Summer has come

I can't believe it is summer already. Summer started with my parent's visit and I didn't really have a moment to realize the fact spring is over. I took them to lots of places and that let me discover many things. How beautiful scenery is around here. How peaceful trees make me feel. The size of the sky and shapes of the clouds etc....

I don't have a green thumb. I call myself a "plant killer". But I am enjoying having a little garden and I got ambitious this year so I started growing Shiso which is basil like Japanese herb. When I was living in Japan 20 years ago, it was almost impossible to find fresh basil in even in Tokyo. Cooking books usually suggested to use shiso instead. Yet it is a lot different from basil. I associate the taste of shiso with traditional Japanese dishes so I am not a good candidate to describe the taste. However, shiso is nice with non-Japanese dishes, too. I particularly like to cook it with butter

It started to grow nice leaves, so I decided to make cold noodle with shiso for lunch.

*Ingredients*

1 Cup of water

1 1/2 Table spoon of Sugar

3 Table spoon of Soy sauce

1/2 Tea spoon of Salt

Crashed garlic

1 Table spoon of Fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 table spoon of Rice wine vinegar

1 Teaspoon of Sesame Oil

1 Japanese Eggplant

10 Cherry tomatoes

1 Scallion

3 Leaves of red shiso

3 Leaves of green shiso

5oz. of Somen Noodle

< 1 > Put water and sugar in a sauce pan and bring to boil, then take it out of heat. Put rest of the ingredients for the sauce and mix. Let it cool.

< 2 > Slice an eggplant and cook it in small amount of oil.

< 3 > Slice cherry tomatoes and scallion.

< 4 > Roll shiso leaves together and chop them to skinny strings.

< 5 > Boil Somen. Somen is very thin wheat noodle. Be careful not to over boil it. After it's boiled, run cold water until it's cool.

< 6 > Mix the vegetable and sauce with the noodle and serve.

Somen is very thin and white noodle. It can be found in Asian stores. I use Korean version of it and it tastes very good. Sometimes I saw "Soba" on a menu of Asian restaurant and I was served Somen. Soba is buckwheat noodle. Thin white noodle is Somen. Although this recipe would be nice with Soba noodle, too.

To me, shiso makes dishes very summer-like. Because it's summer herbs. Coupled with summer vegetable (or fruits?) such as an eggplant and tomatoes, it is very refreshing. 

I'd love to play with this herb more during summer.

Woven Shibori

I've tried to weave Woven Shibori for first time.  I was amazed at the idea of this weave.  I love traditional Japanese shibori fabric.  But I never thought you could weave the tread to resist dye into fabric.  I was very curious if this method or anything similar is known in Japan.  I asked the director at Shibori museum when I visited Kyoto, and he told me that there was similar method called "Taiten Shibori" which actually is mentioned in Catharine Ellis's "Woven Shibori" book.

How the fabric is folded after gathering the fabric is really interesting .  It reminded me of paper folding in a way.  The folds come to 2 sides of the fabric and I used different colors to dye it, and here it is.  It's very interesting looking.  I loved it!

So I realized it is very different from Japanese fabric Shibori technique.  You can use the thread to resist dye, but I found it more interesting to use the thread to make pattern for folding.

I made pillow cases with the fabric I weaved and dyed.  I love how the mathematical shibori pattern becomes organic after dying.  

Colors of spring.....  It seems like spring has already arrived, but it's cold today.

New Year in Japanese style

Happy New Year!

We celebrate New Year in Japanese style every year.  I've been doing it since I came to the US with my husband.  It became tradition to our family now.  We like the calmness of Japanese New Year.  I work in the kitchen practically all day on the New Year's Eve.  But I must do this.  It's like a renewal of my will to spend time and effort as much as needed to make something nice, to develop skills to make something that makes loved ones happy, to be creative, and so on.  

So it's a ritual that I have to go through every year.

Therefore, I couldn't leave my American husband and American daughter until the New Years day is over to visit my parents in Yokohama.  It's a kind of funny that I couldn't make it to have New Year day in Japan because I had to do Japanese New Year in East TN.

But I was able to catch the trail of Japanese New Year in Kyoto.

I wasn't expecting this, but those New Year arrangements are supposed to be displayed until 7th.  So I saw lots of beautiful arrangements.  My mother was surprised how sophisticated the arrangements in Kyoto were.  The style is different from Tokyo.

Kyoto is such a popular place and I almost feel ashamed to visit.  But I must admit that it's so beautiful.  Well, if you only saw the beautiful pictures of the traditional looking Kyoto and visit there, you will be surprised at how modern Kyoto is.  Less crowded than Tokyo, but still pretty crowded.  Some temples are too crowded to feel the tranquility, some are too busy with street vendors.  

But you can find the calmness somewhere.  A corner in a shrine, back street, temples that are far form the main part of the city, etc.

One of the biggest reason that I love visiting Kyoto is that everything is tasty there.  The restaurants in the station building, tiny noodle shop in the back street, vendors in a market, not to mention fancy traditional restaurants.

It is obvious that food are made with a great care.  It probably take long time and good ingredients to even make a broth for the base.  

It must be the culture and tradition in the old city.  I admire that so much.

My interest in Kyoto grew once I started to study Fiber Art.  I always loved Kimono fabric, but now I am interested in how they are made.  

I visited Shibori museum and Museum of Traditional Crafts.  I just love the craftsmanship that goes into the beautiful works.  The skill is unbelievable.  

But sadly, they are endangered.  Those products cost so much because of the intensive labor yet those traditional crafts are not part of modern westernized life.  So only handful of people can afford it.  It doesn't bring enough money to the craftsman to sustain their living.  Young people are not attracted to be one of them.

