Somen Noodle Clam Soup!

I realize I have been posting a lot recently, but recently in Chopsticks magazine, I found a delicious recipe for Japanese clam soup.  Yesterday, at the Grand Army Plaza Green Market, I bought fresh clams and a few other Japanese ingredients I was missing from Sunrise Mart.  I made the soup today and I would say it was a success!  I haven't had clams in so long (in fact, it's the first time I've ever cooked them myself) so it was really a treat!  Yum!

Flavored Water

A while ago I bought some Jasmine Pearl Tea from what I had been told was a reputable store and sadly found it to be an incredibly poor quality with no flavor whatsoever.  When I was at The Tea Gallery with said tea, saddened at the money I had wasted, it was recommended that I try putting some of the leaves in water and leave it in the refrigerator overnight.  Last night I finally put some leaves in a water bottle in the refrigerator and this morning was pleasantly surprised to find a refreshing, lightly flavored jasmine water!

It's a great way to make use of (poor quality) loose leaf tea and make an inexpensive, sweet and refreshing calorie free drink!

Thanks for the recommendation!

Tea!

Last night I went to the gym quite early due to a hard workout at the gym so around 7am this morning I woke up bright and early- nice and awake.  I enjoy when I can have some quiet time to myself (if I ignore the hyper morning dog) so with my personal time, I began another attempt at exploring the Iron Buddha Hand tea I had received from Tim at the Mandarin Tea Room.

First of all, it is an oolong tea which I believe is the fall harvest (and if I recall correctly, I believe they recently received the spring harvest as well- it would be interesting to compare the two sometime later).

To me, upon first impressions, it smells rather vegetal, but in a citrus-y way with floral undertones.  The flavor is rather light, but alluring and secretive.  I quickly found that I needed to brew it longer for a stronger cup which I found more enjoyable. The scent quickly gave way to more of an astringent tone, but cleaner and lighter than lemons.  Less sweet and more fresh.

In my attempt to get as much quiet time before things got livelier, I chose to wait to eat breakfast (since I wasn't hungry before I started) which was a mistake.  I had to take a break to eat some food and will have to come back to experiencing my tea later.

As a final note, however, I did find that the tea definitely warmed me up and left my mouth surprisingly dry with a lingering sweetness.

(As I am proofreading this post, said hyper morning dog is trying to hop around on my back and going into play mode every time I shoot him a look)

New Prints!

I've been making a lot of silkscreen prints recently (none of which are editions, sadly) and today I began spreading them all out to look at them in total and organize them.  Doing this has also helped me to figure out where to go next in my work and what is missing.

Enjoy!

(Keep in mind though, that this is a rough setup- once I have more work, I may reorganize the groups)

(I like to call these "The Golden Girls")

(Sorry, I couldn't get a shot of all five pictures in a row so I had to take a few in various segments)

Unofficial pictures of unofficial work.

Here are some recent paintings I've been working on.  The first is one that I've been working on for over a year (mind you, it's been off and on work) and the other one is a midterm painting I've started in acrylics.  I think I like the way it's going but it's not there yet...still needs a lot of work.