Gobble – gobble – gobble! I love Thanksgiving. As I mentioned before, Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. We’ll be celebrating Bebe E’s second Thanksgiving this week and I am ecstatic because this year she’ll get to try turkey, stuffing, creamed corn, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potato souffle, likely a few other side dishes, and of course, pumpkin pie! As a child, we celebrated Thanksgiving with my...
Read More
This post is for my buddy, M-kun. I thought about you when I was making this chili because I know how much you appreciate the Islands, surfing, and of course, Zippy’s. At our home, cold weather begets stews, casseroles, soups and of course, chili. I grew up with, none other than, Hormel Chili with No Beans. Chili is not something my native Japanese Mom cooked for us. As such, canned chili is not something we ate often, unless my Dad was...
Read More
I can’t believe it was over 100 degrees in So. Cal. last week and I had our A/C blasting. This morning, I woke up to pouring rain and I pulled on my warm bathrobe, fuzzy socks, and I’m thinking about hot cocoa. Crazy! It’s been drizzling the past few days here, and it’s cold (for my standards). Flip-flops one day, Ugg’s another day. Such is life in So. Cal…. Given all of the Japanese and Asian foods...
Read More
I’m a victim of fraud! This isn’t how I wanted to start my day nor my post on mabo tofu but that’s just how it is. I never thought it would happen to me, but apparently it’s not uncommon. I use my Bank of America issued pink and white Hello Kitty debit card everywhere. I love my cute Hello Kitty card… I usually don’t carry much cash with me and rely on my debit card for even the smallest $3 purchases. I...
Read More
As a kid, eating spinach at our house meant that my mom made ohitashi. Although she used spinach in dishes such as chawan mushi or shabu-shabu, we never ate sautéed spinach the way Bebe Dada likes to make it (yet another post for the future). Ohitashi is a simple, healthy and refreshing dish. It’s perfect for a hot summer day, and believe me, it has been HOT over the past two weeks in So. Cal, but it definitely seems like it has...
Read More
Summer is finally coming to an end as Big Onechan returns to school and we celebrate our last three-day weekend of the season with a family BBQ or two. It seems as though summer break only just began and yet over two months have flown by since school let out in June. This week we had a variety of things going on and I still managed to write a post! Crazy, huh? We went to the Zoomar’s Petting Zoo in San Juan Capistrano, the Mission Viejo...
Read More
I hope everyone’s weekend is getting off to a great start. I can’t believe it’s already Friday night… And here I am updating my blog. Such is the life of a Bebe Mama with a little one tucked away in her crib. It seems Bebe Dada left the room and the movie he was watching ended. Now I’m sitting in the dark with my laptop and I hear something very scary on TV and I’m afraid to turn around and see what’s...
Read More
Dreary, cold, June Gloom isn’t so bad when I know we’re having shabu-shabu for dinner. I’m sure there are many of you reading this that are thinking, “What? Shabu-shabu in the summer?” Trust me, it worked really well for us in Southern California last week while my mom was visiting. I woke up one morning to very gray skies and cool weather. I decided right then that we would have shabu-shabu for dinner that...
Read More
