Eating, Meeting, Mighty, Money

Today is my son's basket ball game. In Japanese, "Katsu" sounds same as "Winning".  So, it's popular to eat cutlet (katsu) before you are going to important tests, games. It is very good and has a nice texture as a food. Everybody would like as a nice lunch/dinner. You can use tenderloin, (above) or loin, or chicken. Pepper and salt the meat, and coat with flour on about 1/4 inch thick meat. beat an egg in a bowl,  coat the meat in the egg, then put in a bowl with bread crumbs (sold as panko) heat oil. I use just a little more than to cover. after heating up on the pan, put breadcrumbs coated meat, cook each side until golden brown. (about 2 minutes each) I put Tonkatsu sauce (sold at asian store) on top.

I made "European Style Beef Stew" with slow cooker last week. My friend gave me this"William Sonoma" cook book (this certain book isn't available anymore), and this is the only recipe that I tried in the book. I changed here and there to fit our family size. I used, Half onion, finely chopped, 2 stems of celery, finely chopped, 3 or so garlic cloves, finely chopped, 1 lbs beef 2 slices of bacon 2 table spoon of flour one or two tomatoes Red Wine, (10 fl oz / 300 ml) Beef Stock 16 fl oz / 500ml) 1or 2 Bay leaves Thyme (dried herb) 1potato, 1 or 2 carrots, turnips as you like salt and pepper One table spoon of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce 1) Cut veggies, About 1 lbs and half beef, (this time was sirloin tip roast) salt and peppered. 2 slices of bacon, cut like this and sautéed until oil come out and slightly crunchy. Add onion and celery, sauté until the onions are soft. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the onions and ...

Marie Kondo is a very famous tidy up specialist in Japan. She published a book in Europe and the United States and became popular too. I read her book in Japanese once. Her method is, instead of folding up your shirts and piling up,  roll your t-shirts and pants in the drawer and display so that it's easy to see what you have. Before you do that, you need to take out what you have and re-organize. You might need to throw away worn out stuff. I tried with my drawer a month ago and it's working good, so I did to my son's and daughter's drawer too. I hope the inside of the drawer will look this way for a while.. It worth reading her book if you are serious about tiding up your house!

Working at night, kid's sports practice at night.. Busy parent's great helper, "Slow Cooker". When I was little, I read Ramona's series and that appeared every now and then. Slow cooker isn't used very much in Japan, even though almost every household own a rice cooker.  Anyway,  I have been pretty busy because I started doing waitressing at night few nights a week and I have been using slow cooker quite often lately. I made beef stew, I forgot to get red wine so I used sake. beef taco meat, pulled back pork, baby back pork ribs, shoulder pork ribs etc.. One time, somehow the glass lid broke but I carefully removed the lid and no glass was in there (Thank god) since then, I'm using other stainless lid from other pot I have. Even the cheap hard beef or pork will be tender and delicious!

Sedona in Arizona is very popular among spiritual people. It's very popular among Japanese. Since I heard of Sedona, I wanted to go there for a long time but didn't because of the long drive, 7 hours drive from Los Angeles! Sedona is famous for Vortex. I wanted feel the Vortex, and wondering what is vortex. I don't know if I felt it or not, I really liked  the view of Sedona red rocks and hiking. There are 4 vortex spot in Sedona. 1) Airport Mesa This place was near we stayed. Very easy to hike up, the parking was full always. 2) Cathedral Rock (Picture from the Airport Mesa) Don't use map app on your iPhone! We drove to wrong place for the trail head. I saw somebody was also got  wrong way using the app. Easy up to the middle, harder to the top. My 4 year old (then) daughter couldn't make it but My son (9 then) and I went up half way to the top. My husband stayed with our daughter. 3) Bell Rock We couldn't go this time, since I read a ...

You shouldn't go to Trader Joe's on weekends. It's so crowded especially before the dinner time. I had to go there 4 weekends in a row, and I happened to choose a very slow line. I go to Trader Joe's at least once a week. I usually buy Unsweetened vanilla almond milk Organic unsweetened soy milk (Whenever I see the expiration day, it seems so far ahead but the time comes fast) Half and half coffee milk Cage free eggs, Bacon (Nitrite Free) Refried bean Himalayan pink salt Black pepper Greeting cards  Spaghetti sauce Pasta Bagel Cookies Coffee I mean, I could say 30% of my body made out of TJ products. I would miss Trader Joe's very much if I live somewhere without it! Before the summer vacation some products such as Himalayan pink salt or eco bags disappear from Trader Joe's. Japanese people buy for the souvenirs, I saw them buying with boxes. About 10 years ago, their eco bag used to be sold Japanese version of Ebay with price as much as 10 ...