Category: Food

Wurstfest

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"Bier Time" New Braunfels, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/35 sec, ISO6400
 “Bier Time” New Braunfels, 2016

Hello!

Today was a fun day because we went with some friends to “Wurstfest” in New Braunfels for the evening. Wurstfest is a German festival where the main activities are drinking beer, eating German food, and listening to traditional German and German-inspired music.

The weather for the one-hour drive was terrible, with heavy rain ☔ and a bit of traffic but once we arrived to the festival, the rain let up and eventually went away and we had a wonderful evening. I think it worked out perfectly because there wasn’t a huge crowd, especially at the beer and food lines. For instance, the potato pancake line is often over half an hour wait, but last night it was just a couple of minutes. Also I am guessing Sunday is not their busiest day since there is a BOGO admission ticket for Sunday through Wednesday. At any rate, it was a great day to go to Wurstfest.

"Marketplace" New Braunfels, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4.5, 1/280 sec, ISO12800
 “Marketplace” New Braunfels, 2016

For food, we tried a few different things including sausage, sauerkraut, & pita sandwich; potato pancakes with applesauce; funnel cake; and fried pickles. It was all pretty tasty, but I’m sure my arteries weren’t liking any of it. Then of course there was plenty of beer to be had 🍻. Since I was driving, I only had a little bit, but that was good because we did save a bit of money. 😝

"Ferris Wheel" New Braunfels, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/6.4, 1/70 sec, ISO12800
 “Ferris Wheel” New Braunfels, 2016

For entertainment, Wurstfest features lots of live music, mainly polka bands, and we watched a band called Yodelblitz who were really funny. And there was quite a bit of Chicken Dance going on during the festival! 🐔

Wurstfest takes place every year and it’s definitely worth your while to go see what it’s all about at least once, especially if you live in Central Texas. Just be sure to bring an empty stomach and a full wallet!

Have a great evening!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Why Hawaii Poke Is Taking The Mainland By Storm | Hawaii Public Radio-HPR2

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According to the Wall Street Journal, poke is one of the culinary trends of 2016. The popular raw-fish dish has taken the mainland by storm, with poke

Source: Why Hawaii Poke Is Taking The Mainland By Storm | Hawaii Public Radio-HPR2

Nice story above fron HPR about poke. I know that here in Austin a few poke shops have sprung up, and even one of the local Costco stores was carrying a couple different kinds of poke. I’m happy to see it become more available here in Texas, even if it isn’t super-authentic.

I remember as a kid when my grandparents would visit us every summer and Christmas that they would bring us a bunch of food from Maui. And one of the items was poke. Not sure if they just brought the ingredients and made it at our house or bought it already made, but I never liked it back then. But I love poke now!

It’s essential to include poke in a Hawaiian feast:

90 / 365

(click on the photo to view on Flickr, where you can see notes about the different kinds of dishes)

Cold Weather Food

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"Oden" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO2000
 “Oden” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！How’s it going?

Today the rain arrived and the temperatures dropped a bit. As the days get cooler, three Japanese dishes come to mind: Curry, Nabe, and Oden. We had the last one this evening, and it was delicious!

Oden is hard to describe to Westerners. It’s kind of a bunch of different things that are kept warm in a yummy broth, then served in a bowl. Typical items found in oden are sausage, hard-boiled egg, tofu, daikon, konyaku, fishcake, and potato. We like to serve it with some hot mustard on the side for some heat. And of course white rice. 🍚 You just pick what you want out of the pot and enjoy!

Oden is popular in the wintertime, and you can even find it in convenience stores in Japan, sort of like how there are hot dogs and burritos in a 7-11 here in the States. I’ve only gotten oden at a Japanese convenience store once, but I remember that it was pretty good.

Of course, our home-cooked oden is the best! Another wonderful comfort food to enjoy with family. If you have the chance to try it, please do.

On a completely different note, the system drive in my desktop computer 🖥 died this past weekend, so I replaced it with an SSD unit. I must say, it’s super-fast compared to the old HDD 💽! The boot-time is down to just several seconds… it’s one of the best “upgrades” I made to this computer, which is now over four years old, but running fast once again.

I have a second, larger hard drive in this computer to store all my data on (which I keep backups of), so I didn’t lose anything important. However, one thing that I did lose was my collection of Lightroom Presets that I collected and created. There were several that I used often, but luckily I was able to recreate them using History panel, which kept a record of past changes to edited images. (I keep my Lightroom catalog on the data drive, so it was backed up) I guess I need to add the Presets folder to my backup profile. 😃

I hope you had a nice Thursday!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Home cooking

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"Mapo Tofu" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO1250
 “Mapo Tofu” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！Hi, how’s it going?

Tonight’s photo is of the bowl of mapo tofu that I had for dinner. Mariko made this yummy and spicy dish from scratch, although you can buy the mapo (or mabo) sauce already prepared. It’s one of my favorite dishes.

Here in the States, many would call this type of food a “rice bowl”, meaning, a bowl filled with rice with some kind of topping. In Japan, there’s a similar type of food called “donburi” and it is just about my favorite. In particular, I love oyako-don, which is chicken and egg over rice, but I also love gyu-don (sliced beef over rice), katsu-don (pork cutlet over rice), and una-don (Unagi/eel over rice).

You could say this is a Japanese comfort food, because it is very commonly made at home. In fact, for my birthday dinner each year, I request oyakodon from Mariko, and she thinks it is a strange request because it isn’t very special. But it’s my favorite! Yummmm.

If you live in a city that has Yoshinoya, I urge you to go try one of the “beef bowls” (gyu-don). It’s so good!

I hope you ate well tonight, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Dinner ideas

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"Japanese Fish Fry" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO2500
 “Japanese Fish Fry” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！How’s it going?

Today’s photo is of a delicious Japanese dinner that Mariko prepared. I’ve posted in the past about how fortunate the kids and I are that Mariko is an awesome cook, who can make so many different kinds of foods.

I was thinking how I am incapable of thinking of a wide variety of food to prepare. My brain just stops at sandwiches, burgers, enchiladas, or spaghetti. I have a mental block and have a difficult time of thinking of other possible dishes. It’s really weird! But Mariko can decide on something from a huge repertoire seemingly last-minute, and it always comes out amazing! And it’s not just one dish, but it’s a main dish, plus soup, salad, a couple fresh veggie dishes, rice, pickled vegetables, etc. I don’t know how she does it. My prepared meal, on the other hand, consists of a main dish, and a side dish… 😜

Anyways, I’m thankful for all the yummy foods and gladly help out (which most times means cleaning up, then just getting out of the way). My main job is doing the dishes which is a small price to pay for eating like a king every night. 🍴

I hope you had a nice weekend!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto