Spice Cake

Even though I am not a baker, sometime I want to eat something I baked. We found a box of spice cake mix, so we arranged the receipt and made apple spice cake. Served with whipped cream. Yum...

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Weekend Meal

It got cold this weekend, and no more outdoor activities. We went to the farmer's market to buy a lot of, I meant A LOT OF, produce items. Our dinner was pretty much vegetarian except a little of beef in the pepper dish (red one).

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Yakiimo for Breakfast

It is the season of Japanese sweet potato. I baked them yesterday and one of them became my breakfast. Not as good as the one we had in Kyoto but not too bad.

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Nice Saturday

It was cool this morning, but it warmed up pretty nicely by afternoon.

We decided to go to the playground near by. This place was used by Mariah Carey's music video - Fantasy. I did not know she grew up in NY till several months ago, and she produced this video first time, I heard. She was pretty 20 years ago. What happen to her after getting married (or trying to having a baby or two).

You can see the ocean (technically it might not be ocean as you can still see Long Island at the end), but it was very nice with the reflections of the late afternoon sun. There were many people enjoying this surprisingly warm weekend on the beach or at the boardwalk.

I needed something sweet - surprise..., so we stopped by at one of European pastries, we like. It should have been TWO for two people, but I could not choose only two so we ended up choosing three - one more chocolate raspberry napoleon waiting for us. This cassis mousse had nice crusty bottom (like short bread) as a nice surprise.

Dinner was easy cooking - onion/potato stew and garlic black bean sauce chicken with green onions. Both came out really nice and we were able to take enough energy to play Wii tonight. I wonder who wins...

Chicken Dinner

It's Friday so it has to be chicken dish... Gigantic chickens were on sale (we love bargains) so no question to puck them up. Roasted them today with some vegetables. We still have rosemary left so rosemary with lemon sauce today.

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Ready for Halloween?

There is only one week till Halloween. We have not picked the costumes YET. Actually we don't do costume things so no preparation is needed.
Someone seems to be ready to have many kids visiting and knocking the door for treats...

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Working and... in the City

It is wierd to say this but I don't come to the city often. Today was a rare case. I had lunch with my old friend and had meetings afterwards. Everything was in the mid-town so easy to walk around from one to another. This is the exterior of the grand central station.

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Trip to Time Warner

You can't live without cable TV service in the US. I needed to go to one of their offices today by taking a bus. I don't think I have posted any picture of the bus in NYC. Here you go. It is crucial in the city to go to the places without subway close by.

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Autumn Here in New York

I like the sound of Autumn (not fall). Maybe I associate it with holidays or even holiday meals - apple pies, pumpkin...
We went to one of towns in upstate today (Sunday). We came here a couple of years ago, and we wanted to come back here ever since. Unbelievable colors and you can see FIVE states - NY, CT, PA, NJ and MA from here. No specific landmarks to tell which state you are looking at, so I am just believing we saw all five today.

There are stone edges which stuck out to enable to see even better views. You feels like you can jump into the bed of colorful trees. Since the parking lot was small, not so many people at a time, which was a good thing too.

Another reason we chose this location was this famous bakery in the close town. They have amazing pumpernickel bread - about 5lb each, yes FIVE. I have never seen this kind of heavy bread anywhere else, and per their website, they deliver all over the country.

Our dinner was very simple but fulfilling, as we did not have that much time for cooking. After all it was about 2 hours drive each way. Meat and Potatoes... typical American dinner. I did not roast cauliflower when I was in Japan, but this is one of the best ways to taste it. Again roasted onion was always good.
Great AUTUMN weekend.

Trip to Connecticut

It was a windy day today, so no trip to see the tree colors. Instead, we made a quick trip to one of RICHEST towns in Connecticut. Trees started changing the colors, but you can still see greens a lot. We wanted to buy some fall/winter jacket for the season, but we did not get lucky to find one we like.

Next stop - Stew Leonard's. Based on TripAdvisor.com, it is the most popular spot/attraction in Connecticut... We usually go to a different outlet in NY, but this is the original. They are famous for their dairy products - not to mention their ice creams, but this season, you can see a lot of pumpkins - no Kabocha today though.

They have very unique display/design in the store, which makes it difficult to find something, or it takes longer time to finish the shopping process. But again it is very entertaining - there are a lot of "tasting spots" to try their promotional items, and kids like to be there, I guess.

We bought sword fish, which looked good for dinner. We simply grilled, but made "special" sauce with rosemary, lemon (both zests and juice), garlic and olive oil. I have never cooked this fish before, but boy it came out PERFECT. We have decided to add this dish to the list we will make again. Agree?

Gyoza Dinner

This is what we ended up with - Gyoza (Japanese dumping). We cooked something else too but I wanted to take a picture of this first. We don't usually use pork in the dishes and today was no exception. We used a combination of beef and chicken along with some vegetables. It came out perfect - crunchy at the bottom and tender inside. Shell was a bit thicker than typical Japanese one as we used Chinese wrapper. Yummy...

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Thursday Dinner

It is officially fall - or at least based on the tree colors.
Not 100% yet, but it is getting there. There have been a few storms, which knocked down the leaves, so far this year, but you can still see beautiful trees. We are planning to go to the mountain this weekend, so stay turned for additional pictures.

