daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
Today’s photo is of our tea tray that sits next to our espresso machine. Every day I like to sip on tea while I work so I visit here a lot to fill the tiny tea pot with hot water. We have an electric kettle which makes it so convenient.
I’m not a tea connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoy the taste, especially green teas. Besides being tasty and calming, green tea has health benefits as well. Win-win-win!
Tonight I made some Chinese-style seasoned ribs and Oyster-sauce greens for Mariko’s birthday. She didn’t have a specific request, but I offered to try a new dry rub recipe on a tried-and-true baby-back ribs cooking method, and she said that sounded good. The ribs turned out great!
At the same website where I found the ribs recipe, I found a recipe for the greens and they also turned out nicely:
I hope Mariko enjoyed her birthday dinner!
Here are the recipes:
Tonight we celebrated Setsubun by eating ehōmaki while facing this year’s lucky direction, North-Northwest. The sushi was delicious and filling. It’s one (Kansai) Japanese tradition that I truly love!
A big pot of Cioppino filled the house with an amazing aroma this afternoon. Mariko had a few friends over for dinner, and the cioppino was the main dish, with salads and focaccia accompanying it. In addition, she made a beautiful cheese board. So cool! I’m always so grateful to be able to enjoy food like this at home. ☺️
My wife used our Neewer 660 lighting kit for the first time last night during a pizza lesson. It worked out nicely! The shoot-through umbrella is a little obtrusive, but the diffused light and soft shadows that it creates is worth it.
