Kamite Sister's Latin Dance Party

Here are some pics of the event we attended the other evening.  The Kamite Sisters organized this "dance party" for all their dance students to perform what they've learned.  You can imagine the kids went bezerk with excitement.  We added 2 princesses to our 6 (not so princessy offspring) & ended up with a van load of 8 excited kids taking turns singing their school anthems at the top of their lungs, starving for snackies & desperate to know the real question we all want to know in life "ARE WE THERE YEEEEEET?"

 So yeah, we got there, & here's a few pics of how it went (stole some pics off of the Dancing Sister's blog, tx):

 

Hanging out in the dressing room, talking about important childhood issues no doubt.

Getting beautified!

Everyone including a super-dandy-coordinated-husband-of-friendliness-&-love learning some samba moves from the teachers. 

A terribly excited Hunter watching everyone dance

Ryan & Nattie

Laner & Keith

Drinking ungodly amounts of juice for which they paid for dearly by doing the famous "I-gotta-go-pee-dance" & I practiced my old faithful dance better known as "how-many-kids-can-you-ferry-to-the-bathroom-in-an-hour". 

Kids & their dance teachers.  Some suspiciously tired looking smiles there.  All in all it was a great memorable evening.  And just for future reference if all 8 kids ask you if you if they can take off their shoes & socks in the van after a long sweaty day of dancing around......JUST SAY NO!

And Goliath Said.......

"Who Will fight Meeeeeeeee?!"


When I say that I am assaulted by this one on a regular basis, I am not kidding. His sister slept with a stuffed dog last night, he had a plastic power drill & hammer.
God save us all --- Everyone!

Of foodies & such!!

Howdy ho! This weather has not been conducive to productivity, unless you count the work it takes to hunt down a fluffy blankie & make a warm drink to curl up on the couch & drink while watching old movies, so I've been putting off putting up something.

I've actually accumulated 5 new cookbooks in the last 2 month period & haven't even had time to go through them all.....just so many hours in the day & it's much to easy to just fly by the seat of your pants down the slippery slope of "daily bubble n' squeak" meals. I'd have to say about 99% of my cooking is just off the top of my head. Which seems a lot less like the magical improv & more & more like the bits of splintered broomstick that attack Mikey Mouse after he hacked them to death with the axe.

Well, here are some pics anyway of the little nibbles that did inspire me. Hope they make your rumbly in your tumbly this fine freezing day.

Heh....you got me, I'm a sellout. Had me a little snackie at the good old "bucks". I've always been a sucker for cinnamon rolls.
My offspring just about turned into collective "Popeyes" after eating this sauted spinach, an ungodly amount. I dare you, put this before a spinach hating whiner & see if they don't change their mind. The secret I will share: crumbled bacon, bacon drippings mixed with melted butter to saute it in. Salt & pepper. And if you don't live with a shroom hater like I do (cough-cough) then throw in a few of those too. Turn off the heat BEFORE it's fully wilted.

This was the one recipe I DID follow. I wanted to make a Chocolate mousse for a handsome French friend of ours who broke his poor arm. I found this recipe on the blog of the master of dessert, David Lebovitz. And he took to following none other than Julia Child's recipe for French Chocolate mousse, lemmie just say.......Oh-mai-Kyaaaaaaaaa! I loved it. Wish I used even darker chocolate though. This also turned out to be my excuse of a Valentines snackie for my DH. (I'm not much for Valentines Hooplah)
Oh, Brother! Double WOW!! My DH came home with these on Valentines day. He tried to pass it off as something he got for me. (heh, that lasted for about 5 seconds) A coworker of his gave them to him. When I saw the box & the perfect little squares I had a sneaking little suspicion that I was gonna be in taste bud Nirvana.
Kyaaaaaaa! There was one person that I wanted to share this with & that would be you, Elaina!

These little matcha dust covered matcha truffles turned out to be melty, bitter & sweet chunks of cacao butter induced love! In the middle of each of these squares were some little crunchy bits of popped mugi, and a plump azuki bean. I even lost my mind & cut up one into little bits & sprinkled it onto some Lady Borden Vanilla Ice Cream dancing on my tippie toes in my imaginary twinkly slippers. DOUBLE WIN!!!


