Family BBQ!

Here are some pics from a barbecue my nephew hosted earlier this week when my nieces drove into town from Ontario. Thanks for hosting and cooking, Phil, Janice and Allison- it was delish! Oh yeah, and Granny and Granpa for the yummy dessert!

Phil bbq-ing the chicken that Allison and Janice marinated.

Chowing down on the balcony...

... moved inside for dessert.

Phil, Janice and Allison with Granny and Granpa. Sierra the Boston terrier is Allison's little girl. Thank you Granpa, for the excellent photos!

Now for some older pics of three "kids" above, taken around 20 years ago. Here's Allison dancing with her Bachan (grandma in Japanese), my mom.

And here are Janice and Phil playing with Bachan... or Janice and Phil watching Bachan play (^_^).
Happy week-end everyone!

For my siblings out west...

Preparing a fish might not be too exciting for you all, but this one is really a beaut! This post is for Nancy, Mike and Ron, my siblings who live out in western Canada, and do not get to see our New Year's feast... We got an absolutely gorgeous red snapper this year from our favourite (and only) place to buy all our New Year's fish and seafood, United Seafood .

My brother, Doug, got to work on it when we got home, propping up the tail and head to give it a nice arch; he also holds the fins and mouth open with toothpicks.

Below, it's ready for the oven.

Above, he is out of the oven and cooked. If I was 8, I would have played with the eye once it was plucked out; would've scraped off the outer soft coating to reveal a transluscent bead-like centre. But alas, I digress, and I am not 8 years old...

And here he is on our New Year's Day table!

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...

Bad habits and a list of food

I'm feeling like this is going to be a productive day. Well, I have no choice really.

It's 10am, got my second coffee sitting in my good friend, the French press. Just got back from doing some work for a community newspaper that I volunteer on - wanted to get it done early so I still have full day to work. I feel like there's a flame at my heels today since it was only yesterday that I really got into gear again for my next sales, which start tomorrow. What is it that makes me act like a meatloaf on some days and a whirlwind on others, when I could just spread the work out evenly and have a normal work week like everyone else? I think I'm a freak.

Anyway, it IS going to be a productive day. Got some more pendants to varnish, some jewellery to assemble and cards to finish up. I'll be setting up early tomorrow morning at CBC / Radio Canada (Canadian Broadcasing Corporation, kinda like the BBC in the UK); looking forward to that one! It's a nice building too and they have a decent cafeteria - although I usually bring a lunch to sales events, I'm always concerned about having good coffee and a good snack.

My brother, Doug, and sister-in-law, Karen, were in town this past weekend to see a play that their son, my nephew Phillip, did the costume and set design for. He's studying at Concordia University here in Montreal. The show was great, the costumes were amazing (woo hoo Phil!), as were the actors. I'm always amazed at young theatre folk, as the acting (and singing in this case too) just comes so naturally. Where can I get me some of that talent?

We all went to my sister, Pat's for brunch on Sunday morning. My other sister Nancy, remarked in an email last night, that I'm like my mom in that I like to list what foods are at any gathering and comment on them. Cannot deny it. I like to eat, I like to look at food, talk about it and take pictures of it. It's all true. I didn't have my camera on Sunday but thank goodness Karen had hers (yay!). So here are the boys looking a little odd, that's Doug in the Habs' cap (he always wears a cap), Phillip in purple and JF saying "cheese"...

And here was brunch (Nancy, my sistah, this list is for you):

• lovely fruit platter - that pineapple was crazy good
• clementines (yay, it's clementine season again!)
• a delightful and mild camembert from the monastery in St-Benoit du Lac
• chocolate chip muffins (fresh from Pat's oven)
• whole wheat bread (fresh from our bread machine)
• the BEST bagels in the world HANDS DOWN - Montreal bagels (why are they the best, you ask? the secret is in the Romanian Jewish recipe that you apparently don't find in other cities. ). These are not buns with barely a hole in the middle, THESE are the real thing.
• cream cheese, to sit on the bagels of course
• smoked salmon, to keep the cream cheese company of course.

Now for some randomness... This terribly unflattering photo supports a theory: apparently, our armspans are supposed to be kind of equal to our height. So I wanted to test this, and Phillip measured me on the tiles. I guess I'm kind of proportionate despite my very short legs.

Ok, will get to work now. On my way home this morning, picked up an almond croissant from the Italian bakery around the corner and will have half with my coffee that is now very strong since it's been sitting in there for 15 minutes! The other half will accompany my afternoon coffee. Aaaah, the ever so temporary joy of sugar and caffeine.

Week-end eating!

Monday, phew...!

Seems like it was a busy week-end for lots of bloggers out there - mine was jam-packed, and involved lots of eats from some of Montreal's best restos!

