Grandma in the kitchen

I found this and thought of grandma – a reason to never be a vegetarian. Check my blog post on her at http://rubberslippercontessa.blogspot.com

Confessions of a Foodie’s Wife

Hot dog

Originally uploaded by cathy.ikeda

Ken is a Food Network watching, me food hunter and gatherer kind of guy, so when we go traveling, I am usually in charge of finding accomodations (making house) and he is in charge of searching for food places. When he is quietly on the computer days before we leave, then I know he is plotting our food travels.

With that in mind, after getting into LAX at 9 pm, we headed out to La Brea (about 30 minutes away) and Ken stood in line for one hour for our hot dogs from Pink’s Famous Hot Dog stand. I kid you not, at 10 pm on a Tuesday night in LA, the line was still one hour long. There are so many choices that it’s rather overwhelming. We decided, in true foodie wannabe fashion, that we would try a different hot dog for every person present. We tried the chili cheese nacho dog; mushroom and swiss cheese dog; pastrami and saurkraut dog; and the Today Show dog which is a double hot dog with chili, onions and guacamole. It was an experience to stand in line, order and watch the guys make the hot dogs. It was even cool to avoid the well dressed guy that was actually trying to panhandle. Was it a great hot dog? No, not especially, but it doesn’t matter. The next time they talk about historic food landmarks on the Food Channel, we can say, “hey we went there – Pink’s.”

Kona’s Genki Sushi

Kona’s Genki Sushi is newly opened, but not cutting it as a Genki Sushi establishment. 1. They don’t have enough variety on the belt. 2. Service is slow. 3. They run out of common stuff and my shishamo was so sad!

Superbowl Sunday

Superbowl Sunday is Ken’s annual garage cleaning weekend. If you’re in Hilo, then superbowl is at our house. We’re unofficially rooting for the steelers but only because the Cardinals ousted the Eagles.

Ken has the projector screen outside but I like to watch on the HD inside.

As usual, we had too much food.

Maui Taco’s $4.99 specials

Maui Tacos self-made combo. plate

I’m not sure if it’s a limited time special or not, but Maui Tacos has two $4.99 plate specials. The first option is the chicken chili verde plate. It’s mild enough for me, but the portions are a bit too big and I couldn’t finish. The plate comes with chicken chili verde, beans, Spanish rice and tortilla chips.  Some of the chicken chili verde is pictured on the combo plate made with Ken and my lunch.

The second option is the burrito plate with a large overstuffed burrito and tortilla chips. There are several to choose from, but Ken chose “the Dumps” with mango bbq pork, rice, beans and veggies in the burrito.

We hardly ever go to the mall, but this was one great deal! In comparison, Pono’s cheese quesadilla was $6.99 and our drinks were $2.

p.s. – do not go to the nutrition menu online. You will be very sad. Just enjoy the taste vs. price combination.

New Year’s Food 101: Ikeda family traditions 2

Tempura

Originally uploaded by cathy.ikeda

Our other new traditional new year food is tempura. I think it started when Ken bought his first tripod stand and large wok from a Gaspro tent sale. He hooks it up to his propane camping tank and it’s perfect to use when our small kitchen is occupied because he can cook in the garage. This year, we had shrimp tempura, and vegetable tempura (eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash). We had Ken’s sweeter tempura sauce and the regular black tempura sauce with daikon suri (grated daikon in its juice). It’s already January 4th and we’re still eating leftovers (with the new main dish, salads and soups I’ve been cooking). I’m afraid my boys are not really good at eating leftovers since I have the need to make at least one new dish. To my future daughter in laws: I’m sorry.

New Year’s Food 101: Ikeda family traditions

Sushi fixings

Originally uploaded by cathy.ikeda

Ken and I always make the food for new years. Ken’s mom and my mom take turns on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we have been hosting New Year’s for a long time, probably because I am the bearer of pyromaniacs and I believe in buying fireworks.
Ken is famous for making way too much food. It’s just part of that local fear that we might actually run out of food, and how that would not only be shame on us, but shame on our whole family, even those that are already passed.
Over the years, we have created our own new year’s traditional food, so the first is the sushi bar. The sushi bar is great for us because if people want to bring something, it’s easy enough to ask them to bring something for the sushi bar. Sushi bars are self-serve, make your own sushi smorgasbords. Here’s some of the items, but basically, this year, eaters fill their temaki nori with sushi rice, masago (little orange fish eggs), takuan, daikon sprouts, hijiki, shoyu-sugar tuna, crab, shrimp, sashimi, poke, natto (eww – stinky), cucumber, special sauce (honey, mayo, sesame seeds), special tako (chopped tako tentacles with mayo and masago) and mizuna namasu (mizuna greens with a ponzu and sesame sauce). We forgot to cook the tamago (egg rolls), but we had so much food that no one noticed.