Night Before Joe's Birthday

Today we woke up to some snow. Nothing serious, maybe 6" total by the end of the day. Definitely the white snow cleaned up the dirty brown yards and roads. And tomorrow is Joe's birthday, so we celebrated a day early tonight with a tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) dinner- Joe's request. We even toasted with Asahi Super Dry beer!

And homemade frozen strawberry yogurt for dessert.
Joe got a tiny 4" square oil painting of his trout stream that I just painted this morning. I'd been meaning to paint him a small piece he can put in his deer blind. Happy Birthday, Joe!

Corned Beef & Cabbage

Yesterday we celebrated St. Patrick's Day a couple of days early with corned beef and cabbage. A good thing we didn't have any company-- we wouldn't have had enough to share. Probably we shouldn't have skipped our lunch.
Last minute I decided to make a little dessert with what I had in the kitchen. I tweaked a recipe and made Irish Cream rare cheesecake. It was very good-- we could taste Irish Cream liquor. Yum.... Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

Girl's Day

March 3rd in Japan is a Girl's Day, also celebrating the arrival of early spring season of peach blossoms. I happened to be off from work, so I cooked a bit special Japanese meal. The main dish was the colorful sushi on a plate. Even though it was cold and snowy outside, our dinner table turned to be cheerful, light, and somewhat spring-like.
The temperatures still dip down sub-zero, but the sun is definitely getting more intense. Real spring might be still away, but little signs of spring should pop up around us soon enough, we hope.

Snowshoeing

Sunday we went out for a little snowshoeing adventure in the woods. It was pretty quiet and peaceful. We enjoyed looking at all those little footprints on snow. Bunnies, squirrels, mice....
We rewarded ourselves with an afternoon beer and (tiny little) cheesecake when we got home. Better than an afternoon tea!