GG Park Japanese Tea Garden 日本庭園でのお散歩

My family and I took a stroll through the Japanese garden at Golden Gate Park the other day (Here). It's a nice size, although a bit expensive for what's there, I feel (SF residents are $6 and non-residents are $8. They charge $2 for children from age 5 to 11.). I guess, this not being Japan, they are able to charge in accordance with its rarity? For instance, the garden at Meiji Jingu is very big and beautiful and only carries a JPY500 (about $4.15) "contribution" (I always pay, but maybe you don't have to?) for maintenance of the garden, but the garden in Golden Gate Park provides a nice stroll. It's a good size for small children (my 1 y.o. was able to walk the whole thing without problem). Also, there are squirrels, which basically are never in Japanese gardens in Japan, so that was exciting. We took a snack at the tea house there. The matcha and snacks are complete decent. It also serves fortune cookies because fortune cookies are actually a Japanese creation brought to America. It's interesting because here they are almost exclusively found in Chinese restaurants here...^_^;;;

先日、家族とゴールデン・ゲート・パークの日本庭園に行ってみました。割と広いですけれど（それでも1歳児でも歩ききれるぐらいの広さですが）、ちょっと高い気がします。アメリカは、こうゆうガーデンが珍しいからかしら…？園内のティーハウスでおやつをしたが、写真をとる前に子供はもう食べかけてしまいました。お菓子などは、以外と食べられ、普通においしかったです。↓の紅色のお餅は、なぜか強いイチゴの味がして、びっくりしましたが！

園内は、フォーチュン・クッキーが食べられます。フォーチュンクッキーはアメリカですと、よく中華料理のお店で出されますが、本来、日本からアメリカに持ってきたものなんで、ここで食べられるのがとてもいいと思います。

View from the tea house. ティーハウスからの眺め。

Food at the tea house (my kids starting eating before I could take a picture) -- the pink mochi was surprisingly a strawberry flavor (this is not the flavor of pink mochi in Japan)!

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

 

たこシチュー -- Spanish octopus stew

昨日はそうでしたが、たまに子供にスペイン料理をあげたくて、たこのシチューを作ります。うちの作れるスペイン料理はこれとチューロスぐらいですかね（苦笑）。I feel like making Spanish food every now and then...and octopus stew and churros are about the only things I can make. Hoho!

たこシチューは以外にかんたんです。材料は：

①ねぎ、たこ、オーリブオイル、べイリーフ（2枚）、粉パプリカ、サーフロン（少々）、塩、コショウ、ニンニク
②白ワイン、貝殻スープ、トマト（４つ）
③ニンジン、キャベツ、ソーセージ、きのこ（何でもいいケンド、うちはだいたいシメジを入れてます。スペインにあるかどうかは分からんが。）
④パセリー、レモン汁

まずは、①をおなべに入れ、弱火でねぎがやや透明になるぐらい火を通します。次は②を加えて３～4時間煮込みます。③を入れ、40分煮込みます。最後にパセリーを入れ、混ぜます（うちは子供のシチューをパセリー抜きにしてますが、大人のほうには入れてます）。レモン汁は食べる直前にかけます。大人のほうだけにはチリフレーク（ほんの少し）も入れてます。

主人はいつも驚くが、子供はゴク普通たべます（アメリカに来てからはじめて作ったので、別に海外の料理に慣れてるとゆうのは全くありませんでした）。ご自分で作っては、いかがでしょうか？

Onions and bay leaves -- just some apples on my counter (there are no apples in this recipe)

 

This is the octopus I get imported from Spain via La Tienda: Pulpo en Aceite de Oliva by Conservas de Cambados 

 

スペインから輸入した蛸
Cook these with the onions, bay leaves, garlic, paprika and saffron until the onions start sweating. Then add wine, seafood broth, and four cut tomatoes and simmer, simmer, simmer

simmering for 4 hours
Then add carrots, cabbage, sausage and mushrooms and simmer for 40 more minutes.

 

All done -- this is a kid's portion over white rice
(For adults, I also add parsley and chili flakes) squirt some lemon juice on top and enjoy! ^_~

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

Little white dress (ホワイトワンピース)

肩がみえちゃうホワイトワンピースが大流行の最中ですよね。あったかい所に住んでたらいいのにね～。っとゆうけんど、小さい子もいるし、肩を見せるのもかわいいとは思うけれど、うちはなかなかできないタイプなので、ちょっとこの流行に参加できないかなあと思うのですね。

だけんど、アタシがフォローしているブロガーさんの記事から下記のとても素敵な例を挙げようと↓

No doubt little white dresses are soooo in this summer. It makes me wish I lived in a warm place...

