What does this year hold in store?

Happy New Year everyone!

I took a break from making stuff - well, more of a break from making stuff I sell. I did quite a bit of making of the baking and cooking type, and of course, plenty of eating. LOTS of that. That combined with not playing taiko for 7 weeks has resulted in a rather mushy body with some areas that seem to move on their own. Jiggle, jiggle. I'll be getting back into shape quickly enough (I hope) with intensive practices for our upcoming concert and my own little home routine.

We continued our family New Year's (Oshogatsu) tradition over at my sister's new apartment, where she moved last August; I think she had New Year's at the back of her mind as part of her criteria for selecting a place - somewhere big enough to accommodate our sprawled out preparations, all the food, and our guests. It ended up being the perfect place - a great size and layout for a party. We had enough room for two buffet tables, so they actually look a little sparse in the photos - I think we could have completely filled the one table and it would have been nice. Images are all clickable to see them a little better. Sorry for the glaring plastic wrap!!!

On this table: sushi platters (maki, inari, nigiri, ones with caviar - don't know what you call those), peel and eat shrimp, kazunoko (more fish eggs), chashu (BBQ pork), kinpira gobo, red snapper (check out that curved body! That'll be another blog post on its own), tako.

Here: nishime, maguro, won tons, bean salad, fruit salad. The cows (ushi) standing ready for the year ahead...

The newest and least helpful member of the family, Sierra. Points for cuteness though.

Doug, slicing salmon for nigiri sushi.

The octopus, or tako, was actually cooked the night before. We had to get two this year, since they were so small (one three-pounder, one 4 pounder). Slow-cooked to perfection, Doug's tako is never rubbery - thanks to Uncle Yosh's recipe!

The inarizushi (seasoned fried tofu pouches stuffed with sushi rice) crew this year included, JF, Yukari (my friend who is a potter) and Yumi, a visitor from Japan. Yumi was a staff member with Kodo, the taiko drummers on Sado Island, where she is from.

Here I am rolling maki - I'd be fired if I was working in a restaurant for slowness and poor technique. I might get points for good ingredients.

New Year's celebration was wonderful, although we were missing some family members due to illness. The best of health to everyone!__________________________________________________

My craft show season was great, my best ever sales-wise, and I'm looking forward to a good year. I'm preparing my application right now for a summer art festival here in Montreal - not sure if I'll get in to that one (mostly fine arts, but around 30% of participants are artisans/craftspeople) but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway. I'll let you know how that goes when I get some news.

Will be cleaning up my studio (it's in a very scary state right now), taking inventory and trying out some new materials. Will also try to get my Etsy shop back into shape, since I've been a very bad shopkeeper. *whispering* Oh yeah, will try for a consistent blog too...