much.
they are so versatile.
besides i simply eat them by peeling their skin and cut them into a bite size, i sometimes put them into salad, eat with yogurt, and use as a filling for sandwich with soft cheese and freshly and coarsely ground pepper.
i've never tried, but i may put them into my baked things.

today i wanted to talk about persimmons, but i felt awkward to scan the pictures i shot them this winter.
so i searched some past picture which contains the image of persimmons, and i came across the top one taken in the winter 2 years ago.
sometime later i'll update the new pictures of persimmons.

have a restful weekend, don't be rushed too much. :))

i found something!

2010-12-01T09:20:00.007-07:00

(taken with nikon-f on rdplll)

hi.
how've you been doing?
it's been a little while since i posted last.
i had thanksgiving holidays and a pile of snow during the hiatus, and i enjoyed both with the warmth from the fire place.

well, i'm not sure, but i'm afraid that i've already had cabin fever this winter.
i haven't felt very good these days.
maybe i suffer from that, and maybe i have boredom from the loss of the hectic days as i told you in the 2 or 3 prior post.

while i had been searching for something fun or happy last days, i came across a can of cocoa in the fridge.
i totally forgot i put that there, and accidentally i found that when i was cooking and asked for frozen corn.
at the first sight, some excited feeling occurred.
what i forgot was not only the fact i stored cocoa in the fridge but also the fact cocoa can bring me a lot of happiness and fun that is limited to this very winter season.
of course you can drink a cup of hot cocoa all through the seasons, but you know what i mean?
the sweet smell and the warmth of hot cocoa makes us love winter more, doesn't it?

actually this accidental finding eased my little wounded heart.
it shouldn't necessarily be very special or gorgeous to make us feel good, right? :))
i hope you find something makes you feel good, too.

maybe i'll eat ...

2010-11-23T10:20:00.004-07:00

(taken with polaroid 680 on px-color film)

eggs.
for my lunch today.

hi.
it's bitter cold (described that way in today's paper) outside, mildly cold inside.
and i'm wanting eggs.

(taken with polaroid 680 on px-color)

i like 2 poached eggs on 2 slices of well toasted halved whole wheat english muffin with slices of tomato and fresh basil.
fluffy white and slightly trickling yolk when opened are very good.
i'm sure they're going to make me feel satisfied and warm all through the cold afternoon.

btw, are you ready for your thanksgiving food?
i'm not, not at all.
actually i don't know what i should fix to celebrate that special day.
i've been always like that for last 10 years in the u.s..
i have some excuse for that.
so, i'm not familiar with that tradition, my husband i are vegetarian and we don't have family reunion here ( not the party time at all).
i have felt a bit lonely with this kind of traditional holiday, but i'm ok.
i have my husband and 3 cats by me, maybe pot-au-feu is nice to have for dinner, and having some glasses of red wine around the fire place sounds pretty.

i hope you'll have a pretty holiday.
stay warm and keep away from extra pounds!

welcome to my home -finale-

2010-11-18T10:39:00.003-07:00

hi.
how was your weekend?
i had some snow over the weekend and also had pretty fire in the fire place on sunday.
gazing how fire dancing with snow quietly falling down outside was really something.
i loved that.
(though the room smells smoky today.;P)

today i don't have much to talk about my new place.
i think i introduced most of the rooms and area in my new home to you.
yet, i needed this post as a finale of the series.

my intention for having this series is letting you know about the background which stories over the food i'll talk about in future take place in.
as the food matter is so closely related to person's life style, i thought doing this is going to help you to understand the stories more precisely.

i like the dining area the most in my home.
all the cats and i are always around there.
actually i'm sitting on the dining chair and doing this.
the dining table is usually used as a working desk as well as an eating table.
i love 1 or 2 of my cats always sitting and sleeping on dining chairs under the table quietly and i'm doing something.

for me, dining area has been something beloved for long, i chose this pretty antique light fixture at my favorite antique store before i moved in.
i loved this one at first sight.
it had me imagine of north eastern european country's, like norway, finland and sweden's', dining area.
it is so classic and full of love.

because it's been mostly cloudy or rainy this fall, and the inside of the house has always been dimmed.
so i have left this light on almost all through the day, and it makes me feel warmed and relieved.

i'll tell you the stories which are going to be born here.
and i hope you are reminded of this light by those stories.

next time, i'll post something about food.
see you soon.

a little hiatus

2010-11-17T15:34:00.005-07:00

hi, again.
this is the today's 2nd post.
i seldom do this, but i just have the necessity before posting the last post of the series "welcome to my home".

we bought a house.
we have refinished some, and still have some to be done.
everything is coming together little by little.
we start to nestle in here and adore the place.

i'm happy, but i'm also afraid that the hectic days are going away.
you know this feeling, don't you?

amidst of the hectic days we just feel like a rolling stone.
we exactly don't know where we're going.
but we have to keep rolling to meet the new day.
we may be scary, exhausted and sometimes escapist with that situation, but we still must enjoy it.
i did, and i do.

it's weird to say this, but i think i have been enjoying hectic days for last 2~3 months and will miss its absence soon.

i know that i've just done with the first period with this home.
i have second, 3rd, 4th, and more and more periods in future.
tlc for the home will never be completed.
maybe i'd just better turn my pace down a bit and be relaxed.

btw, my husband is having a difficult time to bake our sunday pizza.
we have eaten homemade pizza every single sunday.
because we started to use a new cook top and oven, he has to search how the temperature setting works.
he gradually gets to know that, but pizza has been kinda cranky since then.
here's another thing to be done little by little. ;)

talk to you soon.

welcome to my home 5

2010-11-17T09:51:00.007-07:00

hi.
i've just finished my yard work.
raking.
after i moved in the new home, i have worked so hard outside, and that made the 85 year old neighbor lady tell me " you're one of the hardest worker i've ever seen."
hummm.
what honor.

today i want to introduce my kitchen and dining area to you.
the top picture is of the left side of the kitchen, and the second (below) is of the right side of it.
my kitchen has 3 windows facing the front yard and the street.
that allows me to be proud of how hard and well i worked on the yard.
also i'm happy with seeing people, dogs and even neighbor's outside cats walking on the street.
because my area is very close to the park and there are a lot of tree here and there, i can see quite a big number of passersby everyday.
seeing how people winterize their clothes day by day is quite fun!

i have a big one piece granite counter in the kitchen, and it is used for multiple purpose.
i fix 3 meals on it, some small plants are sitting by the window, my 3 cats come sit by the window and gaze at outside in turn (my oldest cat "hamme" is in the picture above. he was gazing at outside, but when i was to shoot that, he then turned around and started to gaze at me and the polaroid camera. :) ), seasonal fruits lie in a basket on the counter, and my husband kneads his famous ultra thin pizza dough every sunday.
it grew on me so much now, though i hated this granite counter when i moved in.

and now, it's the time to introduce my new cat, maple to you.
she had been roaming around my house for 1 month from the day we moved in this home.
and i decided to let her in 1 month after moving-in because she seemed not to belong to anyone in this neighborhood (she gradually lost her weight, and that meant nobody fed her.), my 2 inside cats almost seemed to settle in a new home, the weather gradually but surely has been shifting toward that of winter and i couldn't neglect her.
because she had always been sitting by the huge maple tree in the back yard, her name had to be "maple".
she now loves to sit on the dining chair.

and this is the dining area.
it's situated between the kitchen and the living area.
do you remember i told you that i was working on refinishing the dining table and chairs about 2 months ago?
and they're there in the picture.
they used to have polyurethane finish on the cherry color stain.
i sanded the old finish away for both the table and chairs, and then i painted white and distressed for the chairs and adopted the soap finish without paining or staining for the table.
the soap finish is the traditional way in denmark.
because my dining set is danish, i thought it's the nice way to keep them look natural and simple.

so, this way, i am liking my new kitchen and dining.
i think i can deliver you a lot of delicious stories sometime soon.
keep up with here.

welcome to my home 4

2010-11-15T12:26:00.004-07:00

hi.

today i want to introduce you my newly renovated bathroom.
before having moved in this home, i strongly felt the necessity of the renovation for the bathroom on the main floor.
unfortunately we didn't have time to do that before the moving-in, we had to do that after we moved in in the middle of october.
it took about 10 days to be completed, and we did that by ourselves with my kind friend's help.
i really appreciate his kind help and skilled ability.

=before=

these 2 photos taken by my husband while we were still searching our new home to be are "good" before photos.
this space is so narrow, and he used one of his widest, 18mm lens to capture the whole image of this bathroom.
in spite of the size of the space, it had a big old vanity at the entrance.
i really really really....... hated this vanity.
also i wasn't happy with the color of the wall, tile work on the floor and how the toilet bowl sat at tiny space very backward of the room.
for me, everything in this room didn't seem to have any harmony.
not only the vanity, but also the mirror and even the light fixture were big for this tiny bathroom, and i felt like suffocated in this room.
o.k., i'll quit to complain about the old bathroom here.

=after=

i'm sorry that i wasn't able to capture a broader image to show you all the transformation.
because of the tininess of the room, my polaroid camera wasn't able to meet the purpose.
but i needed to take the picture of our new bathroom with a polaroid camera.

here's the list what we did for the new bathroom.
1, we painted the wall over with warm yellow.
2, we removed all the original tiny tiles and laid new 12"x12" tiles with gray grout.
3, we settled a completely new vanity and a faucet.
4, we installed a new light fixture.
5, we replaced an old toilet bowl to the new one.
6, we replaced almost all the hardware to the new ones.

so, the list means that we renewed almost all but a bathtub.
you can see the new tile work in the first picture above.
to your and my surprise, i cut tiles and laid them by myself!

as i wanted this bathroom look like the one in a hotel in italy, i chose everything here with the image of that.
and now i call this bathroom "little italy".
sometime later, when my husband takes some pictures of this bathroom with his capable wide angle lens for me, i'll show them to you, promise.

i really enjoyed remodeling the bathroom.
seeing the transformation day by day was so fun.
it took about 10 days, but we were ok with that long lasting annoyance of not being allowed to use the bathroom on the main floor. (we have another one in the basement.)
because we saved a lot of money!
though i don't know it would have cost if we had requested this renovation to a professional contractor, i'm sure we saved a lot.
we spent about $1400 for the new items and some necessary material, and that's it.
instead of the big saving, we worked very very hard for 10 straight days.
dosn't it sound so tiresome and fun? :))

talk to you soon about another new story!

welcome to my home 3

2010-11-13T06:49:00.004-07:00

hi.

today i want to talk about 2 out of 3 bedrooms in my new home.
we have 3 bedrooms on the main floor (we have another in the basement.), and we use one of them as our bedroom, but for other 2 we use for different purposes than bedrooms.

so, we have a study room at the corner of southeast.
in the daytime, it has plenty of light, so we decided to use this room for kinda gathering space.
we like to gather around books and photography.

these 2 tall bookshelves can contain a lot of stuff in them.
so i organized them as real book cases and also as show cases.
i like to put books and other things in a mixed way though i didn't mean to put one of my cat on the 3rd row. ;P

since my husband and my hobby is b&w photography ( we've been so serious about it.), i decorated this room in a way that gives us some inspiration and motivation.
the pictures in photo flames on the wall are our own creation.

and now, i want to show you another one.
this room is at the corner of northeast of our home, and my husband allowed me and cats to dominate this room.
there are my desk with a sewing machine, a training machine by the window, cat's possession here and there and so on.
almost everything belong to me and cats.
now i don't have enough time to be stuck in this room, eventually this room is going to be my castle.

this is the other side of the wall in this room.
i like something trifle and seemingly useless, and i have the accumulation on them.
i hung some of my favorites with wood clips on a string over the wall.
i think i have always done this over some rooms in my past homes, some times it was vertical and other times it was horizontal like the way in picture above.
this is kinda an inspiration wall for me.

next time, i want to talk about some other story over my new home.
talk to you soon and have a pretty start of the week.

welcome to my home 2

2010-11-11T10:05:00.006-07:00

hi.
this is the second post of the series of "wlcome to my home".
today i want to talk to you about the maple tree in the back yard.
well, it's already had a lot of story to be talked about.

when my husband and i were searching for our new home, this house was the 9 or 10th one which we looked at.
it is situated upper the hill behind the beautiful huge park just off the downtown.
firstly we looked at the houses around downtown, but we weren't able to find any houses which really lured us to.
so we extended the area a bit, and we fell in love with the house now we're living.
house itself looked charming, and the huge maple tree in the back yard did as well.

one day we had a home inspector guy before the purchase of the house.
and he told us that the tree is apparently much older than the house, and still beautiful and healthy though we need it get pruned soon.

oh, something in the right bottom in the picture is the chimney of my home.

in this above picture, you can see how big the maple tree is.
her age is depending on the people who told us about, but seems to be approximately 70~100 years old.
it still has a lot of beautiful leaves, and now leaves are falling down day by day.
i'm busy to rake them up.

