Sleepy Sundays

Sundays take a lot out of us! brunch service in the new restaurant and wine bar is FUN but busy busy busy. Plus for chris in the kitchen with our other chefs- it is toooo hot. We have an air con for the restaurant side, but the kitchen needs one and I don't yet have the 150,000 yen ($1,500.00) to pay to get one in. It has to be well over 100 degrees sometimes in the kitchen!  So after a busy brunch, we were full today, everyone is pretty worn out.

It has been over 90 degrees f. every day this week, but we have still had some full service times, last night we had a great busy Saturday. And as I said, today- BRUNCH was full! We were serving our homemade house cured bacon again. Very popular. And I was doing week 2 of the great smoothie launch. I made a ton of them today. Especially popular was the Tropical Truth- smoothie that has pineapple, banana, coconut milk and vanilla ice cream with a few other  ingredients.  The recipe is from my fantastic bartender, Peter. He works somewhere else on sundays but he helped me out by writing up some killer recipes.

This week I am going to start to research a few of my own to try as well.

Today is my hubby's birthday- and still he came in and cooked! Meant so much to me, not sure how we would have done it otherwise. And tomorrow starts another busy week on the treadmill. But for tonight we are chillin out- resting and recovering.


TROPICAL TRUTH KIMONO SMOOTHIE
2 rings of pineapple
1 banana
1 splash of honey water
1 splash of coconut milk
100 ml orange juice
100 ml mango juice
1 lg scoop of vanilla ice cream
crushed ice

Blend on high till creamy and smooth
pour in glass and garnish with fresh mint
serve with a straw and a spoon on the side!

inner child

Hands down, my favorite book when i was a child was this one, "The Tall Book of Make-Believe." This book was brilliant in every way and this copy has been well loved. The book is no longer in print but should be. I think this more than anything else fed my imagination and formed some of my long term day dreams.

It was not a story book but a collection of fantastic poems and short tales by famous and not as famous writers. Robert Louis Stevenson, Tennyson, Eugene Field, Carl Sandburg. Brilliant stuff, but what made the book magic was the illustrator! Garth Williams illustrated each and every entry and his work is magical in this book. You completely loose yourself in each drawing. Sugar plum trees, kids in mischief, A Knight fighting a giant Ant, Bears on scooters, Mr. Nobody. Each drawing expertly puts your heart and dream mind right in the brilliant poems or stories.

I want to do something with this book someday, find out if it could be reprinted, or maybe shared with new children in a new way. I think for now I will share some of the pages here in my blog.

My friend has a little girl, she is a star of her mom's blog and says the most wonderful, horrible, amazing, scary, gorgeous things. Lovely to think of her and children like her having a chance to enjoy this book.

Making Wishes Part 2

So I wrote that this week was tanabata (see below) it was a short post from my iphone but the longer version is this...

I am busy cleaning, organizing and throwing out stuff. Making space for my mind, my poor clutter belegured husband and my puppy. In the search through keepable and throwable stuff I found a notebook I started writing in 5 years ago! I had decided that this book would be a book of lists. Things I want to do, things I want to learn, you get the idea.

Well, the first entry was titled 25 things I wish for

It was fun to see what I was wishing for 5 years ago, happily some has come true, sadly many things have not yet materialized- But this is a call to action to start working on these wishes. Especially before I start my new 44 by 44 list. (more about that later)

Some wishes I have done well with

#4 I wish for a lifestyle that could include getting a puppy! *check*

#7 I wish for a new laptop *check*

#14 more bike riding *check*

#16 more time to cook and eat together *check*

#21 wish I could clean out my email inbox and keep in more under control. *in process*

5 wishes pretty well underway. Lots more wishes to come true. the nice thing in reviewing them is that I can do something about each and every one of them to make them more possible, more likely to become reality. WISHING WISHING WISHING.

So this summer season, I hope you can dust off your wishes too, check them, add to them, and make them real.

Making Wishes

Yesterday was Tanabata a special summer festival night in Japan. On this night people make a wish and write it on a piece of colorful paper. This all relates to a mythical fairy tale about star crossed lovers.

Mostly makes for colorful summer decorations!

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Location:Tokyo