Saturday lunch/dinner: Indian food from Indian Curry House in Montreal, where our taiko group often eats after performances. Toronto taiko group, Nagata Shachu, were our guests since they were in town for two shows. Director Gary Kiyoshi Nagata is an amazing taiko player (the best in Canada!) and teacher who we are fortunate to call our friend. Their show was stellar, to say the least.

Sunday lunch: Beautiful Japanese bento style meal at Sakura, for a volunteer appreciation gathering of a community newspaper that I volunteer on. Crap, I should have taken a photo!

Sunday dinner: My sister has turned us all onto Roberto's lasagna since she started ordering it in the humungous family format size years ago. The homemade pasta and simple tomato sauce is the best. The pan is so big, we always get to bring some home (^_^), so no need to even think about dinner tonight!

Sunday evening was a perfect evening, with dinner at my sister's, and my brother Ron in town overnight on a stopover on his way to a meeting on Canada's maritime coast; my nephew Phillip made it too since he actually had a free evening from his university studies (we'll be going to see a play he is working on (costume and set design) in a couple of weeks. Here we all are: Pats, me, Ron, Amy, Phillip, Sarah, JF (our cousin, Judy, had already left).

A bit of everything...

Just received some flyers in the mail for an upcoming show - you can see one of my necklaces on the cover, second from the bottom, yay! This show is at a private high school here in Montreal; I did it for the first time last year and it was a really good one for me, so I'm really looking forward to it again this year. I had a few great trades with other sellers too, which is always fun!


Lots of new pieces being created in my wee little studio... This one is up in my shop:

It's October 29th, and we woke up to a dusting of snow this morning. Aaack!
I remember many times as a kid, having to wear my ski jacket under my Halloween costume... it's supposed to be much warmer this Friday though, for the trick or treaters :)

To warm ourselves up, a fall favourite: butternut squash soup, well, more of a potage. Turned out yummy, although I went a little heavy on the pepper.

Whew - the eating fest is winding down

We just ate our way through the week-end and made it out at the other end intact, although bursting at the seams.

Two of my three brothers were in town - Doug and Karen, from Ontario (not too far from Toronto) who comes in at holiday time, and Ron from British Columbia who has to move on to Ottawa (Canada's capital and about two hours from Montreal)) today for a work-related conference.

Saturday we skipped taiko, which we never do, but we did have cleaning and cooking to do since we were having everyone over for supper that night. I felt bad about missing it, but we had a really good practice on Friday night, so it's all good.

We made kari-raisu (curry rice), a mild Japanese style curry, sushi, gyoza (pan-fried dumplings) and salad. While rolling the makizushi, Ebi the cat was harrassing me for nori, or seaweed, which he loves. My mom would always give him some, so as soon as he hears it crinkle, he's howling. He also tries to pull it down off the sushi mat.

Here, he is clearly taking on the roll of "quality control," checking to see if I did a decent job rolling the sushi.

Also made manju, the little red bean paste filled dessert. We also had biscotti and Italian cookies and a lovely & refreshing lemon cake - all from our cousin Gerry's bakery (one of our Italian cousins) as well as French pastries - lots of great places in Montreal for good pastry.

Did I ever tell you that our family loves dessert?

The last time my brother Ron from BC was here, was when my mom died in 2006, so it was nice just to be together, hang out and laugh. I'm always amazed at how loud we can be when we are all together. Lots of cackling and roaring.

Yesterday we went out for lunch with some of my dad's side of the family, which we hadn't done in too long. Before that, we went to the cemetary to see my parents and grandparents, and because of the crazy amounts of snow we've had, we could just see the top of the plot marker poking out from the snow. Because of the recent cold temperature, the 3 feet of snow was solid enough that we could actually get on top of if and walk out to the grave without sinking in.

Here Ron and JF are trying to dig out the Christmas wreath before digging about 2 inches and reaching solid ice.

We went out for a huge Chinese meal (good place even though it wasn't in Chinatown) and then back to my aunt and uncle's for coffee and dessert. I'll have to wait for my brother to send me his group picture (yay, for camera timers) and I'll post it here. For now, here's one of the four siblings together. From the left, that's Ron, me, Pats and Doug:

Family gatherings remind me how lucky we are.

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Did you notice - I now have three columns in my blog, and I'm proud to say I did all by myself. Wanted to throw myself off the balcony a few times, but I did it and I am thrilled! And, it took me awhile, but embarrassingly, you can finally click on my photos and see them in full size. Oh the woes of html...

New designs, finally - and a childhood favourite!

I'll let the pictures do the talking on this sunny day :)

Finally posted some of my new designs - sort of hoarding them, but mostly just worried how they would be received... Polymer clay and chiyogami pendant with sterling silver bail on Greek leather necklace. I think I'm pretty satisfied. I think.

Here's another with my little bunny and a garnet in the bail .

... and my new earrings - polymer clay and sterling silver oblong hoops.

