Hooray, the baby boy is back home!

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children, food, Home, postaday2013, sushi, traveling

My son is done with his recording session on Cape Cod with his band and we met him in Boston so that he can get the car to get back home to his little sister and little Jack. Since my hubby and I both missed him very much, we decided that before he got into the car, we would have a nice sushi dinner before letting him go on his merry way. My hubby took the three of us to the Kowloon restaurant, an Asian restaurant happy to serve you food from any expression of Asian cuisine. There was a selection for Thai lovers, Szechuan aficionados, Cantonese and even Sushi. While our baby boy was ordering, it was apparent that the poor boy hadn’t eaten very well or very much because he took advantage of the fact that there was something for every type of Asian craving you might be having. He ordered scallion pancakes, paper thin sliced tuna served with a spicy vinaigrette and a sushi/sashimi combo plate. I ordered two special rolls one with eel, avocado and cucumber and the other, spicy tuna and cucumber, they were both yummy. My hubby ordered pad thai, a standard Thai noodle dish, one that I have made several times at home and it is the Thai version of a comfort food dish. Noodles, ground pork, shrimp and pieces of sautéed egg with bean sprouts, cilantro and peanuts, it is a delicious combination of flavors.

We are very happy to have both of our children home now. I might be becoming like my grandmother, she was always happiest when she had everyone around her at the table. A full house, in her estimation, was a happy house. If my babies want to stay home while they are getting their lives together and their plans off the ground, I would be more than happy to have them home with us.

Sunday evening getaway and one heck of a movie

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getaways, hotels, movies, postaday2013, Sunday evening, sushi

I forget why my hubby and I stopped our Sunday evening getaways but we did. Today we decided to get back to spending Sunday night near Boston so that we could spend more time together. Jack and the babies will get me back tomorrow which is fine with them I’m sure, I think that Jack will probably miss me more, he’ll make do with either my son or my daughter.

My hubby and I did the pay per view in our room and we had been curious to see the Seven Psychopaths in the theater, I forget how we missed it but we did. So when we saw it available, we clicked on the order button without hesitation. I swear, it was one of the weirdest and more entertaining movies that we have both seen in a very long time. It was humorous, both light and very darkly humorous, it was extremely surprising, not in the sense of suspenseful but in the way that ordinary people don’t normally think. The cast of characters were unsurprisingly excellent given who was playing them; we had Christopher Walken, who at the end when he was striding out into the dessert, I couldn’t help but quip “There’s Christopher Walken walking”. There was Colin Ferrell, there was Tom Waite, there was Sam Rockwell, and Woody Harrelson, this is a who’s who of brilliant actors known for their devoted commitment to the role, it was fantastic. The entire movie was based on pure love an owner has for his dog. I can more or less safely say that most people would not go to the extremes that we see in the movie but any dog lover will tell you that often money is no object to save your beloved Pooch, Bonnie or Rex. The writer was genius in blending an innocent love between an owner and his dog and the world of Seven Psychopaths.

After this movie we are going to see if we can find something else as entertaining to watch. Sunday nights are different because our two series have gone away to hiatus land so actually, instead of zipping back and forth between two shows, we are going to focus on only one, Game of Thrones.

I’m happy that we got back to Sunday night getaways.

Birthday celebration, family and homemade sushi

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celebrations, children, dinner, homemade sushi, postaday2013, sushi

Tonight, the four of us had a fantastical dinner. I call it fantastical because we were gathered together eating one of our favorite cuisines and celebrating the baby girl’s birthday and just being, as a family. Now with the two babies really busy with their own friends, jobs and schools, our family dinners have become a rarity. I choose to focus however, on how nice they are when they happen and not complain about the dinners that aren’t happening.

Our dinner was, as you will see in the pictures, mostly homemade sushi. Sushi preparation isn’t that easy, especially if you want it to be sleek and elegant. I wouldn’t mind perhaps taking a lesson sometime in the future just in the technique, because the flavors and the condiments are fairly straight forward, but the technique definitely requires finesse.

Now about the table layout; that was all my hubby, he most definitely has finesse. If it had been only me, the sushi would have been presented on the table, but in a much more austere manner. I love the way my hubby puts the flair in our entertaining, when he is here, there is nothing to fear, the setting will be beauteous. He helped with a few sushi rolls, applying his strong hands to shape them tightly and uniformly and putting the Tobiko flying fish roe on top,

The fish that I used was sushi grade tuna and sushi grade salmon filet, fresh from the marketplace at Guido’s, we also ordered salmon roe, Tobiko flying fish roe, and smoked eel from an online sushi specialty website. The rolls that we made were pretty basic, all variations on the Dragon roll. The Dragon roll is an inverted roll with cucumber, crab meat, tuna or salmon and then sliced avocado and sliced smoked eel are placed on top of the roll. You will see different looking rolls on the table but they all have the same ingredients just layered differently.

