Thing-a-day.com

My favourite Japanese dessert: Matcha Parfait (green tea ice cream, cereal underneath, azuki beans and mochi balls called ’shiratama’).

Got thrilled to find Haagen-Dazs Green Tea flavour Limited Edition at a supermarket. I have once written to them that they should make green tea ice cream or import from JP many years ago. I got a reply that said ‘we will consider it in the near future’ or something like that. It took them 9 years!

I actually prefer a local Snoqualmie one as you can really enjoy the taste of tea.

I’ve been very lax about posting this week. I blame my boyfriend completely. I take absolutely no responsibility. Really, it’s his fault, he’s the one that kept turning on Law & Order…..But regardless, I have been doing stuff, and here it is….

more of my alphabet, letters C and E (C was a bitch, I HATE little tiny circles!) I skipped D because it was another complicated pattern and I didn’t really have time for it. Hopefully I’ll get to it this weekend…..but other factors may prevent me from being too active in crafting for the rest of the month (godDAMN my landlord! I hate moving!)

Dessert for Valentine’s dinner made a day early. Based on Bakerella’s red velvet cake balls. My supermarket didn’t have red velvet cake mix, so I used strawberry. Note to self: never try to make a dessert involving small balls of something rolled in molten chocolate again, it’s just a pain in the butt (but oh-so delicious!)

Here’s the Valentine’s card that I made for my boyfriend. It’s hard to tell in this pic, but the words love are backed with red paper, the rest of the text is a dark brown, and the kisses are silver:

And my final thing for this week was cooking Valentine’s dinner. I didn’t get any pictures of it before we ate, but my boyfriend did. Now all I have to do is try to pry the pictures out of his DSLR-baby. Now, where did my butterknife go, I wonder……

That is what it means this Italian dessert Tiramisu.

When in Rome, I didn’t see it at bars (cafes in our culture) and restaurants like in the US.

Asked my Italian friend, he said, that was what they made and ate at home, as this used be dessert for hookers.

Ah, that is why.

I haven’t done anything about my job-hunting today.

Thinking about contacting this man whom I worked with for an informative interview, as he has a great network source.

One more day to survive, then I have Monday off from work. I have many plans to reduce stress and reward myself for surviving during this hard time.

Poco a poco.

Alright.. day 6 was kind of a throw away.  Copious amounts of school and tired left me looking to the closest thing for inspiration- Margaret, that jerk:

in pencil:

in conte (it won’t let me thumbnail all of a sudden):

a tuna salad with fixins:

and a homemade ice cream sandwich (this was technically thrown together yesterday to freeze up and devoured today right in margaret’s face):

 When I am down, what helps me survive: SWEETS!

This is called ‘Ichigo Daifuku.’

Mochi (rice cake), sweet azuki beans and a strawberry inside. I sprinkled a bit of matcha on top.

Tea is becoming popular in coffee mecca Seattle. I hope wagashi (Japanese sweets)  will be introduced soon.

Heard from the friend who works for Japanese community paper.

The option to write on online-dating is out. OK.

He said though they always wanted someone who could write a funny essay, which I might try.

The next immediate step is to talk to my counselor on what I REALLY want to do about my career. I have made an appointment with her on Mon.

I was bummed out, so went to my favourite bakery in West Seattle and had these goodies with a good friend of mine who lent an ear to me.

Tea, sweets and girls’ talk always help.

One thing at a time. 

For day one of Thing-a-Day which for me was yesterday (just realized now that in fact, today is the 1st), I attempted my first apple pie. The challenge was the pie crust which I have never tried to make before and have heard that there is an art to it (reasons for the non-existence of previous attempts). To further the pie crust challenge, I replaced half portion of all-purpose flour with kamut flour to offset the unhealthy organic amount of saturated fat (1 cup of butter). I used the pie crust recipe from SimplyRecipes.com, my trusted source of all things delicious. Their recipe comes with tips and pictures. I couldn’t fail! Oh, but wait, the kamut flour …. how was kamut going to change the science and thus, the art of pie crust making. I did some thinking and also some web searching and decided to just do-and-learn. So off I went to make the pie and indeed a pie was made. How did the crust turn out? A little flaky, overly buttery, but otherwise edible and tasty.  In the future, I would use less butter, keep the kamut and possibly add olive oil.