Matcha set

Using the gift from my friend Kimio, I decided to buy a special matcha drinking set: bowl with bamboo scoop and chasen, the special bamboo whisk. It's actually pretty refined piece of equipment, made from a single piece of bamboo. Amazing, huh? Some pictures of the set:

Original matcha from Fukuoka

My Japanese friend Kimio gave me today original matcha from his hometown, Fukuoka:

Do you know matcha? It's a traditionally made green tea powder made from the only few top young leaves of the green tea plants, hand-picked after a specific seasoning (mainly covering the leaves to protect them from the sun), then hand-removed veins and imperfections, to be ground in a stone mill. It's one of the things that is to this day made traditionally by people, and is by now not mechanized! :-)

To drink matcha, you need a special drinking bowl, a bamboo scoop and traditionally carved bamboo whisk (which I have ordered today :P). The whisk is something of a pinnacle of Japanese engineering — it's hand-carved from a single piece of bamboo, making it both beautiful and functional! Stay tuned for the matcha set showcase soon.

Salmon, teriyaki, and baked potato bento idea

Yet another interesting bento idea, this time with deliciously baked potato slices and salmon with teriyaki sauce. Simply amazing, feels exactly like a spring-time grill or picnic...

Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing sneak peek

This weekend was truly awful in the weather department — it was gloomy, rainy, cold and windy, so apart from some usual grocery shopping, I opted for staying home :-)

I also had a plan to master the cheesecake icing, that gave me so much trouble earlier the week, and since I got my food coloring gels, I decided to try them too! As you can see, the mission was a success, and I ended up with 24 delicious strawberry-colored cupcakes with strawberry jam filling, and creamy, super-sweet, delicious cream cheese icing :-)

Check out some of the sneak peek images I took, because the recipe is coming soon:

"Pink magenta" bento idea

This one is a special kind of recipe, containing ingredients that don't make sense, yet taste bonkers delicious together: salmon, Sauerkraut, and boiled beets. Just perfect, and full of vitamins! :-)