Well, that's it fellas. I'm sorry if this blog has been a little dry & pathetic of late. Hope you'll forgive me. I'm on the threshhold of sending Mr. Travster to school & on the doorstep of my 4 year old Lefty Carmichael's insatiable desire to be educated at every possible opportunity. (How do you turn away a little girl crying over not being able to complete writing the alphabet cuz' she needs your "heeeeeeelp" when you're making dinner? Or begging you to give her a sponge & cleaning supplied so she can clean the toilet)

Not to mention my 2 year old is acting up again something awful. His great desire to be a somewhat deranged "tool weilding" meanie is really too much to bear at times. Do you remember that Richard Scary Dictionary with the little kitten named "Babykins" who walks around with a wrench or hammer all day long terrorizing his family.........this is the face of he!!

Yeah.....you can just tell from looking at him that he's a total bluffing evil door. So till I get things under a bit more control........Hope I'll be seeing you around these parts!

Sing with me now......"All is Vaaaaaniiiiityyyyyy"

Spring is around the corner.

Shed the drab & get on with the color.

-- In case you're wondering....I never went through that phase as a teenager where I slathered on make up of many colors so I'm comin' into my own now!!


Anyone into the nitty gritty. It's light green on the inner eye, light blue on the outer, liquid black liner along the lash line covered by a dark mossy green shadow. Light blue on the bottom. White on the upper brow.

Chicken Katsu

Now now, don't go stoning me....I'm not going to tell you how to make chicken katsu. But I have to say that the gigantic-ness of my success in making it last night was really just too good to not at least post a picture of.

I know it's a simple meal, I know it's deep fried, I know that people slather, tonkatsu sauce, mayo & what have you all over it but frankly I just didn't have the energy to be healthy. OK?

So what am I saying about chicken katsu? Well probably nothing you don't know but I'll say it anyway:

- Soak your chicken in a mixture of sake, shoyu & mirin for at least 2 hours ( I soaked mine for 8)

- Go through the pain of coating with FLOUR before egg & breadcrumbs. And if you want to practice fully letting your "control-freakish-ness" go, let your 2 & 4 year olds "help" you do this.

- SET your coated chicken for an hour or more in the fridge to let the crumbs adhere to the egg wash (ewww......I hate saying that, dreadful pictures arise) But this you MUST do! It'll keep the crust stuck beautifully to the chicken through the whole frying, handling, & cutting process.

And lastly of course........

KARASHI, or BUST!!!






Thank you my friends!!

MORE PICTURES: Filler Inners......just because

It's not that I don't want to tell you about my terribly routine days, as I'm sure you're dying to hear all about it, but as mother's (I've heard) often do, I've become inundated with everything "offspring" related. Everything from my 4 yr old's new found spiritual contemplations "Daddy, did God make himself??", to my 6 year old's increasingly alarming experimental behavior "What? I just thought if I stood on the laundry basket then hung over the edge of the balcony that I could see the kids come home from school". Not to mention I'm now juggling 4 days of kids attending school & 2 days of home-school. (Only leaving 1 day to Napoleon-ish drunken weeping regarding lost worlds & other dribble )

All that aside, the desire to hibernate has overtaken me & most of my kitchen related activity has been sparse & half-baked. I'm even drinking my coffee black now cuz' I just can't be bothered with all the extra add-on's. It's fantastic really.

Does that mean I'm packing up shop & moving on to elementary knitting? Hardly! I swear if you give me a partridge & a pear tree (or either, as you see fit) I'll spring to life again & scheme a mighty scheme to make wine poached pears & lemon, laurel & rosemary stuffed partridge baked in a parmasean bread dough crust. See.....it don't take much, I'm inspired already!

