modified paksiw

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I wanted to cook Tuna Paksiw (Paksiw –  a traditional Filipino vinegar-based food), Papa’s way. But I wasn’t able to go to Asian Store hence I don’t have any Filipino vinegar at hand. What I have is Hubby’s apple vinegar.

Realizing I need to ask Papa how a real paksiw should be cooked, I ventured on concocting a revised paksiw menu. I didn’t have the confidence to experiment on the traditional paksiw, this time.

I had two slabs of tuna (forgot to take a picture).

Mushroom, sold at 98 yen in Yokohamaya, somewhere in between Maita and Gumyoji. To be cut in halves.

Medium-sized yellow bell pepper. I SO love yellow bell peppers. I can eat them as is.

Cherry-tomatoes, to be cut in halves.

Tsada! Care to suggest a name for this?

yes i know, i need a NEW pan

It was good, especially since the bell peppers and cherry tomatoes weren’t overcooked. Lessons learned though:

  • need to simmer it a bit longer so the sauce could sip into the tuna and mushroom a bit more
  • measure the amount of vinegar – i always cook by feel, no measuring. So i have to learn to measure
  • don’t use apple vinegar if you don’t want a fruity sour taste

6th month

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We’ve been married for six months now, and living together for 2.5 weeks in our apato. In exactly 38 days, we’ll have our Church wedding. Although it’s becoming quite a trend lately (and it’s also quite the norm here in Japan), still, I find that it’s quite unconventional, living together and prepping up your new home and at the same time preparing for your wedding. But I ain’t complaining. In fact, I love the novelty of it.

I miss my work, terribly. But I love keeping home and arranging home as well. I love cooking for Atsushi, although it’s just in the evenings. I am ashamed to admit that I still am asleep when Atsushi goes out to work.

But I love how he wakes me up to kiss and hug me goodbye and wish me  a good day, as I in turn wish him the same thing. And I love how he allows me to go back to sleep. And I love how he puts the blanket back on me, in the middle of the night. Those, and other things besides.

There are a lot of adjustments to be made, that’s for sure, especially since we both have different nationalities; grew up in different cultures and backgrounds. But considering all the good things we have and are experiencing, getting married is indeed the best decision I ever made.

And of course, this comes with a prayer: That I hope we continue to be the loving couple that we are now, even after 50 years.

Haha, call it fate, but Journey’s “Faithfully” is playing in Accuradio as I wrote this blog.

Yep, Atsushi, i’m forever yours, faithfully and i’m sure you’re mine as well. And I can’t wait for us to finally make our vows this time, in the Church.

Fulfilling Yasai (vegetable)

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It isn’t just good food (or more like good drink/tasteful drink in this case). It’s packed with healthy goodness as well. You can taste the richness in nutrients and minerals with every flavorful sip. Why so? Cause it’s a pure juice made out of 20 vegetables and 5 fruits.

music corner

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It truly was a productive long weekend, mostly with home prepping. Dining table delivered at last by Watanabe Furniture Shop, the friendly neighborhood shop although i’m yet to decorate it. As expected, dining table came in pieces. Watanabe-san and his apprentice set it all up and gave us, as part of their service, the Indonesian malong that they used in their display. Yay!

The two DIY bookshelves (each as tall as Atsushi and twice his width) were also delivered and it’s already 95% filled as of last night. Yet, we’re barely 1/4 done in arranging the books. Some books may have to be sold/donated/thrown away. We ordered for 2 more bookshelves and thankfully, they’re not DIY so it’ll be easier. Yes, it’ll be a home cum library and I am not complaining. A lot of Atsushi’s books are really interesting with a WIDE selection of topics, making me want to learn Japanese and fast. Mine are more on fantasy and novels. 😀

Anyways, we also DIY-ed the shelf for the mini-music corner. Bought it at Tokyu Hands and since we want to get immediately started on organizing the mini-corner, we opted to carry it home instead of having it delivered. See how truly thoughtful the Japanese customer service is. They put a foam on the bag handle to protect our hands. How thoughful!

Japan is probably the DIY-country, where you can DIY a lot of stuff. Found the perfect corner stand I had in mind albeit we have to DIY it. But it was pretty easy to assemble so it was just perfect.

Behold, the stand adjuster – just in case you have uneven flooring.