Anywhoo, here are two of my favs on blogs I follow:

• Fellow SF attorney blogger (but oh so much more fashionable than I -- LOL!): Darah Gabrielle at Pacific Avenue (blog) -- she was in Palm Springs (too cold in SF for such cuteness!)

• Fabs style in the warm south: Southern Curls & Pearls 

Well, not only do I live in a permafrost environment, but have three smallems makes me generally wary of beautiful white dresses.

Here's a compromise for us mummies by Joie (print over a casual white dress -- I also like this dress, because although I get the off-the-shoulder boom as well....well, I'm more of a show more leg, show less shoulder kind of girl ^_~): http://www.joie.com/arryn-b-dress-porcelain-steel ←完全ホワイトじゃないけど、うちみたいなママが心配なく着ることできそうなかわいいワンピでえす。気に入ってまあす。自分の素敵なワンピを見つけてね！

Happy dress hunting!

 Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

Day off in the park (日本町の近くにできた公園)

I've got today off (observed 4th of July), so I took two out of three smallems (eldest went with my husband to a doctors appointment) to the new playground near SF's J-town (at Raymond Kimbell Playground).　It's new and clean and even my small smallem (1 year 6 months) could easily play on most things (he couldn't play on a tension wire thing they have or a net bridge thing they have).

7月4日（アメリカの独立記念日）が土曜日になっているので、今日が振替休日になりました。サンフランシスコの日本町の近くの公園（Raymond Kimbell Playground (地図)）に新しい遊ぶとこができましたので、ちびっ子たちと一緒に行ってみました。

little kid play structure (うちの下の子は1歳半だけど、問題なく小さいほうの滑り台などで遊べました。).

a xylophone - 鉄琴です

　

Lunch Box Catch-up (the end of Summer School Period)

やっと集中学習の時期が去った！は～、は～。本当、毎日お弁当作るママたちはすっごいと思います！大変でした！

さあ、木・金・土のお弁当は以下になります。

Well, finally my son's two weeks of J school everyday have finished!! I really have a new appreciation for all the mamas that make a bento lunch everyday!! It was tough!

Below are the missing lunches from Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Cheers!

Thurs/木：
Two lightly salted rice balls with sesame seeds, carrots, yakitori style chicken and rolled omelets.

ゴマ入り（「入り」かな混ぜたものだケンド…）の塩むすびｘ２、ニンジン、焼き鳥、卵焼き
 

After I finished my son's bento, my daughter said she wanted one too. She's not in school yet, but I made one for her too: lightly salted rice ball, hotdog flowers, cherries and omelets (one is a heart; she really liked it -- she's three and really enjoys small cute things like this).

 

娘も作ってほしくなっちゃったので息子のほうの弁当ができたら、↓も作りました。

ソーセージのお花、さからんぼ、卵焼き、塩むすび。

Fri/金:

 

Friday was thinly sliced pork with ground ginger and onions (season with salt, sear, then add cooking sake (probably white wine would work as well), ground ginger, soy sauce and a bit of sugar; then reduce), boiled broccoli, grape tomatoes and rolled omelets.

金曜日は、生姜焼きにブロッコリー、グレープトマトと卵焼きでした。

 

Sat/土:

土曜日は、集中学習の最後の日でしたので、カツ（！）にしました。↓はチキンカツです。前の日作っておいて、ブロッコリー、豆と卵焼きと一緒にペアリングしました。息子はソース系が気持ち悪い（唯一の好き嫌い…）とかというので、しっかり味付けをしました。おいしく食べてくれました。v(^_^)o

Saturday was the last day of the summer school period (made it!), so I made a chicken cutlet. Well, in order to pull this off, I had to make it the night before and then just arrange things in the morning. It's presented with broccoli, green beans, and rolled omelet. Chicken cutlets are normally served with "sauce" (its a Worcestershire sauce-like (based?) dark sauce that is just referred to as "sauce" in Japanese), but my son doesn't like anything sauce-like (in the English since of "sauce", so no ketchup or bbq sauce, etc.), so it's just a bit more heavily seasoned than normal. He gobbled it up though! Whew!

There's actually four cuts of katu, one is hiding under the middle cut.

And with that J-school entered summer vacation! Whew! I bit of a breather is nice too!!

土曜日をもって、夏休みに入りました。よかった!