So, here are some more December pictures, in case you're bored tonight. Ciao for now! Gimmie a shout, all you silent foodie fans....I know you're hungry. Come by & bring something to add to dinner. Till then, observe more of my DECEMBER:

I spent Christmas dinner recooping. NEXT YEAR--- Elaina & Chala make dinner. So let it be written......Turkey & potato fritatta with micro-arugula & feta salad. (3nd best thing about Christmas left overs)2nd best thing about Christmas left overs: massive amounts of left over whip cream to slather on pretty much everything you come in contact with. In this case Tripple berry galette.
1st place for Christmas left over bonus. Chilli Turkey & bean soup with garlic toast fried crisp with turkey drippings for dipping.
Awww......one more shot of the turkey, if you please. If you make this for me, we may end up with a case of elopement, go ahead I dare you.

Cute turkey sanwich in potato buscuit, not a bad little lunchie-munchie. Kids love it.
about 4 gallons of brine for 2 turkeys for my pals at Noda. Cooked one in a convection oven & one in my electric oven. If you can believe it, the one in the electric was the winner of the night as far as being succlently juicy. Cracked & hauled all the kids to a breakfast buffet at Coco's. (if you didn't know already, I'm really not a fan of "tabehodais" at all)yeeeeeaah, see?
But I have to hand it to them, the crossants were fresh, flakey & buttery.

My sweetest 4 year old, gave me a wonderful break when she declared for her birthday "You know Mom, you don't have to decorate my cake with a picture, as long as it's a strawberry shortcake, it's OK" That was so great, that I'm not even slightly ashamed to say this was my very first "typical Japanese" strawberry shortcake. I could barely eat one small piece. Good God! Sorry, this is NOT the cake for me.

Not the best pic, but I totally "winged it" for Mr. McNair's birthday. He wanted a "cream-based" pie. So I made this: "White chocolate, egg-nog spiked pie, with whipped cream & caramel sauce"
I was pretty tickled with the result. The white choco doubled the creaminess of an already lush custard pie with both fresh vanilla beans & freshly grated nutmeg & cloves, the alcohol was brandy & rum, wanted to give it enough of a taste.

That's it for pics, ppl. HUGS & LOVE, eat hearty!

Christmas Day pics 2#

Happy 2010 to youes!

I've been off my computer for awhile now & been busy with "winter break" and all it entails. If you have kids you know this means that at the end of it all I can say with St. Paul the appostle, "And though I bestow all my time to go ice-skating, visiting, sleepover-ing, kite-flying, arcade gaming, stay up late making obentos & special snackies, ----- and have not done even ONE item of laundry or cleaning ------ I am nothing short of a large pile of denial.

And just for good measure I'll have you know that I have pronounced my good friend & uber-huge-footed friend Mark to be a regular "saver of my bakery"!! My DH & I had 48 hours of child free hanging out. Grabbed a hotel room in our old haunts and had a fabulous time doing as little as humanly possible.

We came home to a pristinly clean house & only one child with a self-inflicted black eye..."WHO? ME??"

Yeah, you know it.

So anyway, great times. But now I'm getting back into the game! And if you must know, I'm checking out my newly acquired massivonious of an ass the size of a small prefecture and alarmed -- not at the size of it.....but the fact that I'm instead focusing on the fact that there must be people who find big butts attractive.......right? Sadly the only thing that ever motivated me to exercise in life has been the proscpect of grunting forth spawn otherwise I counted upon my alien-like metabolism to take care of the rest. Gotta get some answers!

Well, lets do those pics already, Huh? Can't promise when I'll actually get around to posting about food again. So love & hugs to you till next time. Ciao!

Notice I was not invited to the party of pretty ladies pictures. I was excommed for my habitual foolish faces to the kitchen forever!
Now that's a Purrty Mama!

Waitin' for prezzies after one too many tootsie rolls for one child apparently.
Girls getting a typing game from Auntie Nina!
Ban IS the man!
Pictionary is SERIOUS business and the persons you want on your team are Nina & Mas!
Ah, yes I did some cooking too!

To Christmas & Back again.....

Everyone's blogs are viral with pictures of Christmas so I thought I ought to get in the act. My whole family (minus one Krumping brother) came to visit and when I was handed a slew of photos on my hard drive at the end of it all. I had to vow to a) never post another picture taken with my camera & b) get myself a decent camera.

