St. Patrick's Day

Made corned beef & cabbages for St. Paddy's day. I also added potatoes, onions and carrots,too. Cooked 3 hours because...
セントパトリックスデイだったのでコーンビーフを作りました。お店で売ってる時にすでに塩漬けされてスパイスで漬け込まれているので、煮るだけ。ポテト、にんじん、玉ねぎ、キャベツを後から加え計3時間も煮込みました。というのも…

The meat was almost 4 lb!! This was the last corned beef at the store and I didn't have any other choices. お肉が2キロ近くもあったのです。お店で最後のひとつだったため、選択の余地がなかった。

It came out pretty good so don't mind having this for a few days. We can make corned beef sandwich with this!!!　でもおいしくできたので、2,3日続けて食べてもいいな。コーンビーフサンドイッチにしてもいいし!!!

Well, I don't have any green in these pictures so here is the green river in Chicago. Happy St. Paddy's day!　この日は皆、緑色の洋服を着たり緑のものを飾ってお祝いしますが、写真に緑がないので、有名なシカゴの緑の川の写真をどうぞ。この日のために川を緑色に染めるので、一日限りの光景です。

Rachel's karaoke birthday party

Made a lot of fresh chicken spring rolls and took them to....チキンの生春巻きを大量に作って持っていった先は…

Rachel's Karaoke Birthday Party!! It was a fun party. We sang, ate, danced, drunk and laughed a lot.　Rachelのお誕生日カラオケパーティー！歌って、踊って、食べて、飲んで、笑ってとても楽しいパーティーでした。

Rachel and I have been friends for long time. We used to work at the same company and even went to business trip to Japan together. We went through some hard time at work together and I am so glad to see that she looks very happy now. Rachelとは長いつきあいで、以前、同じ会社で働いていました。日本出張に一緒に行ったこともあるんです。その職場ではいろいろつらいこともありましたが、今、Rachelが（私も）とてもハッピーにしているのを見れてとてもうれしい。

I am singing Billy Joel's "Moving out" and "Girl just want to have fun" with other girls.
私はビリージョエルの”Moving out"、そして他の女の子と一緒に"Girl just want to have fun"を歌いました。

Dish Dash

We went to a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean, Dish Dash. It is very close to our place, maybe only 5 minutes walk.

We had...
Gambari: Marinated eggplant topped with grilled prawns in a traditional tomato coriander sauce..
M'shakaleh :Layers of mushrooms, grilled eggplant, cauliflower, tomatoes, and rice, served with a yogurt-tomato sauce.
M'Sakhan :Boneless chicken and carmalized onions, seasoned with almonds, sumac spice,wrapped and baked in a Tanour crust, served with saffaron-yogurt sauce.

and cooktail drinks and pita bread+sauce. We really liked this place!

Dish Dash
190 S Murphy Ave
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 774-1889
www.dishdash.net

Sakura:Cherry blossoms

This is a pillow case that I got in Paris last year. I couldn't find another one because it was on sale. It is useless as a pillow case for 2 people in the house hold but I liked this Sakura:Cherry blossom print too much so got it anyway. It had been in my closet for 10 months but I finally made use of it!! これは去年パリで買った枕カバー。セール品だったので最後の一枚で同じものが見つけられなかった。二人の家族でひとつの枕カバーでは役に立たないけれど、桜の模様がとても気にいったので、取り合えず買いました。それから10ヶ月の間たんすの中で眠っていたけど、ついに役に立つ日が来ました。

I disassembled and added my pink fabric and voila! Became two pillows. We cannot go back to Japan to see Sakura this year so we see some here on the couch. 解体して、ピンクの布を少し足して、ほら！クッションのできあがり。今年は桜を見に日本へ帰れないのでここのソファーの上で見ることにします。

Hina matsuri (Hina doll festival)

click pic to enlarge. 写真をクリックすると拡大します。

Hina matsuri dinner. From left top, vinegrated daikon and carrot, spinach sesame cream, Chirashi sushi, fruit jello, warm tofu in dashi + soy sauce. Hina matsuri meal usually has clam clear soup but I forgot to buy clams so no soup tonight. It is very hard to make perfect sushi rice. The ingredients of it are only steamed rice, rice vinegar, sugar, and salt but the balance of those are critical. I gave my tonight's sushi rice 60 points (out of 100) because the rice was a little too soft and needed more vinegar.
ひな祭りのお夕飯。左上より大根とにんじんの酢の物、ほうれん草の練りゴマソース、ちらし寿司、フルーツゼリー、温かいお豆腐にだしとお醤油をかけたもの。はまぐりを買い忘れたのでお決まりのはまぐりのお吸い物がない。それにしても完璧な寿司飯を作るのは難しい。お酢とお砂糖とお塩とちょっとのだしだけなのにこのバランスが微妙です。今夜の寿司飯は60点かなあ。ご飯がやわらかすぎたのとお酢が足りなかった。

My hina dolls are still happy on the book shelf but it is time to go back into the box, guys. People say that you are supposed to box them right after Hina doll festival which is tomorrow otherwise the girl owns the dolls cannot get married in her proper age. Well, I am already married so don't have to worry about that. On top of that, we are having rainy days for a few weeks so I want to box them when it is sunny because I don't want them to take moist into the box. 私のお雛様は本箱の上で楽しそうにしていますが、そろそろ箱に戻る時間。まあ結婚済みの私があわてる必要もないだろうし、ここ2週間降り続いてる雨を考えると湿気と一緒にしまいたくないから、晴れた日にやろうっと。