It's alive! It's alive!

Blooming flower teas = a not-to-be-missed show!
If it works.

Not so long ago, DollinkDaughterLLS presented me with a beautiful bamboo box containing 8 blossoms of flowering tea.

Following the directions on the package for brewing, DDLLS and I got out the accouterments: glass teapot, Asian teacups, delicate little tea snacks. We gently positioned a ball of tea at the bottom of the glass vessel. We slowly filled the pot with boiling water. With great anticipation, we sat back and waited for the tea ball to unfurl and open grandly into a magnificent blooming flower. We eagerly awaited the magic. And waited. And waited.

Expecting major blooming, we got some half-ass'd action instead.
15 minutes later, the semi-opened remnant of the tea ball sat rather forlornly at the bottom of the pot.

Hmmmmmm, we remarked to each other.
What might have gone awry? Water not hot enough? It did reach boiling....
Dud tea ball? It's quite likely.
We may never know.

Very little stops the ladies in this family from a good time.
Even if the blooming tea is bloomin' uncooperative.
DDLLS and I made ceremony of drinking the brew anyway, and it was lovely.

Blooming flower tea really does make tea time extra special.
I recall many a dim sum Chinatown lunch in which I partook (as a kid) when a pot of fragrant floral tea was served with the delicacies. Back then, all Chinese restaurant teapots were ceramic, so one had to lift the heavy lid to peek into the dark pot at the bloomed flowers. Not as ceremonious as watching a flowering tea in active bloom in glass teapot, yet everyone at the table who gazed upon the plump, aromatic white petals would elicit the proper oooooohs and ahhhhhhhhs ...

What a pleasure when taking tea is entertaining as well as refreshing.
As for home-brewed blooming flower tea: DD, we must to try again.

A sailing we will go...

Two Years Before the Mast
~ by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.














If someone told me a decade ago that a book about a young-man-coming-of-age-via-his-two -year-adventure-on-board-sailing -ships-in-the-1800's-written-in-detailed-narrative-form would be of any interest to me, I would have - at the very least...scoffed.

Go figure.

I love this book.
I'm only halfway through Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s personal narrative, and I've already ear-marked it as a 'must re-read to learn more' book.

You can read it online here or here or here and at numerous other sites (entire books online - isn't that something?!?).

Better yet, pick up a hard copy at your local library to hold in your hands, curl up with in your favorite chair and leisurely peruse chapter by chapter.

The very best approach would be to purchase the book for the at-home library. Then you have the luxury to savor it...slowly... time and again...

Kissed by a llama

Yesterday I was kissed by a llama.
Well, not actually kissed.
Rather, greeted.

Typical llama greeting:
Nose to nose - followed by a gentle breathing out into the 'greetee's' face, ear, hair.

Pretty darned neat-o.

the smile

now you see it...


now you don't...

rainy day bluez

Take me HOME!!

A fishy story

Ah, fish.
I grew up eating fresh striped bass, rock cod, sand dabs, flounder et cetera.

My family prepared fish in the simplest fashion, steamed and/or fried. Cantonese-style cooking, with accompanying sauces that were light - a bit of soy, ginger and peanut oil infused with ginger and garlic. Garnished with Chinese parsley, shavings of ginger root and slivers of green onion.
Sometimes Dad would prepare a tomato sauce'd version, with fresh tomatoes, yellow and green onions and sweet red and green peppers - sautéed together, then reduced to a fragrant, piquant sauce for over top of a perfectly cooked whole fish.
Delicious.

Dad usually bought fish (along with other fresh groceries) during his daily forays to Chinatown, though he often cast his fishing hook, line and sinker into San Francisco Bay during a striped bass run...

Dad taught me how to scale, gut and clean fish, a handy skill - considering how much fresh fish we consumed. When he caught one or more mongo-sized bass which didn't fit into the kitchen sink, he and I would spread thick layers of newspaper over the kitchen floor to clean them.
A fond memory: Dad and his young daughter on the kitchen floor - wrestling with the cleaning of huge stripers..fish scales a-flyin'....fish guts a-spillin'...

The man didn't settle for anything less than the freshest when it came to all food, particularly fish. If not his own catch, he'd get them at the fishmonger's in Chinatown, often netted live from the holding tanks right there in the shop.

Fish was on the dinner table at least twice a week. For the evening repast, a whole steamed fish or fillet of sand dabs (in black bean sauce) was served 'family-style' alongside a variety of other dishes.

Then -
fish in a whole new form entered our eating repertoire.
They came in a box and were small rectangular shaped bites of fish.
Fish sticks: Mrs. Paul's or Gorton's.

My fam-of-origin found fish sticks to be a most intriguing food:- pre-formed cooked fish meat. Breaded, fried, frozen and packaged. Ready for a quick re-heat in frying pan or oven.

We actually enjoyed eating fish sticks.
Mom and I ate them for lunch. My brothers and I had them for after school snack, liberally soused with catsup or dipped in a bit of Dad's homemade tartar sauce. Dad was a chef by profession, and went through the trouble of making fresh tartar sauce for a mealy snack of frozen fish sticks...I suppose he felt it necessary to provide something homemade to eat as the rest of us indulged in our fishy fast food fad (it must be mentioned here that Dad didn't partake much of fish sticks).

After a pre-fab fish snack, the lot of us would sit down to dinner, ready to descend with chopsticks-in-hand upon a delectable entreé of fresh fish ~ cooked to tasty, tender and delicate perfection...
topping off our bellies with the real deal.

If in doubt...

...toss it out.

My mantra for today as I clean, reorganize, purge (OMG the endless purge) stuff in the 'laundry area'.

Besides the odd n' end house cleaning products, assorted yucky plastic cups to measure this and that, suspiciously old and useless fabric softeners, etc.....
I came across my 'collection' of candles.

Keep in mind that my mood is not the cheeriest today* as I ask the musical question:

What for - all these miscellaneous votives /candles?
Why keep so many when I only ever so infrequently burn the occasional candle?
At this writing, the large number of votives & candles I have (most as gifts from other people) seem superfluous to my life.
Today they are actually pissing me off.
(*I just paid bills, so am in a pissy mood anyway).

So - candles and votives.
If in doubt. toss it out.
The stinky candles.
The partially-burnt candles.
The faded candles.
The OOOG-LY candles.
The OOOG-LY-ER votives.

Burn 'em or toss 'em or give 'em away.
Simplify.
K.I.S.S.

Goodbye.

imagine

DollinkGreatGrandma and DollinkGreatGranddaughter

Awwwwwwwwwww.........

Ashokan Farewell

Ashokan Farewell.
A lovely piece of music that pulls at your heartstrings...

Written by Jay Ungar in 1982, at the end of a memorable gathering of fiddlers and dancers.
Ungar has called his composition "a Scottish lament written by a Jewish guy from the Bronx."

What's not to love?

Bacon Hot Dogs

Aforementioned DollinkDaughterLLS told us she came upon two street food vendor dudes with a sidewalk cart in San Francisco, making and selling bacon hot dogs.

Since she mentioned it, I haven't stopped salivating over the vision of a 'good quality' hot dog, wrapped in a slice of bacon and grilled to perfection...

I'm definitely planning to make this at home sometime soooooooooooon!
So good and yet so very bad.