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

Emergency bento change up! (集中学習のお弁当 -- そのV (Summer School Lunches -- Part V))

今朝、お弁当つめようとしたら、ふたの羽（ってゆうの？）のところがパッチと取れちゃったw(￣Д￣ w のぉぉぉぉぉぉぉ~！これはこれは。。。

でも大丈夫。ちっちゃいのがいっぱいあるので、早速弁当箱をチェンジ‎する事ができました！ヨシ！

さあ、今日は、アスパラの豚バラまき、ソーセージ、さくらんぼです。やっぱ毎日お弁当を作るとクオリティが下がりぎみですね。ふ～ん。

This morning, when I went to put together my son’s lunch, the snap part of the lid broke off in my hand (∑(O_O；)Shock!!!). Well, it’s okay. For one, it was only about a dollar or so for the lunch box from Daiso in Japan (I guess if I went to Daiso here it would be a $1.50, because Daiso in the U.S. is a $1.50 store instead of a JPY100 store – even though with today’s rate 100 yen is only  about $0.81). But more importantly, I have a slew of other smaller lunch boxes for just such an emergency (not really for just such an emergency, but because I used to put my son’s snack in little lunch boxes when he was in preschool/kinder so it wouldn’t get crushed in his backpack).

Today’s lunch is ↓. Asparagus wrapped in uncured bacon (the cut is the same as bacon), Japanese sausage, cherries. It’s hard to keep up the quality of bento ingredients when making bento every day. Hm. Not sure what to do about it. Got to get more creative!

微妙～

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.
加工・転載禁止

卵が笑った A smiling sun ^ヮ^ (集中学習のお弁当 -- そのIII (Summer School Lunches -- Part III))

さあ、またまたお弁当です。

ゆで卵は楽しい。朝は子供が三人ですと、きゃら弁なんてはとても無理です。が、ゆで卵を入れると太陽などをイメージして、ワンポイントの楽しいところを入れることができます。では、昨日のお弁当を紹介します。↓のおかずはゆでたブロッコリー、グレープトマト、ハンバーグ（豚肉、溶いた卵、お豆腐（＋塩＆ホンだし））、ゆで卵にゴマ＆海苔です。

Mornings with three little, little ones means that elaborate lunches for my son for J school are mostly out of the question. But with the help of boiled eggs and seaweed, a slightly fun lunch is achieved!! Yesterday's lunch is below.

boiled broccoli; grape tomato; hamburger patties made of pork, egg and tofu; boiled egg with seaweed smile and sesame seed eyes

UPDATE: Fyi, if you're wondering what happened on Friday. Friday's bento was substantially similar to that of Thursday (sans the smiling onigiri), so I shall refrain from posting. There is no J school on Monday, so my everyday trying-my-best will continue on Tuesday! ^_^;;

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

集中学習のお弁当 -- そのII (Summer School Lunches -- Part II)

Well, just as I imagined would happen, I was in too much of a hurry to take a picture of yesterday's lunch. I had to stay up until about 2am the day before for work, and barely woke up in time to whip something together before running out the door.

Today's lunch too was a bit rushed and not very well composed, but at least there is evidence of its existence, haha! Today's lunch is grilled chicken that is then braised in chicken stock (I usually marinade my chicken overnight in shio koji (a kind of fermented salted rice -- I'm not a good translator. Here is a site that explains a bit on it in English (it will open a new window to a site that is not my site. I cannot speak to its content): Kojiya), but I didn't have time last night, so I used braising to get some flavor into it), tamago-yaki (rolled omelet), grape tomatoes and snap peas. The two onigiri are just seasoned shio musubi (lightly salted rice balls). One is saying "doh!" because he is upside down!

昨日は急いでて、写真撮るチャンスがなかったのぅ↓↓↓。今日もあんまり時間がなかったので、構成がイマイチなんだけど、写真は撮れました。今日のお弁当はチキンコンソメで蒸し煮したチキン（普通は塩糀で一晩寝かすけど、時間がなくて…）、卵焼き、グレープトマト、えんどう豆、塩むすびx2。卵焼きなんだけんど、いつもより10倍ぐらいのホンだし入れてしまった（眠くて、面倒くさくて、指でつままないで容器からトントンと出そうとしたらバ～～と出てしまった）けど、それでもまずくはなっていない。ホンだしスゴイ!!

Doh! -- Onigiri (rice balls)

Does onigiri = rice ball? I remember when I was in New York for law school, I was behind a woman and her daughter who had just bought onigiri at Kinokuniya. The mother said to the girl "don't forget to eat your triangle rice". I thought this was very clever. Indeed, Kantou (eastern Japan) onigiri are triangular, and even Kansai (western Japan) onigiri are not "balls" (although Chubu/Kinki (middle Japan? Translation is hard...) region apparently used to have more ball-like shaped onigiri). Well of course, "rice ball" is not a literal translation of お握り, which comes from the verb meaning something like "to grasp", also "to mold into a shape" (its the same as the nigiri in nigiri sushi -- the other option to "rolls" in the U.S.).  