Can you tell I'm primed for Spring? (^_^)

A treat from my childhood
Is there something you remember eating when you were a kid that was a thrill? Well, this was one of those things for me.

Kraft Pizza in a box! 34 seconds to go...

The box used to be green and the pizza on it wasn't so detailed and yummy looking, but the contents were the same. The smell of that tangy tomato sauce and those spices; the cheese that you have to be careful to sprinkle just right so that there's enough to cover it all; and the smell and feel of that dough -ooh, I love it. Amazing how powerful the sense of smell is in conjuring up memories so vividly. Here's JF and Ebi waiting for it to be ready - cook faster, man!

That skinny little pizza which we would always make on a rectangular cookie sheet, would be cut into six pieces since we were six kids - five-year old me got the same size piece as my brothers who were older teens. They finished theirs in a couple of bites while mine was a meal. Here's our family at my Auntie Betty's in 1972. I'm the smallest one who looks like a boy in a dress.

Yay, pizza's ready!!! and it was yummy! Maybe not as good as I remembered, but yummy nonetheless.

There's one piece left in the fridge which I am going to eat now with my coffee.

My tooth is fine, really...

I think Montrealers, or maybe Canadians like talking about the weather at least some point in the day - in the winter anyway. It drastically changes from one day to the next and you never know what to expect. Friday it was freezing cold (minus 25 with the windchill factor) and today it's zero with ice pellets and freezing rain; went to the post office and it was pretty slippery. Supposed to be getting heavy snow for the rest of the week. Sigh. March here in Montreal doesn't mean Spring is coming; it means we still have another few weeks of serious winter. Oh well.

Some of you may know I play taiko, or Japanese drums. They are rather large drums and we play with rather larger drum sticks, or bachi. At every practice we practice a piece called Yatai Bayashi, where we are sitting on the ground and using chunkier than usual bachi; it's an intense, physically difficult piece and if played with anywhere near the intensity it's supposed to be played, it could look like this photo below. This is the world famous Kodo group from Japan, in rehearsal:

Fujimoto-san, the group's most senior player, plays an amazing Yatai Bayashi, and as you can see, when you're playing all out, and your abs are in pain and your shoulders and pecs think you can't play anymore, it's hard to keep a neutral face.

My face is rarely in neutral when playing this piece, and on Friday night, I smacked my front tooth and bottom lip with my chunky bachi, so hard my head was vibrating. I thought for sure my tooth was cracked or something since it hurt so much, but the next morning my lip was only a little swollen and the tooth looked fine. Today it's pretty much back to normal but I will still make an appointment with the dentist just to be sure. I'll try to keep my mouth closed in the future.

Last night, JF was inspired by his favourite tv cook, Pinard, to make mayonnaise, which worked out perfectly since he had already planned to make salmon and asparagus (hey, that's a sign that Spring is on its way - baby asparagus, the small tasty ones), both yummy with mayo. It turned out wonderfully, nice and creamy with a bite from the dijon in it. Just look at this lovely meal:
Baked salmon, asparagus and fresh mayonnaise and portobello mushrooms. JF is definitely a keeper ☺

Dinner with friends ...

I woke up this morning to find this sushi platter pendant sold from my Etsy shop; nothing nicer than waking up to a sale, yay! I think I have one more of these left and I'm not sure I'll make more, so it may end up being a limited edition version. I'll see how my schedule goes this week.

... Hmmm, upon rethinking, I've made the decision to continue making them. Yes, I will. I think my first coffee of the morning helped me come this important decision.

Last night we went to dinner at a friend's house. He and his girlfriend moved into this great appartment a few months ago and after lots of hard work painting and sanding and decorating - wow, it looks amazing! What a gorgeous place to live. They overlook Parc Lafontaine, a beautiful green space in the midst of Montreal - actually a white space in the winter (the photos on that link are on a blog by some French expats now living in Montreal). I should've taken pictures of the view. If I lived there, I'd just be sitting in the bay window looking outside all day and never get a thing done (even lovelier at night).

We had raclette and fondue, mmmmm! It's frightening how much food you can keep scarfing down when you don't start out with a plateful of food in front of you, and you just keep putting little veggies in the fondue pot and cheese & potatoe on the raclette grill. After around two hours of talking, raclette, fondue, chitchat, raclette, fondue, more raclette, blabla, cackle, fondue, bit of raclette, talking - ♪ ♫ la dee da dee dahh ♫ ♪ Time flies and oh lala, you've eaten waaay too much. Did I take a photo of this lovely feast? No.