btw, this is the our house's face in front.
the most right window belongs to one of three bedrooms, the center window to the bathroom, and the most left to the kitchen.
actually kitchen has another window next to the left one, and we had a one car garage attached to the kitchen space.

our house has a painted with subtle green color brick wall, and black shingle roof.

as the home inspector recommended us to, we had a tree pruning for the maple tree just 2 days ago.
i had a lot of troubles with several tree companies over the estimate and appointment, but finally gotten a service from the honest and hardworking one.
i had been terribly annoyed with this thing over 2~3 weeks, but i don't want to let you bored with those stories here.

a very able climber and his supporters came and worked for the tree.
we had a lot of difficulty because the tree is humongous and our neighbors are close to each other.
and the thing which made the process most difficult was .....

the climber got down on the ground with the kinda looks of resignation on his face in the middle of the work.
he explained me the situation in a kind way.
the maple tree is now almost dead.
she is pretending to be healthy and having a lot of beautiful trees, but she actually likes to be in a nursery home and spend her rest of life which seems not to be long.
as you can see her condition by the cut surface in the above picture, she has a lot of rotten parts and holes inside.
even worse, some of her limbs didn't grow in a healthy way, so her skin is just curling inside and pretend to be a big limbs.
the climber dared not to climb on those dead limbs.
that's it.

it was sad.
just sad to know.
but it is the real.
we have to accept the situation and consider about the next step.
we probably want to remove her in 1~2 years.
the climber, who knows about trees very much, told me that there's the time to go for trees as well as for humans.
her bad condition is 50% because of bad maintenance in the past, but 50% because of her own life expectancy.
because her limbs and even her main body are so fragile now, we can't prevent from falling branches and limbs when the severe weather gives her some burden.
so when we think about the house and our life, we aren't going to be able to help removing her.

we have been so ready to live with the maple tree, but we can't be allowed to do that.
but we've already had some gifts from her.
my new cat, maple is one of them.
she had been sitting by her for almost a month, and finally we let her in and named her maple.
maple is still missing her, and gazing her sometimes by the window.

i'm going to love her till i have to tell her good-bye.
and this winter, our family is going to be warmed with her gifts in the wood fireplace.

the series is continued to the 3rd post next.

welcome to my home 1

2010-11-10T14:17:00.005-07:00

(taken with polaroid 680 on 600 film)
hi.
with this post i want to start the series of 6 or 7 posts to feature my new home.
they're not necessarily going to be related to food, but i just want to share the record how i've started my new life here.
i want you to enjoy peeking someone's new life at a new place.

fyi, my husband and i bought a one-storied house in september and started our new life there on october 1.

so, this is the living room.
as you can see, it has a hard wood floor and this is one of most important points that my husband and i decided to buy this old house. ( she is approximately 60 years old.)
i like sweeping and wiping this pretty floor a lot.

i took this picture with facing the big window which doesn't have opening on south wall.
as you can see, i have an wood fireplace in the right side.
the emerald green ( i call this color "tiffany green") table is one of my "diy"s.
i got this for about $30 at a second hand store, and scraped and washed the original dark brown stain, and then painted green, distressed a lot and finished with a bit dark color stain over the paint.
i sewn a pair of linen curtain hanging over the window.
though we scarcely bought anything new here, but i'm so impressed with how my old furniture looks fresh in this new home and makes a totally new space.

(taken with polaroid 680 on px600 first flush)
i have some plants by the big window.
i welcomed them one by one, and they have their own shape and hight.
but they're all green.
i love to take care of them with collecting natural light with them.
maybe i need a little more of them.
whenever i go to the stores which sell greens at their corner, i carefully check the kinds.
it's my new hobby as well as hanging around antique shops.
oh, i'm surprised that my cats don't play with or eat them!
i was kinda afraid of that situation, but i couldn't help bringing house plants to my new home.
now i'm so happy that the apprehension is not needed.

so, i'm still hardly working on to get my place come together one by one.
and i like this slow pace.
with our own home, we have tons of things to be done, but i always try to tell myself not to hasten to do all the things at once.
we have a lot of time to work with, and in that way we can cultivate the feeling of reality that this home is our own nest.
apparently we're not too exhausted to make progress.
the room in our mind and life is important.

o.k., i talked too much at the first post of the series.
it's going to be followed by "welcome to my home 2".

the other way around

2010-11-08T13:02:00.004-07:00

(taken with hasselblad 500c on rdplll)
hi.
how was your weekend?
mine was fun, but tired me a bit.
i struggled with a bunch of dandelions which were rocking here and there in the lawn of the front yard on saturday.
on sunday i had my friends over my home for the bathroom party, and i worked so hard as a chinese cuisine chef. (though i'm a japanese.)
well, i'm settling down on my home.

btw, as some of you have already known, i like breakfast very much.
as much as i can eat that for all of my 3 meals.
though i do, i hesitate to have a breakfast meal for dinner because of my husband.
so i have breakfast food 2 times a day for my breakfast and lunch.
eating cereal for lunch is nothing odd or special for me at all.

but something odd has been going on.
in the summer time, i liked to eat hot cereal like oat meal.
the picture was taken in this summer, and it is oat meal and an omelet.
i liked this combination so much, so i ate this 2~3 times a week.

and now, i like cold cereal like corn flakes and soy milk.
i usually add some fresh fruits and dried fruits like figs, bananas and raisins.
i like it so much, so i eat it 2~3 times a week.

i don't know why this opposition occurs.
people usually go the opposite way.
but this kinda explains why people like to eat a bowl of hot soup in a cool room amid of summer and a cup of ice cream in a warm room amid of winter, doesn't it?
sometimes going the other way around is just fun and cool.
and though i'm one of the fiber ambassadors, i can't help going with corn flakes over other fiber rich cereals.
totally odd.

good bye, for now.

2010-11-05T12:28:00.003-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on color shade first flush film)

hi.

so, i'm not saying good-bye to you but to figs.
i've just done my lunch, and finished the last fig (likely).
i ate that with my favorite corn flakes and soy milk.

i'm sorry that i've been talking too much over figs this year, but i can't help because i haven't had so many fun over food recently.
nor i took picture.

just after i was into figs around the end of summer, i got involved in raging billows of buying a house, moving out and in, and remodeling and refinishing here and there.
and i also took a lot of pictures of figs this year somehow, so i don't have any difficulties to talk about figs with different pictures again and again here.

oh, speaking about figs from a different point of view, i have been wanting a fig tree in my yard.
if possible, i want plant trees of apple, persimmon and loquat as well.
these 3 plus fig is the very 4 most favorite fruits for me.
i think i'm the happiest if i were surrounded by these 4 kinds of trees.
apparently, my back yard is dominated by the humongous maple tree and she seems not to allow that dream comes true.

oh, maple tree!!
i have a news for you.
i've just decided to let the cat who was roaming around my house for a while and always sitting by the maple tree into my home.
she was always there since we started the new life here.
i've been concerning her a lot and my heart has been aching for her, but i just couldn't let her in because my 2 cats were so nervous with the new circumstance and needed some time to get adjusted.
but, on november first, which is the day another 1 month started after moving in, i successfully caught the cat and took her to the vet and had her checked her age, gender and health condition.
there i knew that she is "she", 2~3 years old and very healthy.
and i asked a doctor to inject some necessary vaccine with a certain decision.
on the way to my home, i stopped by a pet store and bought a pretty light blue collar for her.
i named her "maple" and told my husband that we are now 2 people and 3 cats family over the phone.

though only a month and a bit have past in a new home, we've already had a lot of stories.
figs have been always on my table during those days, and i'll say good-bye to figs and make another step.

have a fun weekend and not to forget to slow your clock Saturday night!

figholic

2010-11-02T10:17:00.007-06:00

(taken with polaroid 185 on blue film)

hi.
today is going to be a perfect fall day.
air is crisp and chilly a bit, yet have a lot of sunshine, trees are colorful, and i'm relaxed.
a lovely fall day is a something admirable.

i have one confession here.
i'm afraid that i'm suffering from figholic.
though i am, i'm not unfortunate because it's not harmful or contagious at all.
it's just a happy food accident.

i don't buy figs so often, like every 2~3 days, but once a week.
i buy them only on Saturday or Sunday.
i buy 5~6 pieces at one time, and eat them one a day.
i sometimes generously share my figs my husband.
but mostly i eat them all by myself, because he allows me to do that as my little and biggest pleasure.

and now, i've bought a small basket of figs 8~9 weeks in a row.
everytime i go to co-op with him, he entices me to buy them.
and i always hesitate to do that because they are not affordable at all.
but then, he strongly insists that i deserve to do that somehow, and i happily yield myself to that word.
in that way, i've bought figs 8~9 weeks in a row.
i'm happy.

i'm happy, but i've just started to think that i can shift from figs to persimmons.
well, frankly speaking, i want to eat persimmons.
of course i love figs and appreciate my husband for allowing me to have them, but to tell the truth, i'm a bit tired of figs.
now i'm wanting persimmons.

maybe, i'll buy persimmons instead of figs this weekend.

fall is full of my favorite fruits, and that makes me love fall more.

chocolate marshmallow

2010-10-27T16:32:00.004-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

hi.
leaves are now turning yellow and red, and that's the typical sign of autumn.
but i can't help feeling winter has been already here.
it's cold, too cold for me to think it's still autumn.

today i came across this polaroid.
and i liked this dark brown color box, which contain individually packaged chocolate marshmallow.
it seems to be one of fabulous symbols of autumn and winter.
i think i love brown and beige so much especially this time of the year.

speaking about my current situation, i'm still working on a lot of things to be done in a new home.
i just finished the bathroom yesterday.
new tile floor, wall, toilet bowl, vanity, mirror and light fixture (almost everything except the bath tub) are very good.
i'm so much satisfied with the result and i'm going to have a bathroom party with my friends who helped us a lot.
we're going to celebrate our own work with some food and drink.
i'm not sure if the party is held in the bathroom or not.
i don't think it's annoying even if so, because almost everything is new!
just weird, isn't it? ;P

well, i hope you all are enjoying the beautiful shift of the season.
don't miss pretty turning leaves!

a new life, again

2010-10-11T10:39:00.005-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

hi.
how've you been up to?
i've been cleaning and organizing rooms, painting wall tirelessly, working on a back garden with a hundred year old maple tree in the center, watching hgtv(home and garden tv) at meals and slamming myself on the bed every night.
so, my new life in the new home has begun.

this morning, i was working on my garden.
the air was crisp and fresh, the morning sun ray was bright and full of hope, leaves were floating slowly from branches to the ground.
that was definitely a beautiful morning work.
and now, i'm sipping a cup of coffee and relaxing.

i'm still bit nervous as well as my cats, a lot dull because of accumulation of tiredness.
and so much excited with the new life.

i have this for the first time in last 6 years.
before, my husband i used to move a lot.
we lived in 12 homes including temporary ones, if my memory is correct, after we got married.
and i think this is likely to be the ultimate one, because we bought this house!

there're a lot of things to be done to get accustomed to this new life for us.
but this situation is not annoying at all but exciting a lot.
i hope i can write something yummy around the new kitchen and dining area soon.

coffee break

2010-09-29T11:15:00.003-06:00

(taken with contax rts on superia 400)

hi.
how've you been up to?
i've been continuously exhausted for some reason.
so many things are still going on and a cup of coffee tastes so good.

though i haven't had much fun around the table, i popped in for updating the picture and words here.
it seems to refresh me as well as this place.

well, do you remember that i told you about couple months ago that i wasn't able to enjoy coffee any more?
after the trip to italy in last may, i had been in that situation because of the hurt throat. (the throat has been my weak point by nature and whenever my heath condition is down, i easily tend to lose my voice.)
but now, i think my throat has fully healed over and coffee is enjoyable again.
i switched my drink with breakfast from coffee to tea at that time and it's still effective now, but a cup of coffee in late morning entertains me a lot recently.
i'm simply glad about the comeback of the joy of coffee.

i hope you're doing very well with your favorite drink in this transitional climate.
talk to you soon.

what i want now

2010-09-23T09:55:00.004-06:00

(taken with mamiya m645 on tmy400, developed and printed by me.)