It was Thursday but we had a time to cook dinner - very simple one. It is always nice to have home cooking meal, even though it did not have picture worth sophistication. We just needed a very simple supper, so it was perfect for the night. We will have more time today (Friday) so let's see what we can cook (or I should say EAT).

Gossip Girl Here

It is not rare to have TV or movie shoots here but this time Gossip Girl. Not sure who will be but still exciting, isn't it?

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Working from Home

I have moved my desk from the living room to bed room as I no longer need air conditioner.
I love the view from this room as it is very peaceful. No river or skyline view though.

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Walking the City

I had a friend's friend visiting the city from Japan, so I was a one-day tour guide. Started the day by going to Fairway and Zabar's to buy some unique items including their eco-bag, which is pretty popular in Japan.
Headed to my favorite restaurant - Saigon Grill for late lunch. As always #78 was on our table along with hot-sour vegetable soup - yum yum.

Walk across the park and got this very nice shot. It's still a bit early for Autumn colors, but still you can feel it is nowhere but NYC.
After walking down the Madison Ave. to 59th, we took a train to the grand central. The more I see/show this, the more I like this station. These lightings were amazing by considering this is a public station and it was very trashy 20 years ago or so.
After taking a bus ride to the Washington squire, we walked down the bleecker street. I love walking down this street which changes the feeling from the start to the end. Obviously there was a long line at the Magnolia cupcake, which we even did not bother to stop by.
Very nice day to walk around the city.

Bagels at the Park

It has been a while since we came to the prospect park. Of course our lunch was bagels from Bergen st. Bagel store. This time I tried egg bagel first time ever. I could not pass it as you can see it was super crunchy out side. Yes it was the right choice.

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Chicken Dinner

I know it was not Friday but we cooked chicken for dinner. We tried.new receipt using vinegar. I liked carrots more than chicken but they were really good.

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Wonderful Dinner

One of my best friends was here in the city from LA.
Where we went? One of my favorite restaurants in the city - Gotham Bar and Grill. This place is not as dramatic as Eleven Madison, but still pretty nice setting.

My main course was pork dish - surprise??? There were two cuts of meat - pork chop and belly... They were very tasty and I liked the greens under the meat. My friend D. got duck and it was very nice too.

Only one desert as we were almost full after the main course. De-constructed Devil's cake. Familiar taste but there were a few twists. I really enjoyed the dinner there - servers were very professional and knowledgeable. And people eating there were fashionable and I felt like I was one of them.
Love you D. and come back to NYC more often.

Kentucky

First time ever to be in this state.
This is the shot from the hotel I stayed - you can't really see anything as there was nothing. I am not a big fan of Midwest region as they don't have mountains.

Funny thing was they have their own local water but sold by Coca Cola. I thought it was very funny. We, NY does not have our own bottled water but from Maine, Canada or somewhere Europe, right?

Williamsburg Brooklyn

We have never (not never technically) been this neighborhood even though it is only 10 minutes drive. Finally last week, we went there for BBQ and bagels.
This BBQ place was featured on the TV and I really wanted to try, even though it was the day before going to Kentucky, where BBQ is pretty famous there. It has very different concept from other places in NY.

They sell the meat by weight, just like ordinary botcher does. We had pork belly, two types of beef cuts and sausage, and baked beans??? and coleslaw. It was about pound of meat and they were delicious and perfect. We sure come back here again.

Next stops were bagel stores, yes TWO places. There were decent bagel stores within a few blocks. We could not eat there but brought back and they are sleeping in my freezer... of which three have been gone so far.

While walking around the area, we found this famous ice cream shop, which sells premium hand made ice cream. It was too much stretch to eat ice cream after tons of meat, I know even for me, so we passed it this time.
It is very a hip and energetic area and people are all young, which is totally different feeling from BH but similar to EV or Cobble Hill.

 

Something Good and Bad

At the airport to NYC. Not much choices so salad and cinnamon roll. Actually both are not good for me I guess.

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Going to KY

Fist time to go to KY. It is just south of Ohio but it feels far away. Changing the flights in Detroit.

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It's Fall

After the storms dumping over a few inches of rain, it is finally like fall here. Lower 50s in the morning and upper 60s during the day. PERFECT!!!
We drove to a farm which has a market next to it.It is October so there were a lot of pumpkin (we did not buy any of these, but bought a Kabocha pumpkin for dinner).

Flowers were fully bloomed - it is called Kiku in Japan, but it is very popular here in the U.S. during fall season. Some colors were very unique and I have never seen before.

Dinner was as usual a home cooking using fall vegetables we bought at the market - Kabocha pumpkin, peppers (hot ones, green ones, and Italian ones), and Okura. I thought that Okura is a traditional Japanese vegetable till a few years ago when I learned that it is from South America and many southern cuisines use Okura, e.g .Gambo in New Orleans.

We needed a desert - usually we buy something as I am not a baker, but we started learning to make apple crisp. This time we used a few different apples to make the dish a bit more complicated taste. Old fashion rolled oats gave the dish great crunches. It was good in warm and it will be good in cold as well.

Easy Dinner

It's Friday but no time to cook complicated meal. Pasta with tomato sauce. It came out really good and beautiful. Isn't it?

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