It was fun to make together but as usual, it was more fun to eat. What gets me is that for as long as you work on the preparation, you eat it exponentially that much faster. It was a great time together celebrating a very special day in our household. Happy birthday to the baby girl.

Sunday sushi

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Northampton, postaday2013, Sunday lunch, Sunday outings, sushi

Today the four of us had a lovely Sunday all together. My hubby came up with the excellent idea of all of us getting into the car to take a drive out to Northampton, a nice university town full of good restaurants and nice shops. Earlier that morning we had seen a piece of news reporting on one of the top chefs of sushi in New York and that was enough to set us on the path to choosing sushi for lunch and at Northampton there several fine sushi restaurants to pick from. My baby girl and I had gone to a nice Japanese/Chinese place called The Teapot and we suggested that we all go together today. The decor is very nice and simple and the cuisine is very, very good whether you choose Chines or Japanese.

We chose Japanese so that meant rolls, all different types of rolls, some simple, but most of them just a little bit fancy such as the dinosaur roll with shrimp tempura, avocado, eel and salmon and there was the volcano roll with avocado, caviar, tuna and salmon. The thing that all of these rolls have in common is the sushi rice and the toasted nori, these two components form the base and everything else is used to build the roll. We also had miso soup and salads on the table. My three special loved ones, each of them have congestion and miso soup has such restorative powers in its broth, seaweed, fish oils and tofu, so I was very happy to see them eating up their soups like the good sensible patients they are. Miso soup, it’s good for you.

Right now, we are all watching the movie “Lawless” together, an excellent movie about prohibition though it is quite brutal, but that is what prohibition was back then, an era of lawlessness, all centered around the illegal sale of alcohol. A good Sunday.

Sushi

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avocado, eel, postaday2012, roll, sushi

Tonight the baby girl and I came to Boston to visit and have some wonderful sushi before embarking on a full day of parent/student college orientation at her school tomorrow. We, of course were joined by my hubby. He loves escorting his ladies to dinner, especially sushi restaurants. It’s not often that you go out to eat and feel good and healthy about it. The restaurant that we had dinner at was appropriately named Sake. We ordered green tea and water, my hubby and I started with small green salad and steamed shrimp shumai, dumplings, and the baby girl ordered edamame, soy beans. My hubby always put his trust in the Chef’s plate, the baby girl and I, we don’t roll that way. We have fallen in love with the dragon maki, which is smoked eel, avocado and cucumber roll. I have on occasion, such as this evening, deviated away from the dragon maki and ordered other rolls. I decided to order the scorpion roll which had the added feature of shrimp on top of the smoked eel and avocado. I was even thinking Alligator maki but I decided against the shrimp tempura because I didn’t really want anything fried in my roll. It was a really nice dinner, the three of us. Tomorrow is a big day ahead of us so we are turning in early.

Restaurant outing for Mother’s day

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Great Barrington, Mother's day, postaday2012, Restaurant, sushi

This past Mother’s day, the kids and my hubby treated me to a wonderful lunch at Bizen, an excellent Japanese restaurant in Great Barrington, MA in the midst of the Berkshires. It’s a great town, full of life, food and cultural events. I forget how my hubby found Bizen, we stumbled upon it about three years ago and we have been faithful customers ever since. Our son is a sushi aficionado and our baby girl has also become more adventurous as she has gotten older. My hubby did us all a favor when he found Bizen because it is perfect for those who like to be adventurous, they offer monkfish liver as an appetizer, their versions of shumai, steamed dumplings, are sublime and their creative riff on nega maki, usually sautéed beef around asparagus, in this case a lovely sliced duck breast grilled around asparagus is excellent. My hubby and baby boy ordered the Chef’s sushi special which always means the chef offers what he feels to be the best picks of the day. My baby girl and I got very excited perusing the special inside out rolls with their clever names. The baby girl ordered a puff dragon, a roll with smoked eel, salmon, tuna, avocado rolled with tobiko, flying fish roe. I ordered the binge on the fringe which had spicy tuna tartare, avocado, smoked eel, and other stuff. It was soooo good. We were all sated with the savory part of our meal, dessert was forthcoming but not at Bizen. Down the street was an old fashioned ice cream parlor, I got a large cookies and cream in a waffle cone, the baby girl had chocolate in a cup, my hubby indulged with black raspberry ice cream and the baby boy got a shake. It was a great Mother’s day, great food and being with my family, doesn’t get better than that.