More clams?!? I just posted hamaguri no saka mushi or Japanese sake steamed clams, and here we are yet again with another clam dish. However, I cheated on the seafood with this dish and there was one short-cut that I regret… More on this later. Spaghetti with clams, or spaghetti con vongole, is one of my favorite Italian pasta dishes. In a former life when I dined out frequently each week, spaghetti con vongole made a regular...

  I like to think that this little dish of hamaguri no saka mushi is my ongoing effort to overcome my fear of cooking with seafood. (Have I mentioned this fear before?) Don’t get me wrong, I love to eat seafood, but cooking it is another story. My Mom cooked quite a bit of fish, squid, scallops, shrimp, octopus, and clams when my brother and I were growing up. Yet all these years I’ve never wanted to cook seafood as it was too...

Strawberry season at Tanaka Farms, our local organic farm, opened in mid-March. Each year, we anticipate the season’s approach as we plan our strawberry-picking outing(s). Bebe E’s favorite wagon display in front of the produce stand. (April 2011) This season, Bebe E and I were fortunate to go strawberry-picking twice already. Once with “my girls” (best friends) and their families, and a second time with family (for Big...

  Oh, my little blog… how I’ve missed you so!!! I had nothing but good intentions last week to share a winning onigiri post after the Lakers closed out Round 1 of the 2011 NBA Western Conference Finals against New Orleans. I even started a draft, but of course, the weekend arrived bearing much fun (a trip to LA, a pool party and birthday celebrations) and ultimately resulted in my being too tired to blog. Sadly, it doesn’t...

  Seriously, WHAT is wrong with our Lakers?!? As I was making hair bows the other night while the Lakers were playing the Warriors (one of the four WORST NBA teams in the Western Conference) Bebe Dada was complaining about the Lakers and repeated numerous times, “they just don’t care”. Other comments I heard were, “that guy just blew by Shannon!”, “Lakers are just slow”, “Kobe just threw away the...

  I originally planned to post this on Friday, March 11th, but it turned out to be the morning after the 9.0 earthquake that hit Sendai, Japan on March 10, 2011. It seemed inappropriate to immediately post a celebratory chirashi sushi dish that I made for a festive Japanese holiday, Girl’s Day. Featured Above: Photo Credit Hideki Ueha (chirashi that I made in 2012). Our thoughts, prayers and condolences are with all of those who...

Does anyone know how long the terrible-two’s last? Is it one year? Is it two years? Two and a half years? Over the weekend, Bebe E found a black ballpoint pen and drew a nice long dark squiggly line down the entire length of one cushion of our sofa. Nice, huh? And technically, she’s not even two yet. Scary. Of course, we have “coloring time” where Bebe E opens her little box filled with washable crayons and magical...

  It seems wrong to start this post with, “Happy New Year!” as I originally intended, rather than, “Happy (belated) Valentine’s Day!” yet here we are two- going on three- weeks after we celebrated Chinese New Year, wishing all of you a Happy New Rabbit Year. And yes, some of you might be thinking exactly what Bebe Dada voiced. Last night, he bluntly announced that this post is “a little too late, isn’t...