daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
こんばんは。
Today I braced myself to go running in the cold weather, but as it turned out, the afternoon was a warm and pleasant 74° F! 🌞 I don’t know how long this warm spell will last, but I definitely wanted to take advantage of it.
I hope you had a nice Friday!
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Tonight we had three guests over for Thanksgiving dinner. It was actually the smallest gathering we’ve had for Thanksgiving in a long time, and it was a nice change of pace! Because there were only seven of us, I prepared a 15-pound turkey, which I brined in salt water, with sugar, mango juice, rosemary, and peppercorns. Not only is roasting a smaller bird easy, but the prep is nicer too, with shorter defrosting times, easier brining, less space needed in the fridge, and cleanup is a snap.
I also think the smaller bird also cooks more evenly, and in less time, it’s easy to get in and out of the oven and, carving is much more fun. Although I enjoy having a lot of people over, I’ll take advantage of this year’s more relaxing Thanksgiving. 😄
This year, I prepared two batches of dressing: one regular, and one with oysters. The oyster dressing has been a tradition in our family since I was a kid, and I still love it – it’s my favorite dish of the feast! But I also made a smaller portion without the oysters because Bay is not fond of them, and I wasn’t sure if our guests liked them either. Next year, I think I’ll just stick with oyster dressing because Bay was able to tolerate it without too much fussing, I like to introduce a new type of dressing to those who haven’t tried it yet. And I believe that eventually, Bay will learn to love it too! 🤤
I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!
またね～
🎨👟
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Tonight I worked on a sketch for a little bit. I like how it turned out so far. I think Qipao (旗袍) are so cool and beautiful, so I wanted to draw one. We’ll see if tomorrow I feel the same way. However, I think it’s good enough to create the Illustrator artwork and do the editing and design on the Qipao there. I think the long hair might not go well with the outfit, so that might change too. I can’t wait to get to work on it! 😊
To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.
I hope you had a nice day!
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
This evening Bay and I went to the art store to buy some supplies, and on the way back, we stopped by Kinokuniya. It’s probably my favorite store here in Austin for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I can fantasize that I am in Japan – the country I enjoy the most, and secondly, it has such a great selection of high-quality stationery such as notebooks, paper, pens, etc. They have a good selection of fountain pens and ink, including brands like Pilot, Sailor, Kaweco, LAMY, and Iroshizuku. They even sell Traveler’s Co. supplies!
I’ve been searching for a good-sized binder to use instead of my spiral notebooks and found one that I really like. It’s an A5-sized 20-ring binder from Maruman that comes with 5-subject dividers and a few sheets of lined filler paper. I also bought 100 sheets of graph paper, and I love it! I think it looks so nice and sharp, and A5 fits nicely in my Patagonia MiniMass messenger bag.
I also stumbled across these awesome Kurutoga pencils with Studio Ghibli artwork on them. They are so cool! But at $12 per pencil (and the fact that I have no need for another mechanical pencil) it wasn’t difficult to resist buying one. Perhaps if my current Kurutoga breaks, though… 😈
I hope you had a nice Monday!
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
I noticed that a few people in my extended family mentioned their fondness for Popeye’s Fried Chicken in the family Whatsapp group and it has been sitting in the back of my mind because I have never actually tried Popeye’s before. So this evening Bay and I visited the nearby restaurant and ordered the 8-piece special, with four different side items.
I had pretty high expectations of the food because of the surprising enthusiasm on Whatsapp, but unfortunately, I was disappointed with both the chicken and sides (mashed potatoes, mac n cheese, green beans, and red beans & rice). While the skin/breading of the chicken was super-crispy, it didn’t have a really good or special taste (KFC is better IMHO). It was just basic fried chicken. And everything, including the sides, was really salty.
Sadly, I think that tonight’s visit to Popeye’s will be my last since there are other chicken options that I prefer. I’m not a huge fan of fried chicken to begin with that type of food is not high on my list anyways. But Popeye’s was an itch that I had to scratch, so I’m glad I tried it! 😆
In other news, I watched a couple of Japanese movies today – the excellent Close-Knit, and an older movie A Fisher Wife’s Tale, starring Hibari Misora. Yes, it was a lazy Sunday. Sitting under a warm kotatsu watching movies was kind of perfect, actually!
I hope you had a wonderful Sunday!
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Tonight, we enjoyed another meal that’s perfect for cool autumn weather: kimchi nabé (キムチ鍋). The ingredients were: tofu, sliced pork, scallion, Chinese cabbage, noodles, enoki mushrooms, shimeji mushrooms, and kimchi. Right now, Koa is on a band trip out of state, so there were only three of us feasting tonight and there was so much food that there were plenty of leftovers. That means it will make a deluxe kimchi udon tomorrow. 🤤
Next time I’d like to try it with oyster as well. It looks amazing:
I hope you had a spicy day!
またね～
