Oh rice, where have you gone?

Costco for my family is an indulgence. Being around a wherehouse-like place where there are ginormous packages of food and the absolute potential of what can be made of these ingredients makes me drool. Rice is one of those ingredients and a staple in my household. While I know I could buy 50 lb. bag of premium jasmine or calrose at an Asian Market, like Ranch 99...Costco had koshihikari rice! Koshihikari is a japanese variety of short grain rice: tasty, sweet, and smaller than regular calrose. here is an image of koshihikari taken by jei2046 on flicker.
of course, the Costco we frequented didn't have the rice we covet in stock! :( we had our one time lucky purchase, which left us craving and just settling for kokuho rose in the meantime.
japanese rice even had a discussion on egullet. link:types of japanese rice

chocolate yearnings and crepe cake

david lebovitz hosted SHF# 27 with considerable success. I was blindsided by the ENMASS of CHOCOLATE!!! the id took over and drooled on the keyboard. the ego took a vacation:

http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=recipe2210057

http://foodaholic.wordpress.com/2006/11/06/adults-only/

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/magazine/15FOOD.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=6a3214a2c87faab0&ex=1273809600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://masak-masak.blogspot.com/2007/01/sugar-high-friday-27-chocolate-by.html

and this:

http://uktv.co.uk/index.cfm/uktv/food.recipe/aid/517173

new blog to add:

http://accidentalscientist.blogspot.com/

Widgets.

added a widget of epicurious recipes and joined technorati. :)

Water Conundrum: Bottled or Tap?

The average human body is made of 50-60% water. We have to drink a lot of it. About 8-10 glasses of water a day, in forms of milk and juice too. That's about 64 fluid ounces, so we don't dehydrate. Too much water is bad too.

In light of an article in a recent san francisco chronicle,How water bottlers tap into all sorts of sources, remember all that label reading you do when you go to the grocery store? you know how you check for fat,transfat, and calories per serving? please check the source of the water on that water you get. you might just have purified drinking water from a municipal (read, tap water) reservoir. take that alhambra. lol. or a mountain spring in napa. or the aquifer in fiji.

and a word of advice, if you have a bottle of water in your car and it's been sitting there or you took a sip of it and reclosed it and forgot about it....don't drink it. you might get sick from the microbes in the water.

it's cold...

...i'm dying, but not from the cold:

from this:

planning to redo the layout of this blog soon.

Yasukochi's Coffee Crunch Cake

Saturday afternoon, my mom, my husband, the babies and i went to SF Japantown...in search of the beloved BLUM'S Coffee Crunch Cake my mom had long coveted. First stop we make is to Yasukochi's Sweet Stop, located in the Super Mira grocery store. The owner,Yasukochi,was there today. He was really sweet and friendly, considering we were there just at the last minute. My mom was really excited and decided to purchase the Coffee Crunch after delegating with about what cake she wanted: either the mocha or the coffee. I said you should get the coffee one, since you've missed it for how long. We were talking to the owner about how my mom heard about the cake from tv and that how she was missing BLUM's special cakes, since BLUM's had closed its doors in '69 or '70...she was soo elated that Yasukochi's still made these cakes. He had mentioned EYE ON THE BAY and had numerous news clippings about his bakery on the counter. And said counters were practically empty! There were only few cakes left, and we had gotten the last Coffee Crunch cake!

The cake was $22.00 and worth every penny and every yummy bite.

http://www.galaxylink.com.hk/~john/food/cooking/shanghai/xiaolongbao.htm
http://eatingchinese.org/
http://www.chinatownconnection.com/xiao-long-tan-bao-recipe.htm
http://www.gretchencooks.com/recipes/875_Ikea_Daim_Torte

When's the last time you cleaned your fridge?

Okay, here's the scenario:

You're hungry and you're craving for some spaghetti or some other pasta dish. There's some pasta sauce in your fridge, you look at it...and from what you can tell, visually it looks okay. You look around for the freshness date, but it's been rubbed off. So, okay, you gingerly take it to the stove where a pot eagerly awaits and screw off the lid only to find....A HUGE COLONY OF MOLD IS RESIDING IN THE LID!

Yes, gross. And, it happened to me. I promised myself that instant if I have a premade sauce to use ALL of it the same day or make it from scratch.
And how I wish I knew about these digital day counters from:DaysAgo. The counters tell you how many days since you opened it, closed it, and stored it. The counters are good for other things like reminding you to water that plant sitting on the window sill getting too much light. Pretty neat huh?

To make things easier, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has a handy dandy chart of refrigator/freezer storage...also on the daysago site. here's the chart. this chart also answers the age old question of the length of time eggs are fresh.

Anyways,I admit I use the premade stuff out of convenience, since I have two small children and a hungry husband to feed. I prefer classico or bertolli. Or TJ's marinara.

Obento desu!

happy new year! ;D

japanese bento box site:

e-bento!

happy new year all!
japanese beading links~

beading bees
beadsmania
kiwa
sally's beads shop

omura craft store

helpful guide
guide to beadwork
jewelry supply

asianfanatics.net forum: handicrafts