For as long as I can remember, my Mom used to keep a re-used glass jam jar filled with little orange candied kumquats or kinkan kanro-ni in the back of our refrigerator. It never looked appealing to me, and as a child, I recall trying several of these kinkan kanro-ni over the years, but I never found the sweet, sour, and slightly bitter flavor of the candied kumquats to my liking. (Photo Credit: Hideki Ueha) As I got older, the little glass jar...

Read More

  The Good News: ≠ Lakers finally won a game in Round 2 of the Western series against Oklahoma. It’s about time! The series is now 2 – 1. After a total whooping in Game 1 by over 20 points (a complete embarrassment), and yet another loss in Game 2 by one lousy basket, the Lakers finally, although barely, beat Oklahoma by 3 points, 99 – 96 during last night’s Game 3. I was so crazy nervous the last 10 minutes of...

Read More

There’s something about fried wontons that are addicting. Inherently, we all know fried foods aren’t necessarily the healthiest of foods, yet you can’t stop at just one wonton. You eat one, and then you want another, eat another, and then you want yet another, and another! Perhaps it’s the light, crunchy fried wonton skin. Or perhaps it’s that tasty wonton center of succulent ground pork mixed with subtle bursts of...

Read More

Happy Mother’s Day! As it turns out, we are spending our Mother’s Day weekend at home, but I have no complaints about this. My little one is still recovering from her cold, and as feared, I came down with a sore throat yesterday. I should have known I was coming down with a cold when I slept through both Round One Lakers games #5 and #6 this past week. I barely watched last night’s game #7, but thank goodness I stayed awake...

Read More

On Saturday, May 5th we celebrated Japanese Children’s Day | Boy’s Day. Our family got together for a grand potluck to celebrate with, none other than, food. When we pulled into the driveway of my parent’s home, we saw that my Dad raised my brother’s koi nobori on a traditional bamboo stick and the colorful carp were flying in the wind. Koi nobori are wind streamers in the shape of carp that are traditionally displayed...

Read More

My Little One… My little one is sick with what I’m hoping is simply another cold. :( We were over the last one, dealing with just a lingering cough and it seemed like we were about to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It looked like we were on our way to resume our swim lessons, but alas, it just wasn’t meant to be. I’m keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll be able to get back into the pool by June. The...

Read More

  How about them LAKERS?!? ALL season, I haven’t blogged a peep about a single game played by my favorite L.A. Lakers – – – a complete anomaly! Right?!? (My past Lakers posts can be found under the Category section “Lakers”, if you are interested.) I admit that I was turned off by the lockout at the beginning of this season, coupled with the fact that Phil was no longer our fearless leader (I was slightly...

Read More

I don’t want to get in the habit of posting my jaunts dining out, since I don’t dine out very often, but this week I find myself compelled to share yet another favorite Westside Los Angeles eatery: Tito’s Tacos. Tito’s Tacos is nothing short of a historical landmark. Anyone who grew up in Los Angeles or has spent a significant amount of time here, know’s EXACTLY what I’m talking about. When we locals move...

Read More