It's a wonder you've looked at any of these photos of food. It's akin to someone making a really really BAAAAD movie trailer and expecting anyone to be interested in watching the movie.

Last night I made 2 turkeys, gravy & stuffing for my friends in Noda....was definitely feeling under the weather & am now wrapped in blankies drinking turkey soup to nurse me back to sanity. (Not likely)

Well....here are some pics. I'll probably put up a few batches I'm just too fond of the photography & camera. Food pics first, family next!

Stuffing it with......stuff!! Can you see the slab of butter under his skin?
seducing my sisters' taste buds with tomato, micro arugula, EV olive oil, balsamico & flur de sel. They will never be the same!!
The 2nd stage of peppermint meringues.Fruity mess for my Rustic excuse of a gallette!But that buttery crust was a dream, baby!! Aww---ka-POW!!!
molasses spice cookies, peanutbutter cookies, & iced cardamom sugar cookies


That's it for now. Gotta go & be sick now, catch you later!

Eggnog Latte.....and that's what it's all about.

The best thing about hosting an eggnog/cookie party for all your friends & their kiddos is.......
Eggnog latte in the morning, when all your kids are coming off of their cookie sugar high. This was premium eggnogg folksies. I'm not trying to brag here but seriously the custard was perfect in it's own right with vanilla beans speckling it with it's stamp of approval. I finally got my hands on nutmeg seeds to grate directly onto each portion. And a certain smart guest showed up and plunked down a tumbler on my kitchen counter when he walked in the door. "Merry Christmas, would you mind if I took some home with me?"

Needless to say, Eggnog was spilled, cookies were munched, prezzies were exchanged & it was a great noisy time!

I finally played around with icing sugar & did some of my cardamom sugar cookies with deco. I quickly found that I have the patience of a squirrel on Red Bull and raced through them uncerimoniously. Maybe I'll have the kids do them next year.
Hunter was trying to use the ice-cream scoop to scoop out my last bit of sanity.
Ah....Bruschetta for my husband who did indeed let me take off to Chiba. What a swell fellow he is. But then he's the one who got a plateful of these babies on his desk. I made these of prosciutto, tomatoes, baby arugula, EV olive oil, balsamico vinegar & grey sea salt.


Hope your Christmas cooking is turning out.......and remember when you're in a jam.......BUTTER WILL FIX IT!!

PS. Since I know this is coming, just wanna say, if you call me on Christmas with a foodie question........pretend like you called me to say Merry Christmas first & I'll be happy to help in whatever way I can.

I'm Alive.....again.......

Somehow I was under the mistaken impression that celebrating my recovery from the H1N1 meant that I had gotten it......but NO!! It just meant that I was so exhausted from my kids being up all hours of the night for 2 weeks that I thought I had it & consequently got ridiculously sick after drinking 2 delicious hot buttered rum drinks at midday. (which BTW made for a very cheerful sedated day) so..........NOW, I'm better and thanks to my terribly capable & good looking husband I got a day & 1/2 off to go visit w/ my fam & silly sisters in Chiba (aka, home sweet home). Where I completed my Christmas cooking shopping with, molasses, fresh cardamom, poppy seeds, cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, and of course a huge bar of white chocolate for cookies.

Thanks to a viewing of "Julia & Julie" I'm trying to inject some inspiration into my Christmas cooking. ("Get the AED out.......CLEAR.......Zaaaaap!! I'm getting nothing.......turn it up to 400w, CLEAR...................ZZZZAAAP!!"). I'm all jacked up on double shots of espresso in my coffee so today I'm gonna tackle Christmas cookies & menus for Christmas dinner & the two turkeys & stuffing I'm putting together for friends who are mourning the loss of their oven.

Here's a few pics from Chiba.

It's tiring being the sister of a actor, those damn paparazzi can find you anywhere.
There they were stalking out the Uchibo line.

Amy getting heavy handed with'm. The price we pay for fame!! Sigh!

Chala needs some Christmas cheer.
Midnight Cowboy hamburger at Village Vanguard in Parco.........I'm making a plug for them. Best darn burgers in Chiba!