I've heard about that everywhere I went.  Even taxi driver was mentioning that.  It is sad but it is true. I wouldn't pay thousands of dollars for Kimono even it's beautiful because I don't need it.

Kyoto amazed me with its desire to create tasteful and beautiful things, and the skills and the amount of time that go behind the things they produce.  I always wished that I had born in the past to be a craftsman, but it's still going on there.  That makes me feel so happy.

Yet Kyoto left me feeling sad.  The tradition and skill is rapidly disappearing.

But I was inspired by it.  I will continue learn and incorporate the inspirations into my creation.

So visiting Kyoto was reassurance of my New Year hope.   I will try making this year meaningful.

Christmas Rainbow

We visited Florida for Christmas.  It was so warm!  It was pretty chilly last year, so we weren't expecting to swim in the pool but it was warm enough to do so.  I usually would think it's nice to feel warm air, but for Christmas, and the fact that I was not expecting the warmth, it was too much.  But we had a very nice time with family.

It was raining on the Christmas morning.  On and off.  I looked outside from the patio, and there was a rainbow!  It was not clear, but everybody came out to see it.  Then all of them expect my daughter and I left.  More we stood there and looked, it became clear and clear shaping a perfect half circle very vividly.  It was the best Christmas present ever.

I can't believe it's almost Christmas

We visited Florida for Thanksgiving.  I baked 4 different financiers to bring with us.  Pecan and chocolate chips, Almond and English tea, Almond and Green tea, Hazel nuts and chocolate....  Too bad I finished my green tea powder.  It really gave nice taste of green tea.  I must put that on the list of the things to buy in Japan.

Our dog Rosco had a great time playing with Mama's dog Layla.  They were such a perfect couple.  So cute together.

Thanksgiving in Florida was pretty warm.  With the sunshine coming through the big windows, it didn't feel a bit like Autumn.  The feast was great.  We had a fun with the family, definitely.  

I contemplated over going shopping on black Friday.  I decided to pass.  But I ended up going to an outlet mall in the afternoon.  It was not as crowded as I thought.  I guess experiencing real crowdedness in Tokyo and NY toughened up my tolerance for the crowd.  

It was a very short visit, but it was so nice as usual.  I am so glad we are close enough to do this.  8 hours of driving is not too bad considering the 16 hour drive we had to do from CT.

And this time, we didn't go home through Savannah, we went through Atlanta.  This gave us extra 2-3 hours of driving, yet, it was worth it.  I was able to shop in H-Mart which is Korean super market.  I haven't gone to serious Asian store for over a year.  I went literally crazy.  As soon as I saw the vegetable section full of vegetables that are not available in east TN, my well thought-out grocery list lost its meaning.  I just shopped as if I haven't had any food for a week.  

We were able to have very down to earth Japanese breakfast next morning.

Natto on brown rice.  Miso soup with seaweed and tofu which is not cut to 1/4 inch cubes like restaurants.  Japanese people would cut tofu to much bigger than that!  Korean tofu is so tasty.

Natto is one of the most difficult food for non Japanese to eat because of the strong aroma for fermentated food.  But J likes it.  Actually he loves it. It's also very healthy.  We bought so many packages of them...

The days go by so quickly after the holiday.  Every year, November and December were busiest time for me because of Nutcrackers.  Since we moved and I am so far away from my clients, I was not busy in this season last year, and I felt very sad.  But this year I am busy finishing up the first semester at the college.  

I am finishing the project for my weaving class.  I enjoyed weaving so much.  It is really nice not to use any machinery.  I am so glad to discover the craft I can enjoy besides sewing.

After this is done, I will have to be in the serious Christmas mode!

Halloween

Halloween was most fun when my daughter was young.  I made costumes for her ever year.  But now that she doesn't go trick or treating anymore, it is not too exciting, sadly.  We had lots of Halloween candies to give out.  But they didn't appeal to me.  I am not a big fun of Halloween candies even though I love sweets.  So I decided to bake chocolate financiers with hazel nuts.

The combination of chocolate and hazel nuts is inspired by Nutella, obviously.  I just make hazel nut powder with a grinder.  

It was really rich and tasty.

I realized that I had missed baking.  Now that I go to school, it is hard to find time to bake.  I love the quietness in the kitchen and I like moving slowly to savor every moment of baking.  But that kind of baking hadn't happened for long time.  So I enjoyed baking these financiers in the Saturday afternoon.

We curved the pumpkin in the last minute.  I love the devilish smile my daughter designed.

Fall

The time passes so quickly when you are busy.  After I started the school, it's been non-stop!  Studying for general study classes, producing projects for art class, finishing painting the rooms, taking care of family, and my minuscule Etsy business.....  

But I took a moment to enjoy the colors of fall leaves.  In the afternoon sunshine, they were so beautiful.  Walking in the quiet woods with red, yellow and orange, listening the wolves hauling (but they are in the cage in the main area of the park so we didn't need to be afraid), it was great fall afternoon.

The lilly leaves get red, too.  I didn't know that!  I love water lilies.   We need to go back there when it gets warm to see them blooming.  

Now that it is getting cold, the farmers market is getting smaller.  In a way, it's easy to find a spot to park, yet it's a little sad to see some venders go.  

But I found chestnuts.  That made me smile.  I love chestnuts.  My grandmother boiled them and cut half, and served them with a spoon.  But I decided to roast them in a oven.  

I was going to use them for sweets, but they were so good as is, so they were all disappeared before I could use them for baking.  Now I have a reason to go back to the market.  Next time, I'll get more.  I'll make chestnut puree.