Wild Alaskan King Salmon

I received an e-mail from Pike Place Fish Market stating that the wild salmon had seen its shadow and they were still running.

I regretted that I did not pick some up when I was in Seattle so off I went to the website link.

Overnight delivery came from the UPS guy.

It was well packed with cell ice packs.

I ordered a whole fish and asked them to fillet it for me.

Some vacuum seal bags and yum yum.

Chinese New Year - Sheep

I hosted a party for Eileen and her gang and we had more people in the house at one time than ever before.

Here we are the the beginning of the party.

Food was plentiful.

Someone brought kale chips.

Dessert was popular.

Aftermath of the party which should have ended at 9:30, but people were still partying until 11:00.

Here's to a prosperous new year.

Honey plus Citrus concentrate

I have a bunch of citrus and decided to make some drink concentrates.  I took the honey from Oregon and mixed it with some water and dissolved the honey.

Next I cut a lemon, mandarin orange and a navel orange into thin slices and placed them in the jar with some more water to the top.

Into the fridge they went and we shall see what they taste like.  Hopefully they will be refreshing in the hot temperatures.

Knitting Mojo is Back

I have been slacking on the knitting for a bit, but I have my mojo back now.  I finished a simple cowl pattern - Mira's Cowl using Baah yarn in the brazillian emerald color.

I only used 10 grams of the 100 so I plan to knit a pair of ribbed socks with the rest.

I'm going to pick up with menehune since all that needs is the lace border before it is finished.

Mushroom Results

For the mushroom dyeing workshop, we were asked to bring some fiber to dye so I pulled out a partially used skein of MCN high twist sock yarn from wool2dye4.  It consists of 80/10/10 super wash merino, cashmere, and nylon.

I followed the instructions and separated the skein into 4 parts so they could go in 4 different dye pots.  Here are the results I ended up with.

I'm thinking about making a color work cowl with these skeins.  They have been rinsed and are hanging out in the sun to dry.

We also were provided with a silk scarf and did a shibori technique.  We started with a tube.

Where we attached the end of scarf with a rubber band.

We then loosely wrapped the scarf around the tube and securing the end with another rubber band.

We were instructed to attach a piece of string at the top under the rubber band and then wind the string all the way down on top of the scarf with a width between the string of about a pencil.

Last step was to squish the entire thing down to the bottom of the tube.

Into the green pot it went and this is how it looked when it came out.

After unwrapping it and rinsing - this is the result.

There were other scarf blanks for sale so I picked up a couple of others - one with shimmer dots that went into the brown pot without any preparation.

And the final scarf that I did some origami and resist with some chopsticks which also went into the brown pot.

Cool techniques and results that I can replicate with acid dyes.

Mushrooms!

Signed up for a mushroom dyeing class with Alissa Allen of Mycopigments.  Robin and I arrived early and set up our chairs.  Great group of people with some I haven't seen in quite a while.

Unbelievable the colors that mushrooms could provide.

None were poisonous but we used dried mushrooms for the samples and some fresh mushrooms for our yarn.

Robin helped break down some dried mushrooms before we added them to jars of water in the double broiler.

These were the colors from the sample jars.

We got a recipe card as well as a resource list.

Valentine Lunch at Cafe Athena's with Robin

Robin came to town for a visit and we had the valentine's menu at Cafe Athena's.

She started with the spanakopita while I had the dolmas.

I had shrimp while she had chicken.

And we both had the same dessert.

Lots of food for a really good price and we ate outside where it was in the 80s in February.

We then headed to the yarn store and the fabric store where we stocked up and headed home for crafting.

Robin was able to make a pair of yoga pants before the day was over.

Yokohama Yakitori Koubou

For Valentine's day, Eileen, Yaling and I had dinner at Yokohama Yakitori Koubou which is a small place with mostly a grill menu.  A lot of the dishes come out in skewers.

We started with quail eggs.

Then had an anchovy based seaweed soup with rice and sesame seeds.

Chicken livers.

Chicken wings and chicken hearts.

Chicken gizzard and chicken skin.

And finally a bowl of rice with chicken.

Almost like a dim sum place and you come out smelling like a grill.

Chicken Charlie's Frybq

Chicken Charlie's opened up in the neighborhood and I received a coupon to try out the fried pineapples.

They are famous for being at the San Diego Fair with strange deep fried concoctions like fried butter.

I received the fried pineapples with an order of the Maui chicken that if eaten in the restaurant, comes in a half of a pineapple.

The chicken was pretty good and the fried pineapples were battered with a cake mix with chocolate to dip.

Only downside is that the dishes are priced higher than other places in the shopping center.

Great Maple

Stopped by the Great Maple for dinner with Andrea on her last night and we enjoyed an early dinner for an early night since we stayed up way too late the night before.

Parking lot was pretty empty but there were diners present at 5:30.

I ordered the barramundi with mushroom risotto while Andrea had the stacked tofu with eggplant.

We rounded out the meal with their famous apple pie.

Great visit with Andrea this trip even though we both worked during the day.

Farmer's Bottega

With Andrea in town, supper club was reinstitute for the night.  We tried Farmer's Bottega, a new place in Mission Hills.

Very hard to choose, but I shared the beet salad with Andrea.  Needed a bit more dressing.

I went with the buffalo filet and the garlic mash which was tender and delicious.

Janet had the pork.

And Andrea ordered the portabello.

Good portions for good prices.  We ate early but the restaurant did start filling up as the evening progressed.  We will be visiting again and I will try my second choice which was the duck gnocchi.