hailling

The almost-spring weather these days has been lovely, but yesterday afternoon and this morning there were a couple hail storms passing through the city. They came and went in a matter of minutes.



And I kept wanting to collect some hail to make a snowcone with.

rice and korean nori

I love eating white rice with nori (seasoned seaweed), and I've been doing it since I was little. I had always used the packaged nori that was cut into small rectangular pieces, which is usually from Taiwan or Japan.

Recently I found out that the Korean nori is even better with rice! These slightly larger pieces (but not as large as the ones used in making sushi rolls) are thinner and lighter, and when you wrap it around the cooked rice you can still bite it into pieces easy. (The Japanese and Taiwanese ones are usually harder to be seperated into small pieces once you wrap around rice... at least for me. :o)


Most of the Korean nori I found are in packages similar to this one.


So this is a quick lunch/snack for me!

The Taiwanese and Japanese nori, however, will be a better choice when wrapping up mochi and other ingredients other than just plain rice. The Korean nori is probably too "britle" for these uses.

silicone brush

I've seen these silicone brushes in the stores and wondered who would buy them... they just don't look like they'd be better than traditional pasty or oil brushes. Then I read from a couple bakers talk about how wonderful these silicone brushes are. Some bakers like to use them when brushing egg yorks, oils, or butter on pastries, and no bristles will stick onto the surfaces of the pastires. I guess since there's no bristles there won't be any sticking on anything. They are also great for glazing, odor-free, and very easy to clean.


I really like the wood handles on these.

I decided to buy a couple today... just to test it out. I haven't been making breads or pastries for a while, but I guess I'll have to make something that requires some butter brushing or glazing.

bye bye kaori

Every year some exchange students from Kansai Univeristy in Japan come to Salt Lake City to go to the University of Utah, and many of them come to have coffee and tea at the caffe.

We've met many lovely people, and before they left they would come and say goodbye. Kaori was one of them. She came last weekend and told us she was returning to Japan, and that she loved our drinks and would miss us. awww. She said she would return and come see us again.

I'll miss you, too, Kaori.


John, Kaori, and me at the caffe.

new look

John and I have been trying to make the caffe's web site more "professional" looking and after working on the template for a while we set our eyes on this current one (with some customization and adjustment). We're still trying to make better, more informative, and "useful," but I'm glad we've made some progress with it thus far.

Update: I decided to give my blog a slight makerover as well. I love the colors, but apparently the photos I use are usually too big, because most of the photos are cut off on the right-hand side! I guess I'm going to start using smaller pictures from now on.

naicha is recovering

John took Naicha to the vet's first thing in the morning yesterday. Since Naicha is still having a hard time breathing, the doctor did an X-ray scan on her in fear that her lung is filled with water.

The good news was that her lung was not as bad as the doc thought, and the bad news was that it would take a lot of effort and time for Naicha to fully recover.

Naicha is taking two kinds of meds (1 1/2 pills each for her size). She's pretty good at taker her meds over all... because we make her! We're also using a syringe to feed her baby food because she was not eating her food. (We do dilute the baby food with water so it's easier to "shoot" the food and it also helps her get more liquid.)

She does manage to drink plenty of water, and still pays attention to the other dogs and cats even though she's still having a fever.

The doctor said we should be able to see her progress in a couple of days.

at the doctor's

Naicha is sick. She had been a bit "under the weather" since the beginning of the year, and things just seemed to be lingering... We took her in to see the doctor a couple weeks ago and the she was given anti-biotics, but she didn't seem to have been fully recovered.

I took her to see the doctor again yester day because she didn't seem to have giant amount of energy like she usually does. She had a fever, and her white cell count was high. :( The doctor was going to have her stay overnight, so he could X-ray her this morning, but I took her home because I didn't want her to have to be at the doctor's all by herself.

John then took her in early this morning. She was still not feeling well. The vet thought it might have been a canine flu, which rarely occur, but it does exist. She's staying at the doctor's office right now for more tests and exams.

I really hope she's OK.

big tomato

I sent John to get a few tomatoes for the toatsed bagel sandwiches we offer at the caffe. He came back with a HUGE tomato!


It's almost as big as my hand!

I had seen big tomatoes, but this one was probably the biggest one yet. I asked him why he picked the giant tomato. He said the giant tomato would be more convenient for me to use than many smaller ones put together. Hmm...

Thank goodness this big tomato is flavorful and has good texture, and I must say John was right after all. I've been using this tomato for a couple of days now and there's still quite a bit left because I only need one slice for each sandwich!

green papaya

Joanne, Sharon, and I went to lunch at Pho Green Papaya out in West Valley yesterday. It was beautifully decorated and I really liked the plates and glasses they use.


I love the red doors!

All 3 of us got their lunch special (7.95). It came with a Vietnamese shrimp rolls and a mini bowl of Pho for appetizer, and we got to choose 2 entrees each.


I really liked the peanut dipping sauce that came with the spring rolls.


The soup in the mini pho (I can pick up all the noodles all at once with my chopsticks.) was delicious!


I chose Red curry with chicken and grilled pork slices. They were both yummy, and I loved the bento box!

I also got a Thai Iced Tea (2.50)... it was good, but the photo didn't' come out on my camera. I think there's a glitch on the disk.

The interior and deco were very Asian yet modern and cool. I really enjoyed the atmosphere there. The only thing I was a bit confused about was whether it's more of a Vietnamese restaurant or a Thai one... but with its full name being "Pho Green Papaya", I guess it was a Vietnamese restaurant.


I love their interior. Hey the table was not wiped clean.

Anyhow, it's a lovely place and I'm going to take John there and try some of their regular entrees some time.

Coffee in E Flat!

Some of you already knew that Peter Rosen from KUTV came and interviewed us about the Competition. Here's the story:



No, John and I did not win, but we did learn about the La Marzocco GB5 and the effect of the altitude on the beans. We'll be at the next year's competition for sure!

Congratulations to our champion Jon Lewis! He totally deserved it!

And now if only I could look a bit thinner on the video...