A Lifelike Sushi Dragon

Over the holidays we ended up at a sushi restaurant.  The preparation was surprisingly excellent and worth sharing. 

 

The dragon roll was particularly well done with great detail and creative touches including octopus eyes and pickled ginger fire.  

The Holidays

Our holidays started off with a tasty and fun package from Hannah.

Then Todd brought home fantastic holiday creations from Zabar's.  What you can't see in this picture is that inside the candy coating on tree is a solid ganache cone. 

We also managed to get our tree and trim it more than 48 hours before Christmas. Many thanks to Niraj who came out to help with the decorating.

As always we had a great time with my parents for the holidays.  I got to spend some time with my mom while I made a holiday gnome to keep the bat and the peppermint beastie company.  I may or may not have left tiny silicon beanies all over the house. 

After the crafty preparations we prepared a tasty dinner of unlikely holiday foods and sat down to a fun family dinner.  I have to say it is always a good time when we visit my parents.  The food is always good, but the fellowship and community that my parents foster in their house in Harlem with their own kids and all of our friends and acquaintances is really what makes events there special and makes us want to just drop by and visit.

Our eclectic meal included ravioli in bolognese sauce, mandarin duck, osso bucco, stuffed pork loin, risotto and brussels sprouts. 

To top things off we shared a traditional flaming Christmas pudding with hard sauce.  Todd has been perfecting his recipe and I have been "helping" by listening to Hercule Poirot in The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding.

Over dessert we cracked open a few early presents.

The next day we headed to Kent where we opened presents with his family.  Here Todd shows up a fun wrapping job and his new Whaler's hat.

 

Buddy and Dakota seem awfully happy amid the paper and boxes. 

  

 Buddy was not please with this remote controlled helicopter that Todd got from his dad and eyed it suspiciously.  

 

Snow in Bayonne!

 

On my way home from my Wee Peppermint Beastie workshop it became obvious that even in Manhattan the snow was going to stick so I knew when I came home I'd find lots of snow and happy dogs.  Great Pyrenees Dogs are made for snow and Buddy and Dakota are no exception.  I arrived home to find several inches of snow on the ground and more coming down every minute and two ecstatic dogs romping around in the (tiny) backyard.  By the time they deigned to rejoin us inside the house they each had at least a quarter inch of snow on their backs and didn't seem to mind.  Just wait till we take them out tomorrow!

I made a Wee Peppermint Beastie!

Today I braved the weather and went into Manhattan to participate in a Wee Peppermint Beast Workshop at Gallery Hanahou.  It was a great time.  I have to thank Rena for forwarding me an email about this which gave me just the nudge I needed to sign up.  The workshop consisted of a three-hour session where the materials and pattern to make a Wee Peppermint Beast were provided and Jenny Harada herself explained and demonstrated how to make them.  Jenny was really great and extremely patient as she explained how to make a beastie and provided lots of demonstrations for each step.  My detailed-oriented tendencies were good for producing a very satisfactory beastie, but not for doing it in the timeframe of the workshop. I was aiming to make a beastie similar to the original Wee Peppermint Beastie like the one on the right here:

But thirty minutes after the scheduled end of the workshop I had just finished the antlers so I decided to take the pompoms home and glue them on there.  I had lots of fun chatting with Rena while making my beastie and it was a really great way to spend a wintery afternoon.

The Hanahou Galary has a fantastic exhibit of plush creations and I'm excited to see what they have next and to attend another workshop there!

Flight Over CT

So, we're looking for a new house.  And we're looking to move to the Stamford, CT area.  And we have been taking trips to visit houses with a real estate agent in Fairfield County for severel months now.  After a few trips, Todd's dad made the terrific offer to fly us over Stamford to see the area from the air.  It was lots of fun.  I've never been in a small plane before, and I had a fleeting fear that something smaller than some SUVs wouldn't actually make it into the air.