.... might be a cup of hot cocoa with whipped cream in a heavy big cup.
i'm not really whipped cream with one's drinks on top person.
but somehow, i'm in the mood of wanting it.
i want something fluffy, white and sweet now.

oh, hi.
i've been terribly tired recently in the midst of moving.
i'm sure that my arms are getting more and more muscle on them.
hunting for free cardboard boxes, hanging around the Home depot for a while and being asked if i'm doing ok, and packing our stuff with feeling i'll never reach the end are my current daily basis.
speaking of getting free cardboard boxes, that is kinda messy job.
i sometimes have to reach my hand or step into the big garbage container, and that makes me be suspected by passersby.
i feel as if i were doing something i can't or don't wanna tell about to my mother or friends. (well, it's kinda that sort of thing.)

i'm working very hard this way.
and i want a big relief with something fancy and pretty, like a cup of cocoa with whipped cream.

btw, here's a small list of my current favorites on the kitchen counter. (yes, i've been eating every single meal there for almost 1 month now):
-a cup o coffee with m&m's (i like peanut one the best.)
-friday and saturday night of college football games, sunday and monday night of nfl games with finger food and beer
-weekend breakfast with cheap sound music from i-pod and a $10 mini speaker

i think i can come up with more favorites if i think about them more, but now i don't have much time to do that.
and i'm sorry for those left me kind comments with encouragement that i didn't reply to them.
i hope i'll soon be able to spend more time here. :)

something indigestible (and irritating me)

2010-09-18T06:51:00.005-06:00

(taken with nikon f on portra 160nc)
hi.
still dark before the dawn, on saturday.
i wasn't able to sleep very well last night and this morning.
i went to bed at 9 last night and woke up at 12, and back to bed at 3 and up finally at 6.
no good sleep.

i have a lot of reason for that.
and main cause of that is that i was upset and shouted at someone in the very midst of my to be peaceful friday dinner.
someone who is not my family member, but the guy living under my home. (i'm in the 2nd floor of the apartment building.)
i was so upset that i couldn't help shouting at him (them).
because of the big noise and thud which shook the floor of ours.
i've been totally fed up with that.
and this was the very motivation to buy a house.

after he moved in, we have had this problem.
sometimes not that bad, and other time intolerably bad.
and the worst thing of this is the fact that i have had a big trauma with the noise problem.
my mother and the big (16 years older) half brother, who isn't an actual her son, used to fight over the noise of the music when i was young.
they fought over a lot of trifle things, but the noise had been always there.
and those bruises make them estranged each other for long after my dad's death.
and me, i've been really scared of, intolerant of, nervous about, easily depressed with and hectically furious with it.

but, now what?
i've been so tired of and beaten by the yell i myself gave them after the incident.
shouting or yelling at the people whom i can't really make it up with later is something indigestible.

now, the time of the dawn is coming right there.
the long hectic night is seemingly about to go away.
oh, lord.
i pray with the dawn for a calm last summer weekend.

have a good weekend, guys.

a bagel in the dark

2010-09-17T07:46:00.003-06:00

(taken with contax rts on kodachrome 64)

hi.
what's going on with the climate in your area?
do you feel pretty with it?
i of course do.

but one thing that makes me feel sorry for is the steady darkness in early morning.
now the sun comes out of another side of the world very slow, i have to eat my breakfast bagel in the dark.
it's sad.
now i've already felt that way, and the wonder of what the heck will be going on in the late october makes me feel depressed.

after i came to the rather north side of the u.s., i've been often astonished with the length of the day during summer and the night during winter.
i didn't dislike the natural darkness at all, but i simply feel sorry that i cant's eat my bagels under the brightness of the sun.
i'm sure the sunshine becomes bagels.

the last weekend of the official summer is coming.
hope you all have fun. :)

more figs

2010-09-13T07:42:00.005-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)
hi.
it is peaceful monday, again.
i always find monday peaceful, i've noticed it somehow.
of course i love weekend so much, but so much love sometimes gets me tired and confused.
then monday is always peaceful whether it shines or rains, and i'm relieved so much with it.

and, more figs are coming to my fridge as the temperature is going down and the climate is flowing toward fall.
in my area only the co-op sells figs.
i haven't found figs anywhere than the co-op here.
the co-op puts the price tag of $4.99/lb almost always.
i haven't seen so much exception other than only one exception that a couple years ago they were put the $3.99/lb tag on as they were shriveled. (and of course, i bought those shriveled figs!)

though i only go to the co-op on saturdays (and that means i only buy figs on saturdays) because i live a bit far away from it, i think that's good for me to save our money.
i won't forget that i gazed at $4.99/lb price tag and fought with something in my mind so many times from the end of summer through mid-fall as i get old.

i'm still working on a lot of projects, and i'm sure this month is a big monster.
i'm moving out of our apartment to our new house.
we've chosen and bought that.
the long long, seemingly everlasting closing process is going on, and i'm preparing moving into it.
because we've already given a vacation notice to the apartment office, we necessarily move out of here at at least the end of this month.
so, i don't mind that the corner of the living room is now kinda furniture makers' studio as i told you before.
i'm working on furniture as long as possible everyday.
i'm tired, but still full of excitement.
i'm going to move in our new home!!

have a pretty monday!

recent favorites around the table (actually not the table but the kitchen counter)

2010-09-07T21:29:00.005-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

hi.
how was your weekend?
did you have a lot of fun?
i hope you did, and have started the week happily.

i've been busy and tired these days.
a lot of thing are still going on, and i don't have a dining table right now.
as i told you in the last post, i'm working on it.
my dining table isn't ready yet.
one corner of my living room is now like a small studio of furniture makers.
all parts of the table and chairs, rollers and brushes, paints and stains, sand papers, and so on are here and there.
i'll post the before and after picture when the table and i are ready to do it.
thank you for suggesting me to do so, annemarie!

so, we are eating everything at the kitchen counter under the fluorescent light.
yes, the one which is lack of elegance.
but to tell the truth, i don't really dislike eating at the kitchen counter, sitting on the bar chair under the fluorescent light.
it's something unusual, and that makes me a little excited.

and what i'm eating and enjoying these days are:
-oat meal with figs and red onions open egg-white omelet
-a toast topped with tofurky ham and sliced figs and cucumbers
-sliced figgs and low-fat soft cheese grilled sandwich
-a burrito with hummus, avocados and figs
-a small bowl of non-fat plain yogurt topped with diced figs and a little drizzle of maple syrup (or skip maple syrup and add a spoonful of nutella.)

all about figs!
i especially like the combination of figs and coarsely ground pepper.
even over figs and yogurt, i sprinkle pepper.
for the omelet, i like to cook with both hot chili pepper flakes and ground peppercorns.

though i've been busy and tired these days as i've already told you, still happy with figs. :))

i'm still here! just in case.

2010-09-04T07:16:00.005-06:00

(taken with rolleiflex 3.5a on tmy 400, developed and printed by me)

hi.
i'm popping in this early in the morning just in case you're wondering if i'm not here anymore.
nope, noooope at all.
i'm still here and actually tried to make a post yesterday and the day before.
since i've been busy in some project around me, i had to quit blogging in the middle of the post, and left them incomplete these days.

so, one of my projects which are going on now is getting a new look of this dining table.
above is the "before" picture.
i'm not sure what sort of finish i'll get some days later (hopefully at the end of this 3 day weekend) yet.
anyway, i'm working on it hard now. (i'm sanding, sanding and sanding it. it seems to be endless.... ;( )

i've been concerning about the ugly heat white stains and sharp scratches made by my cats here and there for quite a long time, but i've tried not to be nervous about that.
then i finally made up my mind and embarked on the journey of the makeover.
apparently it is going on well, and i'm excited.
please wish a good luck for me, friends!

see you later and have a pretty weekend!

imagining and eating

2010-08-31T21:09:00.007-06:00

(taken with nikon f on kodachrome 64)

hi.
today, my mind seemed to be somewhere i don't know.
i can't do anything special than eating.
i ate breakfast, lunch and dinner as always.
but i didn't do anything i can name other than that.

whenever i stood on the crossroad in my life, i was forced to lose my weight.
sometimes it terribly affected me and i lost quite a bit pounds.
but now, i think i'm doing well to keep my weight decently. ( yeah, i used to weigh much less than 100 lb, and it was terrible. indeed. i felt cold even when it was the mid summer.)

unfortunately, i'm not good at shifting.
but there's surely the moment some kind of shift has to be done.
i know.

i'm imagining the table which i loved, and will try to keep imagining.
and that keeps me to be attracted by eating.

the image above was taken in bologna, italy in last may.
bologna is well known as the city of gourmet.
so, this is, i think, the perfect image for me now even though anything scrumptious is on the table. :))

something new

2010-08-30T11:36:00.005-06:00

(taken with hasselblad 500c on fuji pro 400h)

hi.
i'm starting my monday busily.
lots of things were done over the weekend, and still lots of things to be done are left.

my hub and i started our life here about 6 years ago.
before, we used to live in portland, oregon with lots of rain.
before porland, we were in austin, texas with the view of thousands of bulls and cows and vast meadows.
before austin, we were surrounded by a lot of amusement parks in orlando, florida.
before orlando, we were simply japanese in japan.

we've moved a lot.
we sometimes weren't sure where our real home was.
that idea made us feel sad and confused about our own identity.
then now, finally, we are trying to buy our home that we are going to be sure " this is our home".

we looked some houses over the weekend.
we're still deciding, but 70~80% of decision has been already made, i think.
now we're on the step of being confident with buying "that" house.
searching for as many houses as possible, comparing them to the one now we are with, thinking about the remodeling plan to be done, and so on.
lots to be done now.

bit overwhelming but still excited with the new kitchen and dinning.

everytime we moved, i was excited and also struggled mostly with little features each kitchens had.
i was utterly happy with the window in the kitchen.
i loved the white tile counter top.
i never cared about a dish washer because i didn't use that any.
almost all the time i had to experience the hard time with putting all my japanese ceramics, fire kings, pyrex and other old hardware into the limited space of cabinets.
i love them all very much, but sometimes i cursed them as well. ;P

i'm thrilled, bit awkward, already tired and still daydreaming, ..... very busy.

well, hope you all have a good start of the week.
take good care of you, now the season is shifting.
oh, speaking about shifting, my favorite channel has shifted from travel channel to hgtv (home & garden tv) recently. ;)

p.s.
i wanted to tell you this.
these two photos were taken with my hasselblad on the day i got it.
so these are from the very first roll taken with it.
very pure, aren't they?
"new" is already inspiring. :))

hoping for the price down

2010-08-27T07:54:00.005-06:00

(taken with hasselblad 500c on fuji rdplll)

hi.

today i don't have much to say other than tgif.
just popping in to make a to-do list for the weekend.

1, getting some fruits. now i have only one piece of fig left in the fridge and tons of frozen blueberries in the freezer.
so, i need something.
if cherries are priced down, i'll go with them before they are gone.

2, searching for new home.
an appointment has already been made with an agent.
and i've already looked one yesterday evening.
it was sooooo pretty.
she is approximately 60 years old and surrounded by lots of big old trees.
2b+ 2b+ khaki wall kitchen + gray wall dinning+ chocolate wall living, then yellow wall home. :))
fun.

3, adding a or two bottle(s) of vinegar.
i love vinegar very much.
all kinds are welcome.
i definitely need apple cider vinegar, which is almost running out though i got that only a few weeks ago.
i have a little apple cider vinegar, mildly aged balsamic vinegar, malt vinegar, rice vinegar, plum vinegar in my fridge.
then what else do i need?
can't wait to go to the co-op.

4, making progress with nigel slater's "toast" which i started to read yesterday.
this week i got 3 new and used books, and one is the apple's, other two are the one now i'm reading and "the kitchen diaries".
so thrilled to read all.

meanwhile, i'm troubled with the book about the ex american spy agent in the ussr (former russia) which my friend lent to me.
the reason why i can't make any progress with it is, i think, that i can't have any interest with it.
i've never had this trouble with books about food. ;p

5, going out for "the jazz in the park" concert on saturday, "the curb cup", which 102 local amateur artists play and show on streets in downtown, on sunday.
the summer is in its climax!

have a pretty weekend, y'all!

the pleasure of googling

2010-08-26T08:01:00.005-06:00

(taken with nikon f on rdplll)

hi.

i'm quite impressed with my capcity of stocking up the topics which are related to food and i want to share with you. (also impressed with the kind readers to have been with me for sharing the mishmash stories, simply thank you so much.)
actually, they never run out.
and the fact shows that i've been seriously thinking about food for quite a long time within a day so that i can write something lengthy but trifle almost everyday.
how gluttonous i am.

well, i'm such inclined to take food seriously, i like learning about pizza, which has been our sunday dinner for at least 2+1/2 years, seriously as well.
we seldom eat out for pizza, especially on sunday.
we love to bake our own pizza from scratch on every single sundays when we are at home.
while my hub is kneading the dough, i am assembling the toppings.
things are always going on as if we were two only employees at a small local pizza joint.
and we sometimes have to make improvement, or provide seasonal specials like real pizza joints do.
so, we have to keep our eyes wide open to get (steal?) the intriguing ideas from our competitors.

btw, have you ever googled "pizza"?
though you may not think it's necessary because you've already known what pizza is, i'm sure you'll appreciate doing that once after you reach the interesting result.
i'm enjoying the information wiki provides.
they tells us there are so many styles in the world for only one food called pizza.
i was kinda amazed to know them.
so many people in the world enjoy their pizza in so many ways!
it's utterly worth to know about.
and i'm happy to feel as if we were all friend in the chain of pizza. :)

the most interesting info we've gotten so far is that our style is really close to st. louis style pizza. (on the right sidebar at this link page, you can find some links to the varieties of pizza and its kinds.)
an ultra-thin crispy crust is exactly of ours, though we cut them diagonally, not rectangular way.

today, i'm writing about pizza because i'm always looking forward to the sunday pizza, and so am i now!
i can't help counting how many nights i have to sleep till then.
one night, two night, ......

one of the happiest time in the year

2010-08-25T10:34:00.004-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on px color shade)

hi.

i'm stingily eating these lately.
i got them last weekend at the co-op.
after having passed them 2 or 3 times until being in its real season.

figs.

then, some notes here.

