Valentine cookies

I made some simple chocolate, strawberry and vanilla wafers yesterday with some friends for Valentine's Day (which is quite the excuse, I just wanted to use up the extra unsalted butter and flour sitting in my room at the dorm lol).

My friend suggested making "naruto" cookies shaped like naruto fish cakes (the little white slices with a pink swirl, it's used as a topping for hot noodles a lot in Japan) but sadly I did not roll out the dough thin enough to make a proper swirl. They aren't as elegant as we'd like but they were delicious nonetheless. Tonight I'll be handing them out to some friends who missed the baking yesterday.

A hint for the strawberry wafers: All I did was replace cocoa powder with strawberry jam in a normal chocolate wafer recipe, and added a drop of red food coloring. Oh, and I also doubled the amount of cocoa and strawberry for the dough by accident but they turned out MUCH better that way!

Felt Brooches/Pins

Here's some pins/brooches that I mentioned before! The embroidery is a pattern that is sewn onto kid's kimono collars as a protective charm. Maybe these pins will keep the wearer safe from harm. :)

They are made with felt, embroidery floss, and czech seed beads. The green one also uses recycled canvas from myself and fellow students at my university from making our own stretched canvases for painting. You never know when stuff like that will come in handy!

Japanese Embroidery

I've been going back to the embroidery I learned from my mom lately, thanks to a recent school project. I tried making a simple video for that project of me stitching a sample card of a semamori charm. A real semamori is stitched to your clothes though, this one was just made as a reference, and the video made an interesting intro for my presentation. :)

Untitled from Mikako Takai on Vimeo.

I've tried making some brooches/pins with this method too. I'll be uploading them soon!

Tragedy

I apologize for disappearing again... a bit of tragedy has struck my household for the past few months.

My sweet kitty Tamara after 18 long years of being with our family has gone to that big litter-box in the sky.

Ever since I was a toddler, she has graced our household with her queenly presence and jumped me from the fridge to nibble on my scalp (and I would run away screaming every time). But for the last few years she reverted back to being a sweet kitty that would drool in happiness as I pet her and fed her snacks on my lap. For the last few months she suddenly aged drastically, not being able to climb into her bed and going blind in one eye. We were hoping she would get better and my parents took good care of her while I was far away at the university.

She passed very peacefully next to my mother and me on Christmas Eve while the other cats watched worriedly by the door of our bedroom.

There's a story in Japan how cats that age past 13 or so will be a nekomata, or a demon cat. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, a nekomata is supposedly a spirit cat that has two tails and can speak and walk on two feet. (kind of like the puss in boots story) My mom and I would joke that our cat Tamara is not a normal cat, being 17 and still in great shape and bossing around the other pets. It feels odd that she's gone, it feels like she's still wandering around our home like the queen she was.

Sorry for the sudden change of pace, but hopefully I'll be back to my old crafting self soon...

I'm back!

Sorry I've been so busy lately...! I've been straddling three art studio courses along with normal lectures and participating in two clubs at the university. I originally had a pretty important role in one of the clubs, but I've decided to step down from my position because it has been keeping me from creating the art that I've wanted to work on for so long.

But before I cut off ties with the groups, there were two big events that I really wanted to participate in! One was 'Cruise for Cancer' sponsored by the Illini Longboarding Club, and the other a fashion show hosted by the Japan Intercultural Network. Here's some videos from the two events! I'm only in the second video though...

Now that the events are over, all I have to do is work on final art projects and get back into crafting! :)

Moving In...

I just moved back to the dorm yesterday, and I'm so beat! I've finally met my new roommate as well and I'm glad to know she fit in just fine with my quirky friends. :) Most people are scared away by my friends' sugar-induced energetic explosions but she seems ok. I was surprised when she was able to keep up with us. I imagine a very tiring semester of foolishness ahead of me... Now I must tend to my V-shaped sunburn on my neck from wearing a yukata all day in the blistering sun. Quad Day at UIUC is a very draining event when you are the one handing out fliers for a club!

In other news I start school tomorrow morning. Somehow I ended up with classes from 9AM to 9:20 PM... I will either drop a class or sleep like a log on my off-days. There really is not much time to be fooling around!

chiffon cake and raspberry jam

Remember the raspberry bush I mentioned a while back? I made a small batch of simple raspberry jam yesterday afternoon for some friends coming over for lunch today. The recipe itself is very simple, just use the same amount of sugar as you are using berries and a bit of lemon juice if you like a more tart flavor. To be honest I didn't bother to check how much of the raspberries I had and it turned out just fine; I'm thinking the ratio of ingredients is more important than how much you make at once.

前にうpした我が家の庭のラズベリーの写真を覚えている方はいますか？

その大事に育てたラズベリーで昨日ジャムを作りました！

かなり簡単なレシピです。果物と砂糖を１：１、そしてレモンジュースを少々。。。

大体ジャムが冷え始めれば果物に元々含まれているペクチンで勝手に固まってくれます。

家ではなるべくよけいな物を使わない料理をめざしています！　まぁ、その方が意外と簡単に作れるんですけど。。。

For lunch we did a mini potluck. We had some tomato and basil pasta salad, grilled lamb, and a simple mussel dish simmered in white wine and various veggies. A friend brought some delicious breaded chicken and an Asian-style leek side-dish. For dessert my mom baked a chiffon cake which we had with fresh whipped cream and a spoonful of my raspberry jam. I must say, it was delicious with a nice cup of coffee.

今日は友達を呼んでちょっとしたランチを。。。

ラム肉のグリル、ムール貝と野菜の白ワイン煮込み、トマトとバジルのパスタ、チキンのマリネなど。

我が家で「ランチ」と言えば皆が適当に料理を持ってくる事になってます。

今度は色んなおいしい料理が集まりました。

そしてデザートには母が作ったシフォンケーキに生クリームと先ほどのラズベリージャムをそえておいしくいただきました☆

最近、いかにおいしい物が食べられるかが毎日の目標です♥