In a Springy Color

Seafood Pasta in Pink

The reason why I call this color "springy" is that this light pink color reminded me of typical spring flowers we see in Japan: peach and cherry blossoms. Can you imagine what gave this pasta dish the lovely color? It was mentaiko (marinated pollock roe).
It was the restaurant where I had the lettuce fried rice the other day. Here I bumped into a friend of mine who was having lunch with her son. Maybe they thought I was weird, because I was shooting photos of my lunch so enthusiastically. ;)
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An Overnight Trip

I visited two places in Hyogo prefecture on the 16th and 17th of January, as written here and here. This was the humble dinner I had at the inn I stayed at. Unfortunately, this packed sushi I bought in Sannomiya was no good. But the lady who took care of the place was so nice and made my stay there very comfortable.

The earthquake memorial event was held early in the morning on the 17th. It was freezing cold.
After coming back to the inn, I slipped into futon again and waited until I got warmed up.

Around 8:30 am, I finally got out of futon. Before leaving the inn, I looked for the lady to pay for the stay. She was in the kitchen and offered me breakfast (even though it was not included in the service). How nice!

I liked this inn. She charged me only 2,500 yen for the overnight stay.
I've got to come back again!

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Warm Lunch on a Cold, Windy Day!

Lettuce Fried Rice with Starchy Sauce, Shrimp Spring Roll, Salad and Miso Soup

It was so windy today. See the waves in the photo below? See how the wave splash was being blown by the wind? On a day like this, nothing beats a warm lunch with steaming hot soup and tea. :)

I had lunch at a seaside restaurant.

Some coarsely ground black pepper flakes were hiding beneath the spring roll.

I liked everything, except that the fried rice was a little too salty for me.

They still had traditional ornament from the New Year's Day. The red berries looked so lovely. :)
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Nanakusa-gayu

Nanakusa-gayu (Rice Porridge with Seven Kinds of Edible Wild Herbs)

This is the very first time that my mom made this porridge on the 7th of January. Perhaps the piled up packages of the seven herbs looked too tempting at the supermarket yesterday.

You can find the details of this traditional custom here. Mom didn't care much about sticking with these traditional seven herbs. She threw in some cabbage and pumpkin wedges, which was probably a good thing to do, at least, nutrition-wise. :P

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Happy New Year!!

Hope everyone enjoyed the New Year's Day. I know there are those who had to work on January 1st (I used to be one of them). I hope that they had a good day at work, and can have lots of fun later when the majority of people have to be back at work. :)

Home-packed (not really homemade) New Year's Feast, 2012

So, how do you like this new template? At the end of last year, I noticed that those lines around the title bar, main posts and the sidebars were not really necessary. Hence, this new template.

Yes, there are a couple of things I want to fix. Can you help me with this: how can I show the links in bold letters as was in the previous template of this blog? But overall, I'm happy with this new look.

I'm going to post more food photos this year.
Dear readers, thank you so much for still visiting this blog, even though I couldn't update it very often last year. Your attention meant so much to me, and it will in the future, too. :)

* For those who are interested: these are typical New Year's dishes in Japan. Click on the links for details. ;)
- Osechi
- Zoni

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