1, another package of new polaroid film had to be consumed.
2, varieties of ways of enjoying them are being created. (i'll make a report sometime later.)
3, $4.99/lb is quite something. (yes, i'm a tightwad. but i know the meaning of the "$4.99/lb". it's worth.)
4, the next visit to the co-op is being waited.

i can't help feeling now's one of the happiest time in the year because of figs.
and last night i was kinda surprised to have noticed that i've owed lots of my happiness to seasonal fruits. :))

another confession to be made (the heaviest post ever with lots of images of apples)

2010-08-24T11:01:00.016-06:00

(taken with nikon f on fuji superia 400)

hi.

so, i told you about my chronic addiction related to food and photography yesterday, and today i have to make another confession also about food and photography.
today, it's all about one particular food; apples.

some of you may know that how much i love to shoot apples.
but not many of you may know exactly how i love to.
also whenever, wherever i am and with whichever cameras.

all began just after i got my first old camera, nikon f in the early fall of 2007.
i shot apples in the top picture with it around that time.

(same as the top)

with my old nikon f, i had to tell good-bye to my nikon digital camera which i used to use till then, and i started to walk on a new road having continued long before me.
good-bye digital, hello analog!
the rusticity of the "f" and the antiqueness of the images were pretty enough to force me to go that way.

(taken with contax rts on fuji superia 400)

in the late fall of 2007, the 1 year anniversary after my dad's death was held in japan.
and i didn't hesitate to shoot the apples dedicated to my dad's commemoration.

(taken with nikon f on rdplll)

i love these apples with dark red skin in japan, and when i went back there this past spring, i bought a lot of them because of the reduced price, and ate them row and made them into compote.
having that with homemade yogurt was so good.
( i was making apple compote in the picture. i made that with skin for me, and without skin for my mom who was hospitalized at that time.)

(taken with hasselblad 500c on ilford xp2 super 400)

in summer time, i like to do picnics in some parks around my town on weekend.

(taken with minolta autocord lll on fuji 160s)

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

and almost all the price reduction on apples makes me buy them a lot around fall.
fuji apples were rolling on the floor in 2008, and sitting well-mannered in a paper bag in 2009.

(taken with nikon fe2 on kodachrome 64)

in the wintertime, i love to spend plentiful time inside to gaze at and shoot apples on the table.
i loved the color which kodak kodachrome 64, which is the one of the traditional films, rendered in the winter of 2008.
and at that time, i didn't have any idea of its disappearing future sometime soon.

(taken with nikon fe2 on kodachrome 64)

with my favorite kodachrome 64, i flew to italy in the mid may of 2009, and i shot my first apples in italy on the first day there, needless to say.

(taken with nikon f on kodachrome 64)

and continuously, i shot apples on the first day of the trip around italy this year, too.
of course, on my buddy, kodachrome 64.
i can't help being melancolic with the fact that i can shoot on kodachrome 64 only within this year.
(kodak announced that they quited producing the film last year or so, and the only lab which has the skill and the equipment to develop this special film also announced that they were going to take the film only in this year. so pratically, kodachrome 64 is destined to vanish at the end of this year. sad.)

(taken with box type polaroid on 600 film)

as i love to travel with apples, they are always with me.
i love an apple sitting on the edge by the window of a hotel room.
it looked irresistibly lovely in a bay area hotel near san francisco in the early april of 2008.

(taken with box type polaroid on 600 film)

and adorable as well in a virginia hotel near dc in the summer of 2008.

(taken with nikon fe2 on agfa 100)

a white pillow and a bed sheet glittering with morning ray became an red apple in an oregon hotel sometime in 2008.

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

once in a while, the mischievous ideas to play with an apple and a camera visit me.
i exposed a polaroid film twice on white plastic flowers and then a red apple sometime in 2009.

(taken with hasselblad 500c on polaroid 669)

i shot an apple on a polaroid peel-apart film and then manipulated it on a rough paper other time.

(same as the above)

next, on a cotton cloth and ripped the apple.
i love a ripped apple.

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

well, i think i've done quite a nice job to collect these images from my album though i haven't sorted my all images by objects.
the reason why i decided to make the confession in such a troublesome way is that i got one of my cook book orders this morning, and it's front page is the image of an apple.
and i noticed that i placed the book in an order probably because of the apple image on the front.
i made sure how i've loved apples, then i dared to get involved in this troublesome post here.

now, it's the time to enjoy the book, i think. ;)
oh, fyi, the book i got this morning is this.

a chronic addiction

2010-08-23T08:16:00.007-06:00

(taken with 680 on 600 film)

hi.
how was your weekend?
it was a bit cool and pretty for me.
the temperature was comfortable around 70, and that made me feel the summer is going away now.
i went a farmer's market for the first time after a long absence with my husband instead of doing darkroom work, which we always spent our saturday mornings for.
they had rearranged the way how shops made lines, and it made me feel i had been to a new place where i'd never visited.
late summer crops, new street regulations, new talented street musicians, the first time crepe eating (though there has always been crepe gangs, i call them that 'cause crepe makers were wearing dark black sunglasses, white cook uniform jackets and short pants, since the summer 2 or 3 years ago.), everything was enjoyable so much.

one of the things on the to-do list of the past weekend was to update my photography homepage.
though i've left that for a long time without any update since the last, i've been thinking about that earnestly.
in spite of the necessity to have been connected online for the update, the big wind storm hit the night before disabled me to do that.
so i simply reviewed my portfolios.
then i noticed that i have a necessity of making another food portfolio.
though i've already made one last time, whose portfolio name is "cafe & bar", i had to admit the fact i can't skip food related pictures this time, either.

why do i take same pictures again and again and again and ............ everlastingly??
i took the today's picture 2 or 3 weeks ago, and i'd taken this kind of pictures before and before and before and ........ constantly!!
i shoot my table almost everyday.
i shoot our breakfast almost every weekend.
i can't have any reasonable word for the excuse, but just i love that.
i love my table and our breakfast on weekend, earnestly.

i cherish polaroid especially when i shoot food and plates and mugs on the table are haloed with the pretty morning sunray.
i expect the way how polaroid fuses the gorgeous light and the outlines of the objects.
it's all about the pleasure of the weekend morning.
sometimes it makes a lot of sparkling stars on the pictures unexpectedly, it is so lovely and makes me feel i'm the luckiest girl in the world on that morning.

i adore black and white film for its excellent capability of catching the moment memorably.
even though i shoot similar food events so many times, they all vary.
and whenever i look them again after a while or long after, they unexceptionally successfully remind me of what, when, where and how i loved the situations once.
b&w film is an a-1 memory reminder.

though i don't like color film very much recently, i still trust how slide film (positive film) catches and shows the fresh color on seasonal fruits and the nostalgic color and patterns of my collection of antique plates.

so, well, i apparently have a chronic addiction of taking food pictures.
and i think, i'd better to rethink about my food related portfolios in the web gallery to be series.
i hope you'll keep an eye out for the update of it which is supposed be done within days.

have a pretty monday!

blueberry pancakes came to my table!

2010-08-20T08:30:00.009-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on px color film)

hi.
today's first word, tgi friday!!
i have been looking forward today since a peaceful monday went away.
on monday, i was kind of happy that another week had come peacefully.
but once monday was completed, i started to feel enormous fatigue.
i think i'm the happiest now this week.

btw, do you remember i made a list for blueberries at the end of the last week?
pancake breakfast was the one of things on the list, and i had that without missing.
last saturday was the pancake morning.

i seldom make pancakes.
only barely does the occasion occur with something pretty and intriguing.
this time, blueberry induced me to have a chance of pancake breakfast.
i was so thrilled as if i had been a kindergartener who is excited with a coming field trip next day that i was waiting for the morning to come with a package of new polaroid film which i got some days ago.
i've shot 2 or 3 in advance to be able to adopt a feedback to the "it" time.
c'mmon, blueberry pancakes!!

i was pretty much contented with how my blueberry pancakes looked, so i was quite busy to do two important things at a time, eating pancakes and taking pictures of them.
eat them, shoot them, eat them and shoot them....
there were a 35 mm camera (a slide film loaded), a twin lens camera (a b&w film loaded) and sx-70 on the floor around my chair.
never ending breakfast.
no one wouldn't oppose the diagnosis that i went crazy in that morning.
so don't i.

so, what do you think of a polaroid's new product?
here are those.
it's too much bluish, having a crucial unevenness, which is supposed to be eased gradually as time goes by, they say, but actually became more crucial 5 days later.
nevertheless, i love them.
especially with pretty blueberries shot on.
love is blind.

speaking about the recipe, i adopted the one from one of the most reliable cooks'.
i made mine with a half of the ingredients to serve 6 medium size pancakes for 2 people, used whole wheat pastry flour instead of white whole wheat flour and skipped the blueberry maple syrup but fold raw blueberries directly in the batter and sprinkled additional before serving.
also i cut the 1/3 cup sugar down to 2 tsp.
as i always love my baking goods to be slightly sweet, that's my way to make them with minimum amount of sugar and then put a bottle of honey or maple syrup on the side to taste.

please don't giggle at me about having used buttermilk for the first time.
i had known the name and how it's made, but i was just awkward to use that because i'd been a kinda vegan and eliminated all the dairy products for quite some time in the past years.
even after i decided to allow as minimum amount of them as possible to enter my diet, i prefer to use soy milk for my milk.
but this time, i obediently wanted to follow the original recipe which calls for buttermilk.
then i really liked the flavor and the smell of the pancakes with buttermilk.

tomorrow, it's saturday and there's still rest of buttermilk in the fridge.
i'm not sure if it's still consumable, but i'm hoping to have french toasts soaked in the buttermilk and eggs mixture for tomorrow breakfast.
and i'm thinking if there's another necessity of preparing a pack of polaroid film. :)

have a pretty weekend, girls and boys!

lingering regret

2010-08-18T07:57:00.009-06:00

(taken with nikon f on kodachrome 64)

hi.
yesterday i tried to finish film-scanning of the slide films which had taken in italy last may.
i had tried to do that some time ago, but wasn't able to complete.
then i left and neglected those for a long time.
the idea it's just not right for them to be laid aside like old postcards came to me suddenly yesterday.
and now, who doesn't suppose a today's topic is about italy, again!

after a trip, almost all episodes become pretty.
even though about unwelcome happenings at the time, we come to be able to make a bitter smile for them and welcome anyhow as time goes.
although it's supposed to go like that way, if there's something to be still regretted in my last trip around italy, that is the dinner at a chinese restaurant in florence.
a chinese restaurant in florence, italy!
silence.

ok, let me explain about this, a kind of unwelcome happening.

the first day in florence, my husband and i were still ok though we were terribly tired and under the weather.
but on the second day, after we made a short excursion to pisa (yeah, that pisa which is famous for the leaning tower.) and came back to florence again in the early evening, we didn't have any available energy to do the next activity.
so we spent our rest of the evening on staying at a hotel room and drinking wine with the window open.
then it started to rain.
we were sipping glasses of wine silently with staring tails of cold rain.
our body gradually started to get cold and our minds were caught by misery.
we were completely alienated from italy.

then one good idea (seemingly, at that time) hit us.
"let's go to a chinese restaurant!"

going to a chinese restaurant and spooning hot simple soup with an intimate flavor was believed to be the best idea we could reach.
we were tired, miserable, physically sick and homesick.
though we are not chinese, but our food has similar taste.
and we didn't want to get japanese food in italy because we can easily get that in our home anytime and had known that we usually get disgusted with the quality and the quantity of the content when we eat out for japanese food.
so, chinese food is in kind of between special and ordinal.
it seemed to be a good compromise.

the hot soup which was most wanted was soaked into our cold bodies.
it was more than delicious.
and at the same time, it was other than delicious, too.
though i don't exactly define what "delicious" means, i don't think it's too much to say that it wasn't something admirable.
we ordered two cups of crab soup for each.
but we unfortunately were able to neither find any fragments of genuine crab meat nor taste the flavor of the stock of it.
famous little imitation crab made up for its appearance.
oh, please don't take this the wrong way.
it was satisfying enough because it was mercifully hot, but just not admirable.
and the price tells everything, right?
our soup cost something around 3~4 euros per cup.

things went on kind of the same way all through the dinner.
everything was ok, but far from remarkable.
though it was, having been able to get espresso with a chinese style jello (杏仁豆腐) as a desert was rather impressive. (i'd never expected chinese restaurants are able to serve authentic espresso!)
and the waitress girl, who was seemingly a daughter of a chef or an owner of this family-run restaurant, was favorably diligent and kind.
i was impressed with the girl's linguistic ability; she spoke perfect english for us, though she spoke chinese with her family and served other customers in italian.
oh, other customers!
they were a 2 people party and the only customers other than us, and they were very impressive, too.
they were supposedly a same-gender-and-having-a-big-age-difference male couple.
the atmosphere which surrounded them made us guess they were not a dad and a son, brothers, friends and co-workers but a dating couple.
the young one looked happy after having been offered a small present from the old one, according to the commentary made by my husband, who was sitting facing toward them as i was against.

sun peacefully set underneath the day as if there had been nothing hard or curious.
we walked along the river with the subtly changing sky.

we were supposed to return to the restaurant which we had lunch the day before for our dinner this night.
we had planned that and had been looking forward to do so, then we changed our mind at the last minute.

i don't mean to speak ill of the chinese restaurant at all.
but i just regret that we chose it over the very impressive italian restaurant even though we were in florence, italy.
the chinese restaurant was just not impressive enough to make our stay in florence memorable.
or i could say it's already been memorable somehow.
i just have to wait for the memory of this night to become pretty someday. :)

i'm on the middle of a seesaw.

