slow food day

today was absolutely gorgeous out! we awoke to the sun peeking in through the edges of our bedroom roller shades. i think it was the first day in a while where it's been clear and sunny out. and on top of that, temperatures rose and it was 30-40s out. it was delightful ...

while kevin had his pour-over stumptown coffee, i prepared pork shoulder (蹄膀) which would braise for the next eight hours, and pork rib soup (排骨汤), just like my mom used to. the lunar new year started on february 19th, and we didn't have a proper celebration this year, so i was planning out a mini-feast for tonight.

we ran a few errands in the morning, which consisted of the third trip to container store and adorama for the weekend, i think? ha. i love the bigso boxes of sweden designs so have been measuring and trying to pick up the right size boxes to organize some of the clutter on our bookshelves. unfortunately, the piano books which i want to organize are about 1/2" too long for the bigso file containers in the end. darn.

in the afternoon, we putzed around the apartment, unpacked a couple boxes, and i started preparing for dinner around 5 while glancing at the oscars red carpet in between. the dishes were ready to go by 6, so we skyped for a while with allyson and met baby dennis for the first time :D he is a beautiful, sweet boy, and was trying so hard to say "HI" at the tender age of six months. i think allyson thought we were skyping to share our own great news, but uhm, lol, we didn't have the news she was hoping for. LOL.

daisy arrived around 7 and kevin seated us in the prime positions at the dinner table to feast our eyes on the tv. daisy had seen a few of the nominated films, while kevin and i had seen none, so we were lucky to have her as our hollywood-oscars-celebrity-gossip guide throughout the evening. neil patrick harris was the host this year, and made a few memorable comments throughout the night.

my favorite: "she had to have a lot of balls to wear that dress" :p

it was a relaxing fun night, and it felt like we had front row seats at the dolby theatre! and i was totally stuffed.

menu

sauteed baby bok choy

luffa with enoki mushrooms (兹瓜)

egg with dried baby anchovies
braised pork shoulder (红烧蹄膀)
pork rib soup with kombu (海带排骨汤)
red bean soup with peanut and black sesame glutinous balls