Okano Day

I named this past Saturday as Okano Day as a day of food and fun with my parents at my house. My cousin M, her husband T, daughters A, L and T plus her mom and dad, my nephew T and his girlfriend S, and family friends P and P round the cast of characters for Okano Day.

Time sped by like a quickly with perfect weather, great food [which we forgot to take pictures of] and great company. And we all survived in one piece. 

This is our Okano Day menu: 

Savory

Momofuku Pork Shoulder

Mom's famous corn beef hash [she brought her own Libby's can corn beef from Hawaii]

Mom's famous nishime [made her make it with chicken]

Mom's famous Mac salad Hawaii-style

M's Crockpot Lentils

P & P's Thai Beef salad

T & S's Guacamole

My Roasted Tomato salsa

Kale salad

Chips

Sweet

Earl Grey Tea Cake with lilikoi mousse and lemon buttercream

T & S's Summer bars

Crazy amounts of really great fruits--especially the muscat grapes and many different varieties of berries

Here's a couple of pictures I remembered to take. I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and had enough to eat. Whoever was left at the end, took a bag food home with them. 

The start of great things to come

Patience is a virtue when it comes to pork shoulder

Waiting, waiting, waiting

Batch 1 of my summer roasted tomato salsa.

Only picture of the cake with one of the princesses

Princesses A and L with nephew T and girlfriend S in background

Too much commotion to get everyone to look in your direction

A Gathering of Random Llinks

P

chewy goodness! Lilikoi mochi!

Thought I shared some random links that you may like: 

-This post got me at "Miso". I've been obsesses about all things Miso or Koji. So why not Miso Sourdough Bread from Lucky Peach. They say the bread ends up "tasting like a cross between dark chocolate and pumpernickel in the final baked loaf." YUM!

-Although I look like hell these days, I still love fashion and I hope I get to this exhibit. Maybe one day I'll have the energy to dress like I care again. http://www.thesartorialist.com/photos/china-through-the-looking-glass-2/

-Here's an article on Koji from SFGate with some recipes. You're going to want to try it.

-Teaching myself code to get the restaurant website up and running. Found this link about 6 sites that teach you code from Swiss Miss. You know what I'll be up to this summer beside baking, jamming, knitting/crocheting and sewing. [I got to get my etsy store up]

-And of course, I couldn't end with out mentioning lilikoi or mochi. Here's a recipe Lilikoi Mochi from Mauna Kea Tea Blog. I decided to make this recipe because it uses brown sugar and kinako. I need to make it again.

food inspired: 05.01.015

Some quick links to what been food inspiring me.

-Went to the library to find a book for my commute [Woo hoo! on book #3]. And found Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipe. Been seeing this mentioned in a lot food blogs for a while. Lots of stuff that I've been wanting to do try: drying [been think of buying a dehydrator] and fermentation [I love koji]. There"s a recipe for apple butter that uses the dehydrator. Oh, I think I need to buy this book.

-One of the chefs at our restaurant has great organic garden. She gave me some garlic chives that she harvested. I decided to share some of it with my co-workers. Here's a couple of recipes from No Recipe Blog that I shared with them: Niratama (Garlic Chives Scrambled Eggs) and Oisobagi Kimchi (stuffed cucumber kimchi). The Oisobagi is so good--great umami taste with miso.

My Garlic Chives bounty

-The chef at restaurant has also been spoiling me by making some great vietnamese style salad. I found this chicken and cabbage version from the The Urban Poser blog on pinterest that I want to try for my lunch. Maybe add some kale. Or maybe just ask the chef to make me a salad because I'm lazy.

Vietnamese sausage, pork, shrimp, flat rice noodles with salad and Nuoc Cham