2010-08-17T11:13:00.005-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

hi.
i heard that today's high temperature is going to be quite close to 3 digits.
but now, it's not set in that condition,but still in the crisp and calm air of the morning.
and i'm deciding if i bake blueberry oat muffins or not.

sometimes a baking enthusiasm hits me suddenly, and i can't help baking something somehow once it sets on.
especially when ingredients are lying in the fridge or the pantry without any errands for them.

now i'm thinking of blueberry oat muffins.
i like blueberries and rolled oats.
and there are good amount of blueberries and rolled oats in the fridge and the pantry.
why not!!

but here's one big apprehension for doing that.
almost all the time after i eat baked goods, i have a nasty bloating problem.
mostly it comes with notorious water retention.
doesn't it sound disgusting?
yeah, it really is.
i'm not sure the exact reason for that, but there should be some agents which cause those problems on me in the ingredients.
i've already suspected flour and milk as both gluten allergy and lactose intolerance shows the symptoms of both.
but when i consume those separately, they don't affect me very much.
that's why i've been in trouble of persuading myself of a culprit.
and making things worst, i can't help baking in spite of this clueless state.

should i dissuade me from baking blueberry oat muffins?
or it should be allowed as an occasional pleasure? (i don't bake often at all, but very rarely.)
oh, i hear a tiny fairy is tweeting " you'd better to eat oatmeal" ......

the charms - the story of bread, vol.2

2010-08-16T10:01:00.007-06:00

(taken with nikon f on rdplll, the same other 2 below.)

hi.
how was your weekend?
i hope yours were good although mine was not that good at all.
well, nothing terrible happened, but just the matter of the mood.
i'm relieved having another peaceful monday today.

continuing the last post, today's topic is something about bread.
not solidly about bread, but around bread.

the top picture was taken in one rainy morning in last april.
i was about to eat my breakfast by myself in my mom's home in japan.
on that day, i got a new 2 digit number for my age, and i was not very glad about that.
not necessarily because i didn't think i need an additional year on my age, but the circumstance having surrounded me at that time was hard one.
mom was still in the hospital, her 4 year old chihuahua seemed to have been very nervous about new creatures who had started to nestle on the 2nd floor 4 days ago, in my room on the 2nd floor there are 3 fragile cats, who had been born seemingly a week ago and left mercilessly in a neighbor open land, and found and rescued by me, and it rained coldly.
i had been banging my head on what i could do for them before i left japan a week later.
and i was sitting before a toast with strawberry jam for my breakfast on my 30 and something-th birthday.
it was indescribably merciful.

my dad loved strawberry jam.
my mom loved it as well despite her bit more favor for orange marmalade.
and i have been crazy about strawberry jam straight through my life.
we shared a jar of strawberry jam.
the fragrant smell, the tartness and the sweetness of it connected us tight together as a family.
in this way, strawberry jam knocs me on the spot cuddled with a warm blanket whenever it's on my tongue.
having a lightly burnt toast with butter smeared and a good amount of strawberry jam spread is the most right thing, i thought, to have been done on a special day.
when i bit it, i was sure i was cerebrated though i was lonely.

i had a small bowl of home-made yogurt (as my mom has kept culturing her own yogurt, i wasn't able to root it up and kept doing that on behalf of her during her hospitalization) and apples with the toast.
and, this spoon.

when i was a child, mom spooned food into my mouth with very this spoon.
when i had to leave the home over the marriage, i decided to leave this spoon though i wanted to bring it with me.
i needed to leave something that can be my trace and welcome me back home whenever i make a visit once a year or two.

i was devastated on my last birthday, but i was happy enough with this pretty breakfast.
and the charms turned out to have worked great.
mom was released from the hospital in the evening on that day, two of three cats were successfully adopted one after another by kind people as a result of a keen advertising.
and last one should cuddle up to my mom's lap now. :)

p.s. i know that i've been often writing about my apart family and the reminiscence of it recently.
and that's true too much sentimentalism is something stinky and tasteless, isn't it?
but i appreciate if you are kind enough to allow me to have been.
next i'll write a more tasteful one, pinky swear. :))

we are bread people. - the story of bread, vol.1

2010-08-13T10:18:00.005-06:00

(taken with nikon f on tmy400, developed and printed by me, the same for the one below.)

hi.
i'm really impressed that i've kept posting here almost everyday recently.
blogging here has successfully been promoted to a daily routine!
or i may take this as a summer homework for now. ;P

btw, this morning i was thinking what i would eat for my breakfast.
i wasn't ready for it, though it was really a rare case for me.
because i'm a breakfast person (i even would believe in the god of breakfast, did ever exist), i usually am very ready by the time each morning begins.
but this morning was a rare exception.

as i had told you yesterday that i was going to have blueberry shake today for each my breakfast or lunch, i decided to have that for breakfast.
then that made me think about what i would have with it.
having a bagel with shake seemed to be a little bulky (though i eat a bagel almost every morning), and i was at a loss for a substitute.
while i was preparing a cup of darjeeling tea (another daily basis) and blueberry shake, my thought reached the idea of having a (or two) slice of toast.
i grabbed a slice of bread from a freezer and set directly it in a pop-up toaster. (my freezer has a good stock of some kinds of bread constantly. ;p)

when i gave a bite to a bit burnt toast, the crunchy and fragrant surface made me ponder how i have been fond of bread since a child.
yes, i was a bread girl.
and so am i as well now.

when i firstly recognized my food preference in my life (probably 3 or 4 years old?), my family's breakfast had already been bread and something.
and i have never expected my breakfast to be rice and something, which is quite typical in japan.
the type of bread changed one after another.
soft butter rolls, raisin bread, sugary pastries, crunchy toasts, and so on.
our family used to live in the same bag of bread.

that's why i eat bread for my breakfast even though i stay in japan as a little hiatus of the life in the u.s.

the top picture is of the bread i liked the best during the stay in japan in last april.
hard crust, very lean dough, pieces of walnuts and cheese kneaded in; perfectly artisan!
the picture below is of my mom and her favorite.
soft and elastic dough, lots of walnuts kneaded in, smell of milk and eggs; her never changing taste.

we still love to start our mornings with bread, and making fuss over bread through an international telephone call or skype is our pleasure, too. :))

so, today is friday, 13.
being afraid of something cursed, hope you all have a nice weekend. :))
i'll give a post of another story of bread next week.
see you.
xoxo.

another 2 pounds of blueberries

2010-08-12T10:12:00.005-06:00

(taken with contax rts on fuji superia 200)

hi.
i noticed that i've inclined to eat more berries this spring and summer.
it's a rare case for me.
i love fall and winter fruits, like figs, persimmons and apples the best of all fruits.
and when it's out of the season of those, i usually eat bananas.
so, i didn't think i liked the tartness of fruits very much.

i come up with idea for the reason why i'm in such mood (of liking berries).
maybe because my 1-year-old girl friend looked so pretty when she forgot herself with eating strawberries when she visited my home in the past early spring.
or maybe because my 63-year-old girl friend is always eating cheerios (one of cold cereals) and strawberries for her daily basis.
i kind of adored those inclinations toward something small and pretty, then berries stood as a candidate for me as well, i guess.
i've been buyin a pack of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries one after another as soon as one has gone.
and now, 2 pounds of blueberries are in my fridge. (needless to say, i've already eaten some.)

here's a small list of plans for blueberries.
1, weekend blueberry pancake breakfast (buttermilk is already waiting for its time in the fridge, though i usually don't buy any dairy milk.)
2, make blueberry shake for friday breakfast or lunch (with bananas and soy milk)
3, buy another 2 pounds, then zip and put it in a freezer (for the future pleasure)
4, take pictures of them on polaroid (the most must)

have pretty rest of weekdays!

p.s. fyi, i bought the embroidered cloth in the pic at a flea market in orvieto, italy on one sunny saturday in '09.

how i liked japanese food last april.

2010-08-11T11:15:00.002-06:00

(taken with nikon f on rdplll, same for all 6 photos below)

hi.
do you still remember that i told you on the past weekend that i would publish a long post sometime this week?
here's the one.
as i completed writing and saved it last week, the expression is kind of old now.
but i don't dare to amend that.
and i'm sorry that recent my post's topics fly here to there in the world.
yesterday from italy, and today from japan!

hi. (this was supposed to be said to you last friday.)
i've just come across a bunch of slide films i took when i was in japan last april.
i went back to japan by myself and stayed there for roughly 3 weeks to take care of my mom who got an operation with one of her knee.
because of the nature of the body part, i didn't have to be much nervous about that (i didn't think a bad knee would kill my mom), and that made me enjoy food life in japan!
lucky me. :))

as i've been proud of myself as a food fanatic (is this really honorable?), i seriously thought about the possibility of what, when and how much i could eat during the stay.
then, one day something merciless hit me badly, and i lost such my ambition for food.
well, i won't tell you about the incident which honorably overcame my appetite here.
anyway i enjoyed my food life in japan at least until then.

and today, i want to introduce 7 of my favorite food which i ate and took a pic of to you with some episode.

1 (top): hukashi-imo/ steamed japanese yum potatoes

this is a kind of snack or treat which we can easily prepare.
they are just steamed and cut into a bite size and sprinkled with pinch of sea salt ant roast and ground sesame.
i've loved this so much since a child.
on the day when i reached my home in japan, the thoughtful neighbor lady who my mom keeps in touch so close with brought these yum potatoes and something more to welcome me back.
the yum in the pic was the kind called as "naruto-kintoki", and this kind is famous for its golden color flesh and the sweetness as "kintoki" part of the name suggests.
another part "naruto" suggests its cropped area. (naruto is one part of tokushima prefecture.)
i love the simpleness and tastefulness of this food.

2: ann (anko)-toast/ a toast spread with sweet red been paste (the right one of the two)

i'm not sure if this is popular, but this formula is surely adopted from the sweet bread usually sold in convenience stores or supermarkets.
some people would like to have this with smearing a margarine before spreading red bean paste, or topping with whipped cream.
the red bean paste in this pic is not much paste like, and it has a lot of solid red beans in it.
it depends on how you cook your red bean paste or what brand's can of red bean paste you choose if you don't have time to prepare by yourself.
the one in the pic was canned, and i'm not sure the brand name as i incidentally found that lying in a pantry.
when i was about to spread the paste directly from the can, my mom warned me that it might not be sweet enough as she always simmer that with adding some more sugar.
but actually it was deadly sweet by itself and i doubted if my mom's taste bud really works!

3: ichigo/ strawberries

you don't need an explanation for this, do you?
yeah, simply strawberries.
but i want to say out loud, japanese strawberries are totally different from those of the u.s.!!
they are much smaller, juicier and sweeter!
to my surprise, every time i go back to japan, i find some new kinds of strawberries newly produced recently as a result of farmer's eager effort of hybridization.
sometimes they are enormously big, but still surprisingly sweet.
i guess that japanese strawberry makers are all mad at experiment. ;)

4: ichigo-daifuku/ japanese style cake with a strawberry
so you need an explanation this time, don't you?
"daifuku" (the last part of the name) tells the style of this cake.
as most of japanese traditional style cakes are so, this one is consist of the skin part and the filling part unexceptionally.
the skin, which is made from rice flour, is very elastic and stretchy.
the filling is usually red bean paste or white bean paste, either smooth or rough type.
this ichigo-daifuku is the seasonal special version of daifuku, and has a strawberry in its very center.
the ones in the pic was given to my mom and me from one of her friends when my mom was hospitalized.
i liked the combination of the sweetness of smooth white bean paste and the tartness of a strawberry.
the one thing we had to worry about was that this cake didn't last long.

oh, sorry for the ugly yellow line in this pic.
i don't know why i got that.
also i remember that my mom explanatorily put the red paper which the name of this cake is written right next to the cakes.
thanks mom, she's always cooperative to my photography!

