Rainy Day

It's been raining since the morning here - I changed my plan of going to Garment District and worked at home instead. I had a lot of small, miscellaneous errands around the house and it was kind of a perfect day to tackle them.

Done cutting & labeling the bibs, too!

There are a lot to think about.

Feels good to ship some warm chai after getting some stuff done. 

I like rain sometimes.

Coconut Jellies

It's getting quite warm in NYC and I am starting to crave some cool deserts.

This coconut jelly I made a few month ago was a success and super-easy, too. If you have left over coconut milk from making Thai curry, and have milk, cream (optional), your choice of sugar, gelatin, you are ready to go. Just read the basic liquid-to-gelatin ratio on the gelatin box and you can figure it out.

After making the mixture, I poured it in a tray and later cut them into cubes, but you can use ramekins or jelly molds.

In the pictures, I topped them on sweet azuki bean puree. This combination makes it very Asian.

I need to make it soon again!

Newbies in my house

In the spring, I tend to get packages from my friends and family.

Partly because April was my birthday month.

And partly because that, where I am from, spring is significant - is more than arrival of warmer weather & spring showers. It is the start of a new cycle of life, both in nature and society. Japanese schools' and companies' old year ends in March and a new year starts in April with new students & freshly employed graduates, anxious and hopeful, under cherry blossoms.

Or I'm just fortunate to have good friends and family - anyway, is nice to greet the beautiful season with a few new things at home.

Japanese "tenugui" cotton towel with horsetail print.
My sister always gift me with new patterns she finds.

My grandma would sometimes cook horsetail shoots and
serve in the mixture of  soy sauce and fish broth.
It's a little bitter and is definitely taste of Japanese spring.

Tomato-colored food container by Thermos.

Now my stew is hot at my lunch at work
- without the help of the microwave. 

My sister's homemade strawberry juice concentrate.
Here is with sparkling water: strawberry soda.

And because we started composting at a local library,
my friend Amy sent this for my birthday.
A compost bin that you can freeze!

And of course, Amy filled the bin with her most delicious mint brownies!

Stay Strong, Boston.

It makes no sense.

I have so many memories of Boston and it is pretty sad that it had happened there involving innocent people. My good friend's husband was in the race, but he is okay and so as my other friends & their families.

I just hope things like this will never happen again.
We have so many other issues we need to deal with, than killing and hurting our own kind.

Blog Viewing Tip

It's been a while since Blogger introduced this "dynamic view", but I'm trying it out for the first time, hoping my readers will have easier access to my older posts & that some forgotten posts'll be rediscovered by those who are new to them.

Simply click on the viewing preferences on far left of the header bar.

Archives and categories are still on the right side of the blog; they'll pop up if you hover over them.

Hope you will find new photos/posts (which are old) you like!