BEFORE: Music corner with a boxful of music scores.

AFTER: Tada! 🙂

The music scores kept piling up after this shot as we “unearthed” more scores in the other boxes. We’re yet to look for four (yes, four!) guitar stands for Atsushi’s guitars but as Hubbie said, maybe we’ll just display two, for now. Atsushi told me to try and learn playing his base guitar – I have never been as pressured…HELP!!!

Oh, just now, we had another earthquake. Thankfully, the music corner held.

white day

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March 14, Japan’s supposed White Day**, found me and Hubbie apprehensive. He has to go to the office and considering the tremors over the weekend and the ensuing  radiation scare, we were both apprehensive to be apart from each other. Still though, he has to go, especially that there really is no visible major effect the quake had in Yokohama except for the fact that there were shelves in the groceries with missing supplies (probably because of panic buying by people and most probably by gaijins, sorry to say this) and of course our nerves in jangles what with one tremor after another and what with keeping ourselves posted, with bated breath, on the latest updates on the nuclear plants.

I keep myself posted mostly by reading updates on Kyodo News Network. It’s so Japanese, balanced, reporting what needs to be reported, without too much flair. CNN is just too filled with drama for me. Not-so Japanese. I do try to venture other news networks every now and then but mostly, i’m for Kyodo News. As Hubbie pointed out, media has the tendency to over-commercialize what is happening, because indeed, they earn out of the news they share. I do hope media will do their own share as well in keeping people at bay and to not cause more people to panic.

So okay, I digress. Jagged nerves in place, receiving a package first thing in the morning with a cheerful “yubin desu!!” (you have a package!) in the intercom was certainly heartwarming. I had to pool in some of my EQ to wait for Hubbie before opening our package.

Dhonna addressed it to both me and Hubbie hence it was just but right to wait for Atsushi. And am glad I did. It felt good opening our package together.

It contained our cord and it’s container and a hardbound book about marriage and a heartwarming card. Certainly a good thing to receive at a time when we are most fearful.

We just love the cord. Workmanship is really good!! And the materials used was certainly of good quality.

We just love the container. It’s so cute! See the size of the container in comparison to Hubbie’s thumb?

We just love the detail that Ghepoi and Dhonna put into packaging our cord. They put a cute-designed crepe paper to lay the cord on on the container. They also put a sticker of our logo on the inside of the container cover – I think they got it from the save-the-date envelope that I gave them before.

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Thank you Dhonna and Ghepoi!! 🙂

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**White Day is the equivalent of Valentines Day that’s designated for women. See, on the Japanese Valentines Day, the women give their husbands/lovers/boyfriends/crushes/officemates chocolates,cakes, etc etc. White Day is in turn the day when the men reciprocate the women’s initiative. For this year’s White Day though, there were no extravagant and elegant displays of gifts as there were in the previous years.

energy!

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I am most happy with our kitchen. Right now, I have nothing to ask for that’s kitchen-related (well, except for new pots and pans 😀 ). It’s a happy place for me. Especially since we also eat in the kitchen haha. Dining table will only be delivered this weekend hence, we’ve been eating in the kitchen. It’s fine though. We already have lots of kitchen memories. 😀

As for the dishes I cook, well, mostly, they’re experiments. I think i’m on Marj Special # 9 or so already. Maybe I should start taking notes about them. At one point last week, when Hubbie peeped in the boiling pot, he asked me if our dish for the night was Chinese. I laughed and said I actually don’t know what nationality it is. Nor any of the dishes i’ve cooked. They certainly aren’t Filipino since I’ve been using some ingredients that aren’t Filipino. Thankfully though, Hubbie likes ’em all and eats ’em all, even when I estimated we’d have plenty of leftovers.

Will share some pictures next time. For now though, here’s some healthy goodness to share. A medium-sized carrot and a big apple when pulped can produce about 300ml drink. Add in 5ml honey (yes, see the path the honey made? took this before we did some stirring) and you’d have a healthy and delicious drink to cap your meal. Laughed when Hubbie exclaimed “energy!” after drinking his share (it’s a pun for the FM radio station in the Philippines).

By the side of the (energy) drink is an asparagus-tuna omelette. Yum! 🙂

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had another earthquake just now…. 🙁