5: hanami/ the party under cherry blossoms

it's not really the name of food, but of the event.
this is one of the traditional japanese event to cerebrate the arrival of spring and the beauty of cherry blossoms.
most japanese like this, and sometimes this event are made most of as an excuse for eating and drinking outside.
this event is not necessarily held in the daytime but at night also.

my mom and i found something prepared at a supermarket's deli corner, and had the event just after we visited the temple where my father's bone is held.
as the park we had the event in is next to the temple, we felt and talked as if my dad had been participating in the event though he is actually not in this world but in the heaven.
we were so glad to be able to do that, because my father used to love this pretty event when he was alive and we used to do this a lot.

6: sakura-mochi/ a japanese style cake with a pickled cherry blossom leaf

of all japanese traditional cakes, i like this one the most.
basically the formula of the cake is same as daifuku (4).
as for this one, skin part is more thick and have a texture of sticky rice as the recipe for this calls sticky rice or an expensive version of sticky rice (called as "domyoji-ko").
filling is either of smooth or rough style of red bean paste.
the most remarkable character of this cake is that the pickled cherry leaf wrapped the cake part up.
you can either eat or leave the leaf.
i do both depending on the toughness of the leaf. ( if it's softly edible enough, i eat it.)
the subtle balance of the saltiness of the leaves and the sweetness of the cake is so irresistible!!

oh, don't you think this is in a similar theory of the "dolmathes (stuffed grape leaves; one of famous greek food)" ?

7: soramame/ broad beans or fava beans

i ilke this very much!!
of all the pea and bean families, i love this the most.
so did my dad.
whenever i eat this, i can't help remember how he loved this.
i'd like to eat this with very light flavor of salt or soy sauce.
though i was simmering broad beans with slightly sweet soy sauce flavor soup in the pic, i also love to have this boiled lightly in salted hot water.

oh, it's a long post.
sorry for the kind readers who have been with me recently, and i so appreciate you all.
i didn't expect to write this long today, but i did after all.
because the topic is related to japan, i must have been excited.
and though i didn't mean to be nostalgic with my dad's remembrance, i utterly was.
as i live in the u.s. for ten years, most of japanese food are in the taste of memory...

hi, again :)
see, this is a too long post!
probably the first longest or so ever.
thank you for being with me!

this dinner; another way to enjoy the trip

2010-08-10T10:04:00.010-06:00

(taken with nikon f on kodachrome64, the same other 3 below.)

hi.
yesterday's post induces me to write something about the food affair i had in italy on another day.
i'm utterly in the mood of reminiscing, yearning and daydreaming of italy!!

yesterday i talked about an amazing ristorante i visited in florence, and today i want to introduce another pleasure of the food affair in matera.
matera is the famous cavernous city in south italy. (it's situated in basilicata region.)
my husband and i stayed two nights there at the very beginning of the trip in last may.
i think i'm very good at searching for nice and affordable hotels, and the hotel we stayed in matera was the another proof to tell how much i'm such.

hanging around the town with favorite cameras with keeping my eyes on restaurants for the night is fun.
or otherwise, being tired away from the hotel with some bulky plastic bags of wine bottles, packages of fresh veggies and fruits, some kinds of wedges of cheese and an artisan bread for the dinner party planned to be held at the balcony of the hotel is fun, too!

here's one example we had in matera.
we bought 3 pieces of different kinds of focaccias and a bag of taralli (famous southern italian ring-shaped crackers, i love these soooo much!) from a local bakery, two plastic bowls of salad, a package of cherry tomatoes and olives and two bottles of local wine from a grocery store.

dinner was ready at the balcony in front of the room.
though the weather was cloudy and mildly windy, and the temperature was a bit cold, i wanted to stay there as long as possible because of this panoramic view!

as our dinner party began rather early in the evening, i'm not sure if i stayed outside till this dark.
i wished if this had happened in the early summer and imagined of the smell and warmth of the air the summer would bring.

with this calm and serene surrounding, the night fell upon us.
we spent our time sipping the rest of wine, taking pictures and feeling that we are amidst of the vacation.
doesn't it sound pretty?

so, this dinner, which we often have in our trips, must be another way to enjoy the trip!

a miraculous victory

2010-08-09T08:08:00.007-06:00

(taken with nikon f on rdplll, other 2 below were the same.)
hi.
another monday and new week.

this morning i just came across some photos taken in italy last may.
whenever i look again a bunch of pictures taken during the past trips, my eyes are caught by ones related to food or cats.
today, i was caught by food ones.

today's pictures are from florence, italy.
when i visited there with my husband last may, we had a terrific lunch accidentaly.
the street was not busy, that's why we became returning customers at the hotel which is situated 2~3 next to this ristorante.

when we reached florence around noon after taking about-1-hour-train-trip from bologna, we were terribly tired. (because of the bad air quality of big cities, the cold and bad weathers and the literal tiredness.)
so were we, after we made check-in at the kind of intimate hotel, we went out for lunch which would be won effortlessly but still be something.
yeah, i always suppose that a terrific meal is supposed to be "won" after some kind of effort and research, especially the situation occurs in an unfamiliar place.
against my belief, we were unfortunately luck of energy in florence.
so, after we left the hotel we entered in the ristorante which was be able to be reached with only a few steps.

miraculously, we did win effortlessly!
everything here was more than ok; the elegant decoration inside, porchini risotto and house red wine, the friendly chefs and waitresses, and time flew so slowly and decently.
i was totally stunned with the risotto.
because i'm originally from japan where people mainly eat rice for their starch, and i was in florence on the 5th day of the trip and was eager to eat rice, especially in a way carefully cooked by a skilled chef and quickly brought from kitchen to my table in order to be eaten at the right temperature.
every my stern ideal was easily cleared at this ristorante!
bravo!!
i regretted again and again that we had passed by this ristorante last year.
now i know that if we visit florence again, we'll be returning customers of this ristorante!

lovely chefs at ristorante "nerone". :))
i'm sorry about the blur, but your kitchen was too challenging for a slow speed film! ;P

sunday morning without any plans of the day

2010-08-08T08:49:00.012-06:00

(taken with hasselblad 500c on portra 160nc)

hi.
it's calm and very quiet this morning.
as if the summer went away.

i had a plan to publish a long post, and actually have already written it the day before yesterday.
i just lost the chance to publish, and the weekend has come during my hesitatancy, then now.
it's too long to enjoy your own weekend, i thought.
i'll post that sometime coming weekdays.

with my cranky mood of these days, i don't have a very good morning today, either.
i'm afraid that all cheerful currents flow as if they are avoiding to involve me in.
oh, this is a very bad idea, i know.
i'm sorry about the complaint.

imagining i were alone with a homemade muffin under the faint natural light makes my feeling smooth in this calm and very quiet morning.(though the picture above was taken sometime ago.)
hope you enjoy your sunday or just have done.

p.s.
i've just rearranged the new header because i had felt a little uncomfortableness with the all red title letters.
it was overwhelming, wasn't it?
now i feel much better with a little red and more gray.
though there were two options of highlighting the "a" and the only one "t", or both of the "t", i went with the former option, as i always call this blog "at" and also want to avoid the coincidence with the famous american telephone company's name; "at&t". :)

tiny dangling pebbles

2010-08-05T09:30:00.007-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

hi.
i utterly feel summer recently probably in a different way from which people usually do.
my days are so constant for at least last 1 month.
and that constancy makes me feel summer.

as weather seldom changes, so does the temperature; hot with no exception.
and i don't have any more big plans for this summer.
because i'm not an outdoor person, i don't have much reason and purpose to go out bravely under deadly heat.
and also the air fare is outrageously high this summer and offers less chances.
all those factors compel me to spend my days in a same cycle.
it may sound like humdrum, and it actually is.
but that's not bad at all, at least for me for now.

for one thing, it gives me reminiscence of my elementary school days.
;got up early in the morning to participate in a group exercise held in a nighbor park ( you must've remembered the famous "ragio-taiso", japanese readers!), then had a simple breakfast with natural light and still cool air, struggled with a bunch of homework assigned for a summer vacation before the sun hit the top, after lunch sometimes went to a swimming pool in the school behind my home, played with friends, and so on.
for most of 40 days of summer vacation, i spent my days that weary way.
but i think i didn't complaint about that, because i must've thought that's the summer.

now i spent my days like that way after all 20 and some years.
i ridiculously feel the freshness about this under the influence of such a reminiscence.
now, i do a half an hour papers reading and writing something trifle in english instead of my homework once i used to do, go to the gym instead of participating in a group exercise, and breakfast with pretty sunlight and crisp air is an everlasting pleasure.

sometimes i noticed unchanged things in me, and i'm glad to have kept that still.
then, i'm assured how deeply and stubbornly i'm me.

in the top pic, there is one pairs of my ear rings i wore that day next to a white bowl.
it was taken just after i ate all up a bowl of coffee flavored jelly, which, i think, is the most tasty summer dessert.
while i was eating that, i was pleased with the color match of the jelly and the small pebbles dangling from ear rings.
and i thought how i've been fond of tiny twinkling things and dangling things since i was a child.

have happy rest of summer days!

raspberry dream (the special post dedicated to my husband)

2010-08-04T09:53:00.007-06:00

(taken with contax rts on rdplll)
hi.
today, i'm not feeling very well.
i strongly feel the need of some change for my life (everyday) because of the daily annoying noise made by the resident below my home.
as i live in an apartment, i understand that i should respect my neighbors, but at the same time, i expect my neighbors to do the same thing.
i'm fed up with the ugliest vibration, the excessively powerful bass sound and the disrespectful guy.
i may have to think about buying a home even though i think i'm not ready for doing that.

sorry about my complaint.
as i've been spending my day's under that uncomfy situation, i'm trying to think about something fun.
also, as i told you yesterday that i was thinking of something red at random without any major reason, today's topic is raspberry.
something fun about red raspberry.

a desert like sweet treat is in a top pic.
i don't admit that's a pretty desert.
i rather regard that an easily and carelessly made tiny sweet treat.
actually it was made from the rest of the ingredients which i used to make a cake for my friends this early summer.
pieces of edges of cocoa-flavored sponge soaked in a liqueur based syrup, whipped cream wearing kirsch (cherry liqueur) scent and raspberries were just assembled roughly in an antique ice-cream glass ware.
only favorite part is it's in one of my favorite antique ware, and i don't like rest parts of that.
i can say i dared to make a mountain high heap of cream because i had known that my husband would be pleased with that.
so, i didn't eat that, but did my husband.

(taken with contax rts on rdplll)
and, this pic.
he has a couple of strange hobbies, and one of those is this.
we call this "amerie-gokko" which is a japanese word and has meaning of "imitating amerie".
have you seen the film,"amerie"?
that's a french film released in some early 2000's.
one of strange habits of the girl (main character of the film, played by a pretty french actress; audrey tautou) is capping all the fingers with raspberries, then eating all up at a stretch.
he loves this, too.
he makes a mischievous smile on his face when some pints of raspberries show up before him.

before closing today's post, i have to say something little about the today's post title; "raspberry dream".
i think some of japanese do, but most of you don't know about the band whose name is "rebecca".
in our junior high school days, rebecca made some hits, and my husband was fond of them very much.
the title of one of their hit songs is "raspberry dream".
though now i feel the necessity of determining how raspberry play its roll in this song, it's still as pretty song as it was about 20 years after its hit.
my husband and i still listen to this song once in a while.

i want to dedicate today's post to him, who recently become a frequent reader of this blog. ;))

my red kettle

2010-08-03T09:26:00.004-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on 600 film)

hi.
though it's not hot yet this morning (actually a meteorologist in the morning news said that there will be another hot day today.), i'v been thinking about something red so far this morning.
there's no reason.
just something red came and went one after another.

so, my red kettle.
i want to pick that up for a today's blog topic because i'm now brewing coffee. (of course, hot water was boiled in the red kettle.)

the pic above was taken last winter.
the strange thing next to the kettle is so-called "yu-tampo" in japanese.
i don' t know the english name for this.
in case those who don't know about that, it is used to warm your feet and every your body parts up with hot water being poured and wrapped with some clothes up.
of course, i don't need that now.
i use that mostly in autumn and winter and early spring.
well, other than summer.
when i use yu-tampo, i need my red kettle.

in hot summer days, i only use the kettle when i brew coffee and tea.
as i prefer drinking hot drinks even in the middle of the summer, it is necessity.

one day, when i was about to brew coffee, i was waiting in my den for hot water to be ready in the kettle on the stove.
then something terrible happened.
i forgot about being about to brew coffee.
totally forgot about my red kettle on the stove!
i sadly noticed that when i came back to the kitchen.
all the hot water supposed to be inside had gone.
her (my red kettle's) arm were being melted.
you can see that in the top pic.
look at the very right and middle of the pic, see, it's melted.
it happened couple of years ago, and i don't remember exactly when.
poor my little red kettle.
i felt so sorry about my fault that i decided to keep her in my kitchen though her melted arm part is so ugly and sometimes the shape of the gross black lump scares me.

i don't know if i like red.
as it is, there are a red kettle and a red toaster (please see the 4th last post.) in my kitchen.
i definitely like red little accents on my clothes, shoes,papers, glasses, and so on.
all red is rare, but i don't dislike them at all.

as i told you that i've been thinking of something red this morning, i at first thought to write about other red thing than my red kettle.
but i chose that because i was so close to it when i started to write this post.
so, i'll write about another red thing today i missed next time.

dear my red kettle, (i know this is the first love letter after a long hiatus, and sorry about that.)
have you been recovered from your terrible burn already?
i have been felt so sorry for that.
have you accepted my apology?
i hope you feel better and intimate with me.
love,
tomily

it didn't make it like that way.

