Waiting outside the market in Korea Town

Sequoia’s Winter Wonder

Woke up to our neighborhood blanketed in snow. Sequoia then proceeded with going bonkers.

Snow!

Just a lil, but it’s fluttering down like a little ticker-tape parade as I walk home

Thanks

Today I got to do what I like best: cook all day with my darling in our kitchen, with my dog by our feet, and spiked chai and mimosas always within reach. I loves me a Thanksgiving…especially like the one today.

Our day was modest and sweet. Get up, down some coffee and homemade muffins, before beginning a full-day of cooking. On the menu for today was beer bread made with a cherry stout, mashed potatoes with roasted garlic, roasted carrots with shallots, herb-crusted whole-roasted chicken and for dessert, chocolate Kalhua cake. Somebody say amen! Praises be to the Prickly Pear of Creation!

Outside, the air actually cooled down as the day progressed, a dark dreary haze holding tight to the city, threatening rain, but possibly our first snow.

But we stayed in mostly. Cookin’, drinkin’ and snackin’ throughout the morning and into the afternoon and on past dark. Cozy as cozy can be. And oh-so thankful.

Thanks to the Cosmic Cactus for luring us to our little adventure in the Midwest. Thanks to distant friends in Singapore, London and Finland. Thanks for the twins in San Francisco. Thanks for talented friends in Sacramento. And thanks for all our pals in the Bay Area who we think about every day.

Thanks for a dream-job come true, but thanks especially for a week off work. Thanks for time with my sweet pooch and thanks for long lazy nights with dearest Toku-chan. Thanks for a new kind of winter outside our home. And thanks for heat included in the rent!

Thanks for glowing achievements for my brother and his two sons. Thanks for long calls to my mom. Thanks for good news in Yasuura.

Thanks for streaming videos and TED conferences on demand! Thanks for my tiki bar. Thanks for pink mammoths on top my TV. Thanks to deer and gnomes everywhere. And thanks for FFFFound to keep me inspired.

And, of course, thanks for the burn on my palm from cooking today that can only be soothed by holding an ice-cold beer in my hand! Funny how things work out.

Sequoia’s One Year Anniversary!

Today marks one year since we brought our little four-legged child home to begin our happy life together. I remember the first day we met her at the Milpitas Humane Society. She was very frightened and peed on the floor submissively, just before falling into our laps where she charmed us to no end. One year later and she still likes her lap-time, but has really grown into a beautiful, if shy, sweetheart.

Thanks Sequoia for such a happy year of laughter, love and lots of disemboweled stuffed animals strewn about the room.

We love you!

Fall Colors

Fall hit for real this weekend. Sure, we’d already endured some cold days, but this was the real deal. The sky had turned to slate. The leaves were almost totally spent with most lying on the street in thick yellow mats. And the grim outline of winter was becoming unmistakable as harsh winds flew through the naked, dark branches along the Chicago River. It really feels like the snow isn’t far off now, an event we’re waiting for with excitement but also dread.

On Elk and Rice

Stopping into our neighborhood Vietnamese sandwich shop, we were surprised to see San Jose City Hall being used as a backdrop for the Vietnamese newscaster on the TV. But then again, why be surprised at all? California is definitely the Asian heart of the US…and this is surely true of Vietnamese Americans.

This all happened a day after yet another trying juggernaught to the periphery of Chicagoland just to buy rice. Well, Japanese rice. You see, in Chicago, apparently there are so few Japanese in the city that no Japanese supermarket is warranted except far afield in one of it’s distant suburbs…so far afield in fact that you can see a herd of elk that appear to have been surrounded by shopping centers and then turned into town mascots…thus the town of Elk Grove.

Anyway, this is either proof that all the Japanese in the region live only among the elk or a huge business opportunity is being missed.

Or put another way, it speaks to how desperate two Californians can get when faced with the prospect of making donburi with Korean rice…which lacks the stickiness you need in Japanese cooking.

Or put another way, such trips speak to the fact that Tokuko is a stickler for culinary purity and longs to hear the gentle staccato of her mother tongue on occasion which is about as common in Chicago as perfect weather. And it speaks to how much I’ve confirmed my brother-in-laws’ statement that I’m more Japanese than most Japanese. I’m not sure that my brash and opinionated nature matches that but I definitely like my mugi cha on demand.

Whatever the case, both of us are missing the Asian influence that was so common in the Bay Area. So, when we saw our neighborhood Vietnamese shop having to pipe in a South Bay vietnamese TV station, we took note and chuckled…with a twist of lemon.

Snow Watch

iPhone + gloves = FAIL
Rain + Cold = Snow?

Two Flats in Two Days, But Who’s Counting

Fall and 80 Degrees

The trees have started changing color! And then summer came back…That’s what we call a good excuse for a picnic.