I did take a photo of the brownies I made for dessert though. Not terribly exciting, but so yummy. It's the recipe for brownies on the Baker's Chocolate box. Here it is, so you can try it (I added in my modifications in brackets):

Baker's One-Bowl Brownies:
4 squares (4 oz) Baker's Unsweetened chocolate,chopped
3/4 cup butter (I like demi-sel)
2 cups white sugar (I used 1 and a 1/2 cups - plenty sweet!)
3 eggs
1tsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour

Lightly grease a 9"x9" or even 8"x8" baking pan (package says 13"x9", but this would make the flattest brownies in town). Microwave chocolate and butter on medium for 2 minutes or until melted. Stir in sugar until well-blended; mix in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, and if you like, some chopped pecans (I prefer smooth brownies). Spread in pan. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven, for 30 to 35 minutes, or until done; unlike cake, your toothpick shouldn't be dry when you test a brownie - it should be just a little sticky. I would even check it at 25 minutes since all ovens are different - you definitely don't want them overcooked! I threw on some dark chocolate chips as soon as it came out of the oven so it all melted - made it even more evil. You could also ice them or sprinkle icing sugar on them when cooled.

Sooo yummy and the easiest thing to bake!

Happy New Year!

Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu!

I'm starting this year full of ideas and goals; so many new things I want to create, which means I have to make a schedule and stick to it. Clear goals and sales objectives will also be on my stick-to-it schedule.

This past holiday season was a great one, so I feel motivated to organize myself for this new year. I have to thank all my new and returning customers for shopping at my online shop, http://www.tatsuko.etsy.com/, and for coming to see me at craft shows. Pretty exhausted after a busy production period, but I'm feeling good now, finally getting over a couple bouts with the same dang chest cold.

The holidays were busy, seeing family and friends and not having much time at home. I get a little cranky going out all the time, since I can be a real mole, happy to spend days at a time at home. I just like "being in my stuff." Kinda glad to be back to my regular schedule now, and looking forward to getting back to work!


The New Year's Day tradition at our family house...
New Year's has always been a big celebration at my house. Christmas was warm & cozy and for our immediate family, and once that was over, preparations began almost immediately for Oshogatsu, or the New Year when relatives and friends would drop by our house for a bite and a drink, to welcome in the coming year. It was kind of a Japanese Canadian tradition to go from house to house of friends and family, stay awhile, eat a little, and move onto the next; some families were hosts, while others did the house-hopping. We've always been hosts, and I know my dad particularly looked forward to this day every year, since his brothers and their families always came over and enjoyed all the food we had prepared. It never seemed to matter that we had a very small house; everyone just crammed themselves in, piled their coats on my parents' bed, and took shifts coming to the table to eat. There was food wherever there was a surface to put it on, desserts on the living room coffee table, fruit salad and munchies on the wall unit shelves, soda, beer and wine chilling in the snow out on the back balcony.

The tv set was usually temporarily moved to a bedroom for that day where people could sit if they absolutely had to watch the football game (usually my brothers and their friends). As a child, I loved having so many people in the house; I was amazed that we could feed so many and I was always so proud that everyone commented on how delicious everything was. My mom and dad made everything from scratch as most Japanese Canadians did since there were no ready-made Japanese foods available in stores - until fairly recently.

When my dad passed away in 1993, there was no question in my mom's mind that she wanted to continue this tradition and she did it for 12 years before she passed away in the summer of 2006. This was our second New Year's Day without her, but my brother, sister and I who are together (my other sister and two bros are in Western Canada and do not make it home for the holidays) for New Year's have kept the party going in my parents' honour.

Here's this year's menu (I'm sure I'm forgetting something), which has remained pretty much the same since my dad's time - well, with some year-to-year tweaking:

• variety of makizushi and nigiri zushi;


• sashimi - this year blue marlin added to the usual maguro;


• Japanese Canadian style chowmein;


• tako (octopus)


• kazunoko (herring eggs)


• shirai (spinach and tofu salad)


• kinpira gobo


• bean salad (has replaced potato salad, which we always had for the newbies who didn't like Japanese food)


• chashu (bbq pork)


• Shoyu chicken


• baked salmon


• wonton


• variety of pickles
• manju, or Japanese red-bean filled sweets
• fruit salad and mikan (little oranges, now replaced by clementines)
• sweets galore

And here are some photos of our spread:

The table is ready!

Nigiri zushi -maguro (melt-in-your-mouth)

Smoked salmon, suzuko and masago sushi

Maki platter with inarizushi; next to it is blue marlin sashimi

My brother's secret tako recipe - cooked to perfection every time, NEVER rubbery! It was just taken out of the pot here, so it's still steaming...

Baked red snapper, its head and tail arched upwards for a yearful of good luck! He's resting on a new platter made by my potter friend, Yukari, who came over to help with preparations. She surprised me with that beautiful gift on New Year's morning, just perfect for our fish! You can see more of her work here: http://www.potteryhazama.com/index.htm

Hope you enjoyed hearing a bit about our New Year's tradition; we plan to keep this going for years to come! Will write again soon :)