2010-08-02T08:06:00.003-06:00

(taken with nikon f on fuji superia 400)

hi.
August has just arrived, and i'm very happy that i 'm making the month's first post this early.
this must be a big credit for me this month.

i told you last friday that i was very excited with having a personal dinner party.
and i had that.
in the way i had not expected.
i kind of knew that sometimes something goes in that (unexpeceted) way.

i had a very simple meal under the fluorescent light in my small kitchen.
on a beige kitchen counter top, under the 2 a-yard-long fluorescent light bars not under an elegant chandelier i dreamt of.
how does it sound?
kind of pity, isn't it?

i wasn't really supposed to have a one-person dinner party under the chandelier which i posted last (actually it's from one of my most favorite cafes in town), but i was just in the mood of having a elegant dinner, like almost all elegant dinner parties are supposed to be held under the pretty chandelier, by myself because my husband wasn't home and i was off duty (fixing something good for him).
it was not bad, but not good, too.
it was just ok.
and i thought that this kind of personal dinner party is ok every once in a while, as i really don't know how to enjoy that freedom.
it was just awkward to indulge in.
all i did was that i imagined how he would say about this too much fibrous romain lettuce, how he would like the hard boiled egg put atop with cheese and baked on a curry flavored gratin, how he would enjoy cold beer with that hot dish for his dinner on the very last weekday, and so on.
i kept on imagining " how he would...." and ate mine at a kitchen counter under the fluorescent light with TV which aired local news.
again, it was not bad, but not good, too.

to tell the truth, i don't dislike the fluorescent light in my kitchen at all.
i rather find something congenial with that.
could you think of the light type in the kitchen hall beyond the big swinging doors all the backward of a fancy restraunt?
yes, fluorescent.
it has a nuance of being more close to food and being not a customer but a chef.
so, for one thing, i like that because i feel comfy under that light.
and second, eating at a kitchen counter under the fluorescent light makes me feel i'm engaging in something not formal.
for me, sitting at the dining table under the incandescent light which cast mild and polite brightness elegantly on the table is something formal.
i like eating something on a floor, on a sofa and at a kitchen counter.

so, in regard to the cause of unsuccessful one-person dinner party, what should be discussed here is not about a fluorescent light or a kitchen counter, but just a number of the attendants.

i think now you all understand why i told you that the party was not bad, but not good, too.

oh, i want to mention about the picture above.
it was taken last autumn, not this year.
figs are one of my most favorite fruits. ( in top picture, they were cut into slices of crescent moon shape and bedded on a bowl of plain yogurt.)
recently i found them at a co-op store in my town!
i hardly help putting them in my shopping basket, but i did somehow.
it looked not to be in a best season to be eaten yet.
i'm telling myself i should wait for a while till i'm going to be able to smell the scent of autumn in the air.
when is the time coming!!

i'm sorry that today's main topic and the photo don't match each other.
maybe i should've made two different posts for each topics.

have a nice start of the week!

today's dinner is ready under the chandelier.

2010-07-30T12:38:00.005-06:00

(taken with nikon f on kodak pro 160c)

hi.
today, i'm not going to say much about having been posting new posts everyday recently.
i'm just proud of myself for being a desirable blogger.
please don't tease me about this even if i quit to be after this post, kind readers!

today, i'm so thrilled with my dinner.
i have been dreaming for 3 nights what i'm going to eat tonight.
why am i thrilled so much?
because, tonight i'm going to have a dinner party whose attendant is only one person, me!
my husband is not going to participate in because he has an outdoor picnic party with his co-workers.

for some people, this may sound strange.
they probably don't understand me.
i know that, but i'm just happy to eat my dinner by myself.
because i can eat whatever and whenever i want.
i don't have to bother myself to try to fix something which is going to please the eaters (usually him and me).
every decision is on me!
what a freedom!!

as he and i seldom eat out for our dinner, that means i cook every single night.
i don't really cook with 100% of elaboration and imagination, they sometimes are very simple and easy.
but, everyday.
like people need saturday and sunday so that they feel like to work and enjoy that on coming monday, i just need those kind of rest for my cooking life.
could you understand me?

so, i feel as if today's personal dinner party would be held under the chandelier like a top picture.
very elegant and a bit decadent dinner party.
doesn't that sound cool?

i've already fixed something for the party.
i cooked eggs.
two hard boiled eggs.
i'll keep one for him for his tomorrow breakfast.
what else?
no, wait, wait!
so, this party's important part is here.
no plan, no preparation and no obligation!

have a great dinner for the celebration of the beginning of the weekend, guys!
i'll enjoy my party tonight, too. :))

where is my favorite bagel?

2010-07-29T11:54:00.006-06:00

(taken with sx-70 on polaroid 600)

hi.
i don't know if i should apologize this or not, but now i 'm unprecendentedly a frequent blogger ever since this place was opened.
and i'm kind of sorry for the people who are expecting me to update a new post every once in a while or rather once in a blue moon.

so, why am i doing this?
that's an easy question.
i'm ridiculously apprehensive of the number of the post listed under the archive on the side bar.
i sometimes failed but i've tried to keep to make the number of at least 3~4 for each months as possible as i can.
this month, i almost failed, but now i'm making up for at the last minute.
and although i don't know what i've been trying this for, and what this is going to bring me, i dare not to care about these question.
please allow me for this whimsical and ununderstandable attitude, and i hope you patiently keep up with my scattered posts.

well, let's talk about bagels.
as some of readers here have already known about it, i've been a big fan of bagels.
and there used be my most favorite bagels, but they are gone now.
they were baked at a super market next to my apartment ( how it was convenient!), but they changed their famous ( to me, at least) bagel's dough.
i'm sure this incident must be one of the biggest 10 news of the year for me, and i was crushed so hardly such way.
no more my most favorite bagels in the world.
that's sad.
simply saddest.

since that nightmare happened, i tried to accept this sadness in an adult like way ( if i had been allowed to do that, i must have cried and yelled and thrashed around from the biggest chagrin in front of the bakery corner of the super market in a childish way.).
i have kept searching for next my favorite bagels.
and so far, that research has not fruited.
i know that it's going to take some time, and i shouldn't be impatient, but it's really challenging.
if you have kindly read the second last post, you've already known that i kind of believe the power of breakfast.
and as my breakfast is always with a bagel, this situation is tough.
poor me.

well, i'm going to keep on doing this reserch (or i'd rather call this a "mission".).
sometime soon, i'll make a report about this.

thank you for having spared your time for me.
see you soon.

chao.

my red toaster was on a not my table one day.

2010-07-28T07:57:00.005-06:00

(taken with hasselblad 500c on rdp lll)

hi.
it's still cool.
as i learned yesterday that i shouldn't blog afternoon this season, i'm blogging early in the morning today.
the tempreature is something around 70 degrees, so it's pretty comfortable.

i said in the second last post after quite a long hiatus from the third last post that i haven't had anything remarkable so far this summer in regard to how i have been up to .
and now, i have to say that it haven't been really such.
not very exciting but kind of something fun, i had at the very beginning of this month.
i traveled around south utah by driving with my husband.
i spent 4 nights there after a dreadful long drive, and needless to say, i did the same dreadful thing on my way to home.

i had known that we would not have proper breakfast on an important beginning of a day during the trip, i dared to put my 5-year-old red toaster into our luggage secretly.
i don't know how my husband felt when he found this pretty toaster, which was supposed to be on our kitchen counter, in our luggage which laid over on a collapsible chair in a hotel room, i'm confident that he must have appreciated my strange idea when we bit crisply toasted bagel for our breakfast.

for me, the most important meal of the day is breakfast.
wherever, whenever and whatever breakfast.
you can describe me as " tomily's religion is something related to breakfast."
yes, i would believe in the god of breakfast, if it existed.
so i can't make little of breakfast even though i'm not at home.

well, i was so happy that i was able to have pretty breakfast in cheap hotel rooms each days of the trip like i have everyday at my home.
the only different thing from usual mornings was that he baked a bagel for me and him.
that was wonderful!!
i had known that i would be happier with that than we ate something well-made luckily at a local cafe or something unwanted at an affordable restaurant.
something usual but just a bit unusual is very good for me when i'm in a really unusual situation like a trip. :))

dear mr. red toaster,
i met you at a small but having quite a large variety kitchen gadget shop in a small pretty town in central idaho.
as soon as i recognized you at a shelf which a lot of electric kitchen tools are arranged, i noticed i would need you in my everyday life.
now, 5~6 years have past since then, and you're still young and lovely.
i just like your job and your looks.
thank you for having given me thousands of pretty mornings. :)

sincerely yours,
tomily

a delicious lunch at a simple table outside

2010-07-27T12:56:00.006-06:00

(taken with nikon f on kodachrome 64)

hi.
it's hot.
the hotness kind of i dislike; humid hottness is here.
i don't know if this weather reminded me of something i ate in italy last may or not, i was thinking of this simple food from a small pretty shop anyhow.
i didn't come up with the name of this at first, so i looked it up on web.
the clue for that was only first some letters of the name, pia.
the name of this food must be pia+something.

first, i tried "piandini".
i can't explain where i got this idea, but this sounds like italian, doesn't it?
unfortunately, it just hit few notes about starbucks' new menu of sometime of 2009.

then i thought about how italian name works.
the words which end with "i" mean the plural version of something, i think.
so, i typed "piandina" next ( the words which end with "a" are defined as single, well, i hope so ;) ), and searched.
bingo!
i got the right name!
yeah, it actually is "piadina" for its official name ( doesn't need "n" in the middle of the word), but thanks to the kindness of a nowaday's able advanced civillization, the google asked me " do you mean 'piadina' ? ".
i was not sure at that time, but i nodded hard with a high expectation.

all above is what happened this morning.

i might have rememberd what i wore when i ate this simple piadina.
this blue and white striped one-piece dress is the perfect image for cooling down my heated brain, i think.
or more possibly, i should've remembered how a cold bottled light beer, which i had with this piadina even though i had fairly high fever at that time, had tasted sooooo good.
today's hotness reminds me of this piadina like those ways.

piadina is very simple quick food. ( i'd rather use "quick" than "fast" because of a nuance "fast" has in regards to food.)
it's like a taco or a pita, something is sandwiched in between folded-in-half warmed thin flat bread.
mine had slices of fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes and rucola.
i was handed that being put in a transparent plastic bag and wrapped up with a paper, in case the water mozzarella would produce messed my hands and clothes up.
i was impressed with that small but big thoughtfulness.
my husband i ate our each own piadinas ( should i use "piadini" here? :)) at the simple table arranged outside the shop.
it was so tasty, healthy and italian!!

well, i found this tiny shop accidentally.
just after we reached arezzo, which is one of the famous towns of tuscany, and checked in at a hotel and left our heavy luggage, we went out for hanging around that pretty medieval town.
then we walked by this shop, but we passed through at first.
as it was almost the time for lunch, and my mostly reliable insight told me that the shop we passed through must have been somewhere i shouldn't have missed.
then we went back to the site, and entered in a still dark and quiet shop. ( it looked like just had opened that day.)
although there had been only one other customer than us, as we ate ours outside, some local residents started to go in and out busily.
i made sure that my instinct was right because of a delicious piadina itself and the population of the local patrons.

so now, i notice that i feel much hotter than when i started to write this story because of the heat my computer produced.
i'm pretty not sure what i wanted to do here this hot afternoon.

stay cool, friends!
i'll skip a love letter today, 'cause i want to be away from this heated computer asap. ;P

cherry

2010-07-23T08:12:00.007-06:00

(taken with polaroid 180 on blue film)

hi.
summer has been already here for a while.
i can't remember what i said about the season in the last post.
so, i'm admittedly a scattered blogger.
sorry, friends.

a lot of things happened since.
but nothing big at all.
time just passed by with some summer fruits.

i like white peaches, white nectarines, watermelons ( not eaten this summer yet, though), and so on.
of all pretty summer fruits, i especially like cherries in terms of linguistics.
how it is pronounced and the sweetness its pronunciation renders are beyond description.
"peach" is good at, too.
but "cherry" is the best.

and another point which is deserving special mention of cherries is that some of them appear as twins before me.
when i grab one small soft ball of cherry, its thin string sometimes pull another identical buddy.
i'm instantly pleased with that unexpected incident.
twin is iressistible, isn't it?
since i was a child, i have wished if i had been born as a twin.

well, which do you prefer rainier or black kinds?
the ones in the top picture are rainier which i bought second last this season.
i like their gradation of the color from pale yellow to vivid red.
i love the bold and kind of antique color of black ones, too.
so, i love both, and which i prefer depends on my mood.

one regrettable thing is here.
black cherries i bought last were not good.
disappointingly not good at all.
i have to make it up with next shopping of either cherries in my mood after sampling one or two.
i'm sure that sampling is necessity for buying good fruits. ( last time when i bought not-good-cherries, i skipped sampling.)

hope you have happy fruity summer :))

dear cherries,
you're such sweet that remind me of the dream of my childhood of being a twin.
i knew that i wasn't able to be anymore, but i wished.
hope you aren't been apart from your identical brothers or sisters.
love you.

sincerely,
tomily

a few good tendencies

2010-06-25T14:20:00.001-06:00

taken with polaroid180 on 664 film

hi, friends.
how've you been doing recently?
i'm sorry that i almost relapsed into a lazy blogger.
my mood swang a lot lately, and i've tried not to be cluttered.
just plenty of rest and careful concentration on everyday have been needed.

as i've been such, i thought that adopting some good changes or tendencis will probably help to hold me up both mentally and physically.
here's a small list of those taking place around the table recently.

