Goodbye 2010, hello 2011! Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! Happy New Year! The holiday season flew by so quickly, I almost can’t believe the New Year has arrived. Yet here I am once again, asking Bebe Dada if he made any New Year’s resolutions. He told me he did, but this year he is keeping them to himself. While I wouldn’t share them on my blog even if he did tell me what they were, the nosey side of me nagged him for a good...

  Over nine months ago, on March 5, 2010, I posted my very first blog entry. I was extremely nervous before I hit the “Publish” button. It wasn’t even a recipe post, just a simple ‘hello’ to no one in particular, and it read more like a ‘to do’ list. Yet, despite the simplicity of this first post, I was anxious. The thought of having my words float around in cyberspace made me a little giddy, yet also...

  It’s rare when I start writing a post and I have absolutely nothing to write about. My mind is blank. Yes, I could go strait to talking about the food, but that would be a little like my last post – a little boring, no? Since squid, or ika in Japanese, is from the sea, I decided share a few photos from summer related to, you guessed it, the sea! I’ve been fortunate to have always lived within two to four miles from the...

Surprise! I’m alive! OK, I’m just being obnoxious. Two weeks, going on three, is probably the longest I have EVER gone without updating my blog. I’m not sure why, but time has REALLY been flying by the last few weeks and on Friday, I realized that a few weeks had passed without a new post! Horribly shocking, I know! (Photo Credit: Hideki Ueha) Perhaps the weeks have been flying by because school and soccer season started....

  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...

  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...

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...

If you’ve been reading my blog the past few weeks, the good news is that my ‘foodie funk’ got a good kick in the tush this past week. The bad news is that even though I’m back to cooking more than just tacos, the more dishes I cook, the further behind I’ll be on my food posts and I’m already quite behind. I know what you’re all thinking… My problem could easily be solved if I just posted more...