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

集中学習のお弁当 (Summer School Lunches)

こっちの現地校が先週、長～い夏休みに入ったため、今日補習校の集中学習が始まりました。とゆうことは、今週・来週は毎日お弁当が必要です。朝まで働いて、その後、早起き＋お弁当作り。。。2週間生き抜けるかな(^_^;;;)。
がんばりますP(^-^)o！！

Now that regular school is out on summer break, J school has entered its summer school period. During the next two weeks, my eldest will have J school every day...which means he needs a packed lunch every day. Which means that after working until morning, I will have to wake up early and make bento! HAAHHAHA! Weeeell, these two weeks may result in some "interesting" lunches, but I will try my best! ^_^!!

Today's lunch was ↓. Well, I didn't have so much time today before work, so it's pretty simple: boiled broccoli, grape tomato, boiled egg, apple slices x 2, cut Japanese hotdogs x 2, with rice and sesame seeds.

ちょっと手抜きですが、ブロッコリー、プチトマト、ゆで卵、りんごのスライス、ウィーナーｘ２

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

Hotdog flowers

Here's another J school bento (lunch box) -- a croquette (mashed potato balls with corn (it's in there!) that are deep fried) cut in half, tamago-yaki (rolled omelet), hotdog flowers (the yellow in the middle is a single corn kernel -- these come out cuter if you use Japanese mini hotdogs, but we didn't have any) and edamame. My kid has trouble opening edamame shells by himself, so these are preopened, but left in the shells (to give the illusion of being able to open them).




卵焼き、コロッケ、ホットドッグのお花（男の子だけんど＾＾;;）と枝豆

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

Field day (運動会)

In Japan, no child's education is complete without plenty of friendly undoukai, or "field days", during which include events like relay races and throwing balls into a basket (tamaire). Because my children attend international school in Japan, they were formerly deprived such experiences. Now that we attend J-school in the US, my eldest had finally his first undoukai. For mamas, this day means making a grand obentou...

先週の土曜日は、長男の人生初の運動会でした。そして、ママの初めての運動会のお弁当は↓です。

So despite waking up with more than two hours to finish everything, I failed to achieve maximum cuteness. Additionally, I got called into a teleconference for work just as lunch happened, so I missed the entire period allotted for lunch T_T!!! So, I actually didn't know how everyone liked my lunch >.<.

 

Fried dumplings -- filled with pork, cheese and tofu (and salt and hondashi)

 

Inarizushi -- although my husband is a sushi chef, I used oinarisan set to save time!

 

The main race scene...I didn't have time to make it very well. I had a plan for a goal line and "ganbare" in circle hotdogs...but oh well...

The scene here is running a race -- my kid is on the white team (the other team is the red team).

Hotdogs made to look like octopi, boiled broccoli, hearts made out of tamago yaki (rolled omelet) and grape tomatoes.

 

Small onigiri for small hands -- just shio musubi (lightly salted rice ball) with sesame seeds

 

Hotdog parts that couldn't get incorporated

 

 

Four tiers of lunch for a 7 y.o., a 3 y.o. and a 1 y.o. and one mama and one papa.

 

Well, overall, a bento failure. I will try harder next year!!

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

Sesame seed pudding for two

Sunday snack brought black sesame pudding for the two older ones (one boy, one girl). My husband criticized my use of kinako (roasted soybean flour) as a topping because the flavor is similar to sesame seed already.

日曜のおやつはゴマプディングでした。きなこをトッピングにしたのはよくないって主人に批判されました（味がゴマに似すぎているので。）＾＾;;。右のカップはディズニーのもので、娘の気に入りです。

The cup on the right is from Tokyo Disney ☆

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止

Saturday school bento (lunch box)

Of course I have a kid -- I have three. Saturday's are filled with J school and gymnastics. Here's my oldest's lunch for J school.

子供がいることは当たり前でしょ、だってあとちょっとで30歳ですもの。実は３児のママです。アメリカ住まいなんで、上の子は週末は補習校です。土曜のお弁当はこんな感じ↓

 

Rice is rolled up so it's easier to grab with chopsticks. Tamago-yaki (rolled omelette), grape tomatoes and edamame, grilled chicken.

Copyright © 2015 busy weekend mama. Content may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored.

加工・転載禁止