1, cut down sugar as much as possible
2, add moderate spiciness
3, use plenty of vinegar especially for appetizers
4, consumption of warm drinks and food

i think i usually have had a rather healthy diet, but especially in this season, i need to adopt the way strengthened a bit.
and recently i found the article about ayurveda.
as i've been following the rule of ying and yang for a long time, ayurveda, new for me, have something drawing me because of its unique and original character.
i'm not a fad at all, but i just believe those natural rules or the way of engaging in my own life.
i strongly believed that food makes people.
i sometimes eat and drink in the way of living to eat, but have been hoping eating to live.

so now, i've been saying " see you later" to doughnuts. ;))
stay cool and vigorous, friends! :))

dear doughnuts,
you're pretty, but now's not the time for you.
could you wait patiently for me, please?
sincerely,
tomily

something about the table.

2010-06-16T08:03:00.000-06:00

taken with polaroid sx-70 on 600 film

here's the list of what i love around the table.

1, the table which is collecting light by the window is bringing brightness to the unlit room.

2, my cats are sitting on the chairs and peeking mischievously over the table. (and sniffing food as if they are determining whether it's delicious or not.)

3, taking pictures anything on the table. especially with my pretty polaroid cameras.

4, reading papers, writing something, spreading maps over for a next trip, listening to the radio, crocheting for coming winter and of course blogging.

5, lingering and chatting with my husband with sipping a cup of coffee after breakfast on weekends. in that situation all the family members ( 2 of us and 2 cats) are together around the table somehow.

6, many scratches my cats carved on. annoying but still lovely.

there're a lot of love around the table.
the table at home are weaving so many love for family, i believe. :))

enjoy your life with your table!

i provide you a catalogue of pretzels.

2010-06-10T10:37:00.000-06:00

note; this is a very private catalogue.

taken with nikon fe2 on portra 400nc

a bretzel i met at frankfurt airport, germany in last may. ( i noticed that germans call a bretzel but a pretzel.)
the one, which is the original and has a coarse salt sprinkles on the surface, in the picture was eaten by my husband, and i ate the different one, a raisin bretzel.
they were eaten just after we reached there for a transit to rome, italy from chicago, the u.s.
mine was soft like a raisin roll.
it was actually not my type, but i was so excited with the incident i ate a pretzel in the country of its origin and where it's called as a "bretzel".
i asked him to offer me a small bite of his original one.
i loved that.
loved that very much.
a big wave of envy and regret for having chosen a raisin one attacked me. ;P
i almost drowned before i reach our last destination, rome.

btw, isn't a cup of cappuccino so lovely?
it had a white heart on the surface and that made me feel a love for germany so much.

taken with nikon fe2 on lomography 100.

also eaten at frankfurt airport on my way back to the u.s. on the same trip as above.
i must've thought that i had to make up for my regret that i experienced above.
ok, i admit that i'm a kind of person who holds a grudge especially about food. ;P

taken with mamiya m645 on portra 160nc

i hope you remember this picture.
i've already talked about this pretzesl platter sometimes before. (about a month ago or so)
this is my most favorite one served at restaurants in the u.s.
brewery restaurants usually bake good pretzels.
so, this was served at one of my favorite brewery restaurants, 'bridgeport brewery" in portland, or.
they really do a good job on this pretzel platter.

taken with mamiya m645 on portra 400nc

there's an unique brew pub in portland, or.
my husband and i have loved that place for a long time since we used to live there.
whenever we visit portland, we go there.

what makes this brew pub unique and makes us feel love it?
i don't know where i should start with, but firstly there're a lot of tables and chairs here and there, both inside and outside.
workers there don't walk around the place to ask orders, but we walk to the long counter along which there are taps.
the menu was written on a big chalk board.
if you want, you can order some light and easy meal, but you don't have to.
after you got something you need, you sit at the table wherever you want and can stay as long as you want.
if you need another glass of beer, or start to feel hungry, you walk to the counter and make an order.
you can repeat that as many time as you want.
as the place has such free atmosphere, guys are playing a chess game at a table, a couple is chatting intimately at a table by the corner, a group whose member might or might not have known each other is playing darts, a family is having their casual dinner, a big group is having a party in the room which is located at the corner and has a door they can isolate the place from public.
outside, a lot of people who brought their lovely dogs are relaxed.
and all of them are doing that of course with sipping glasses of beer.
lovely place, isn't it?

oh, i just wanted to mention about a bowl of pretzels offered at this place for just a dollar or so.
eating pretzels with drinking beer especially at this cozy place is so much fun!

one more thing about this brew pub. (i know that i've talked too much about this place though i just wanted to introduce my favorite pretzels ;P)
as the name of the place is "lucky labrador", there're lots of pictures and information about lab inside, even their window has a stained glass which has an image of lab :), and outside you see lots of real labs here and there :))

i totally forgot to mention, their beer is soooo good as well as their place!

here's another favorite pretzel from portland, or.
pretzels in the top image came from the pretty old show case whose cracked glass makes it prettier in the bottom image. (oh, can you see pretzels in the bottom image? they're in bottom row, a second heap from left.)
i don't know if this german bakery, whose name is "fressen", has their own actual location somewhere in the town, but i think they basically sell their items at the famous portland farmer's market held in saturdays from early spring through late fall.
whenever i'm luckily in portland on saturday, i go to the market and visit this bakery the first.
they sell out their goods fairly fast, because,i guess, they don't bake and bring lots and many people know theirs are something.
the price is kind of pricy, but they're quite worth to be paid such.
i've been admiring this pretzel the most of all pretzels in the world.

taken with hasselblad 500c on polaroid 669, the image transferred on a piece of cloth

all of my family member including those who live in japan love this snack, chocolate coated pretzels.
and i myself really love to take pictures of them at the occasions i have them with tea or coffee around 3 or 4 o'clock by myself at home.
i love their good looking; a dark brown color and a chubby shape.
they always induce me to take photos again and again.
as a result, i have a lot of pictures taken with different cameras and films ;)

taken with some old camera, i forgot which camera i used, sorry.

fyi, there is a white version of chocolate coated pretzels.
the flavor is probably yogurt and has a bit tartness.
they are also pretty, although they're not as yummy as brown ones.

taken with olympus compact digital camera, i don't remember the name of this guy.

a very ugly and funny picture.
my husband was holding a chocolate pretzel at san francisco airport some time before.
he needed that during our trip going back to japan for a short stay.
a chocolate pretzel looks dusted with white particles in this picture because they were rubbed each other in a plastic bag packed tightly in my luggage.
that's ugly, isn't it?

what makes my husband love this snack soooo much is the subtle balance of the saltiness of pretzel and the sweetness of chocolate.
all family members testified for that.

taken with contax-rts on superia 400

some of you who have good instinct have already guessed right after seeing 2 pictures above, i bought some pretzels at frankfurt airport and brought them back and put them into freezer before i ate them 5~6 months later after the trip.
the reason why i kept them in the freezer for that long time is that i had been enjoying the existence of the real german bretzels there.
i had been so content with the fact they had been there.
do you think i'm crazy?
i'm afraid i'm crazy.

taken with hasselblad 500c on ilford 3200, developed and printed by me.

thank you, thank those who have seen and read all weird pictures and stories above.
this is the final one.
most weird and the most becoming picture at the end of the catalogue.
i took this very late at night when i was drinking a glass of wine with my husband at home.
i love to drink with pretzels.
it really goes well with both beer and wine.
but you have to be careful about dehydration. ;P
fyi, i prefer "rold gold" 's pretzels than "snyders" '. ( both are most major pretzel brands in the u.s..)

i'm not sure if this picture can be seen as a serious art work or just a joke, anyway i want to make an end for this project with this picture as a token of admiration for all kinds of pretzels i've loved till now.
love you, pretzels. ( please count all the today's pictures and words as a love letter to pretzels :)) )

i should've sat at my table to eat a burrito.

2010-06-07T13:10:00.000-06:00

taken with polaroid sx-70 on 600 film

yesterday, i had a terrible experience from having eaten a burrito.
my husband and i went to a mexican chain restaurant.
it's not exactly a restaurant because we order something at the counter and pay for it in advance, then we have to wait with a small box that notice you your order is ready when it lights.
but i'd rather call that a restaurant than a fast food store, because all the ingredients are fresh and our order are made just after we make an order. (not prepared before)
i went there for the first time.
i think that restaurant is pretty popular throughout the u.s., but it was really for the first time to go there for me.
even though i've lived in the u.s. for more than 10 years, my experience for dining in popular american restaurants/fast food chain stores is so poor.
when i count how many times i've been in popular dining places roughly, i think i can count that with only one hand for each places.
2~3 times for Mcdonalds, also 2~3 times for Taco Bell, never for Applebee's or .....
oh, it's so nonsense to try to recall these experience.
'cause i don't remember many names ;P

anyway, i went to some mexican place for lunch yesterday.
as i haven't known what they have on their menu, or how big one order is, i ordered something i can eat.
i ordered a burrito which contained shrimp, refried beens, rice, avocados, pico de gallo ( tomato, onion and chiles mixture).
i thought it's the healthiest choice in the menu.

after the small box lit, i got my order.
my husband had the same one as mine except one ingredients, not shrimp but lobster.
i was afraid that if i could eat up a whole burrito after on bite.
i noticed that the tortilla had a rich flavor ( i think the dough for the tortilla might contain generous amount of oil), and its size is huge even though the burrito itself is not that huge.
as i was afraid, once i reached to the fillings of shrimp, avocados, and so on, i felt i could manage somehow.
and i did manage that though it was tough. ;P

i finished my burrito just before noon.
to tell the truth, i was 150% full.
i felt so miserable and i kept on feeling like that for next 6~7 hours.
i've not been good at enjoying being full since i was a child.
i've preferred to be 70% or less full, and i even sometimes skipped my dinner.
feeling hungry has made me feel peaceful.

i ate a salad for my dinner yesterday, really somehow.
i felt that i could or should have skip dinner, but i needed something refreshes my mouth.
because i felt something wrong with the burrito i ate for lunch, i went to the website of the store, and checked the nutritional info after the dinner.

oh my gosh, it was terrible.
really, really terrible.
i felt more miserable to know how much damn calorie it had!!!
yeah, i had a slight hunch that something would be wrong if i ate a whole burrito up.
though i felt that way, still felt optimistic and expected nothing wrong would happen, then i made a damn effort to eat that up!
i was wrong.
i was totally wrong!!
i shouldn't have manage to eat all up anyhow!!
the number of the calorie was as huge as the tortilla!!!
i almost fainted when the giganormous number showed up on the bright screen of the lap top.

ok, that's enough.
i'd better forget the incident.
i went to the gym and ran for an hour on the treadmill this morning.
i hope that's going to make up some.
some for my weight.
some for my feeling.

well, i came across this picture from the pile of polaroids hours ago.
this is the picture of a home made greek style burrito i fixed some time before.
a table spoon of hummus smeared tortilla rolled up lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives and low-fat cottage cheese.
a small cup of coarse ground mustard is on the side.
i'm sure this is much much healthier than the one i had yesterday.
ok, that's enough, again.

today's love letter?
for whom? ;P

who is the queen around the table for a photographer?

2010-06-04T11:53:00.000-06:00

taken with mamiya rb67 on polaroid 664 film

i don't have much to say today.
so, which do you think is the best photogenic around the table?

i love taking pictures of these pretty nominees with a black and white film.
they are really worth being shot on that, aren't they?

have a wonderful weekend, friends!