Quiet weekend
Mar. 27th, 2011 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyFor those of my non-Northern-California readers, it's been raining every day for well over a week. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but suffice to say, I was somewhat cabin-feverish Saturday, so I decided to indulge in a spot of retail therapy.
I came away from Moe's Books in Berkeley with a modest haul: a little travel-sized tourist compendium on Japanese festivals for $2, a clearance priced paperback of John Buchan's The Marquis of Montrose, a Patrick O'Brien novel I'd never heard of called Richard Temple, and Helen McCullogh's translation of The Taiheki, an14th c. Japanese chronicle, so the To Be Read pile is well and truly stocked.
The teas I bought for Her Majesty smelled divine when I was wrapping them up last week, so I also ducked into Lhasa Karnak and bought myself an ounce each of sencha, lapsang souchong and Assam. Believe it or not, O My Readers, I grew up on Lipton's, Red Rose and Tetley bag teas which are usually some blend of black tea leaves crushed beyond recognition so they steep quickly in a tea bag. I've been drinking bag and leaf green teas (sencha and hojicha) for awhile now, but it was time to try some good leaf black teas too. Branch out, widen horizons, make a Decent Cuppa Tea unadulterated by sugar, milk, lemon or paper bags and tags. (Sure, bag tea is easy. It's convenient and I'm not knocking it, but it's not that much harder to make it without bags.)
Stopped at the CostPlus at Jack London Square as I remembered they had some suitable containers for my teas to live in, metal cans with clear windows in the tops, in various colors. (Turns out they have magnets on the bottoms too, which means one can presumably turn the side of one's refrigerator or range hood into a spice rack.) BTW, CostPlus had a sign up that they're going to give the net proceeds of sales of their Japanese goods to earthquake relief. Too bad their sake selection is so generic and I don't need to be eating Pocky, gummy fruit candies or anything Hello Kitty.
Had some of the Assam yesterday - and remembered that I should've picked up a strainer or tea ball while I was out because the old one doesn't close flush. Salvaged the situation by pouring everything back through my larger kitchen strainer into a measuring cup and then back into my favorite mug. Very nice black tea, good flavor, strong enough to suit me.
Worked on sewing the hanging tabs onto my new banner a bit while watching some old Firefly episodes on DVD. (By hand because I couldn't be arsed to set up the sewing machine).
Decided the tea strainer situation warranted a trip to Daiso this morning, then got there and realized that the average Japanese teapot is the same capacity or smaller than my tea mug. Found a strainer, picked up a package of chopsticks for the kitchen as mine have all tended to migrate into the House of Cheerful Monkeys box For Some Reason(!), some kombu (for that pickle recipe the guy from Tokyo Fish Market told me about), and a couple other little things. Sadly, they appear out of the little thread snips. They'd make great gifts for my SCA friends.
I came away from Moe's Books in Berkeley with a modest haul: a little travel-sized tourist compendium on Japanese festivals for $2, a clearance priced paperback of John Buchan's The Marquis of Montrose, a Patrick O'Brien novel I'd never heard of called Richard Temple, and Helen McCullogh's translation of The Taiheki, an14th c. Japanese chronicle, so the To Be Read pile is well and truly stocked.
The teas I bought for Her Majesty smelled divine when I was wrapping them up last week, so I also ducked into Lhasa Karnak and bought myself an ounce each of sencha, lapsang souchong and Assam. Believe it or not, O My Readers, I grew up on Lipton's, Red Rose and Tetley bag teas which are usually some blend of black tea leaves crushed beyond recognition so they steep quickly in a tea bag. I've been drinking bag and leaf green teas (sencha and hojicha) for awhile now, but it was time to try some good leaf black teas too. Branch out, widen horizons, make a Decent Cuppa Tea unadulterated by sugar, milk, lemon or paper bags and tags. (Sure, bag tea is easy. It's convenient and I'm not knocking it, but it's not that much harder to make it without bags.)
Stopped at the CostPlus at Jack London Square as I remembered they had some suitable containers for my teas to live in, metal cans with clear windows in the tops, in various colors. (Turns out they have magnets on the bottoms too, which means one can presumably turn the side of one's refrigerator or range hood into a spice rack.) BTW, CostPlus had a sign up that they're going to give the net proceeds of sales of their Japanese goods to earthquake relief. Too bad their sake selection is so generic and I don't need to be eating Pocky, gummy fruit candies or anything Hello Kitty.
Had some of the Assam yesterday - and remembered that I should've picked up a strainer or tea ball while I was out because the old one doesn't close flush. Salvaged the situation by pouring everything back through my larger kitchen strainer into a measuring cup and then back into my favorite mug. Very nice black tea, good flavor, strong enough to suit me.
Worked on sewing the hanging tabs onto my new banner a bit while watching some old Firefly episodes on DVD. (By hand because I couldn't be arsed to set up the sewing machine).
Decided the tea strainer situation warranted a trip to Daiso this morning, then got there and realized that the average Japanese teapot is the same capacity or smaller than my tea mug. Found a strainer, picked up a package of chopsticks for the kitchen as mine have all tended to migrate into the House of Cheerful Monkeys box For Some Reason(!), some kombu (for that pickle recipe the guy from Tokyo Fish Market told me about), and a couple other little things. Sadly, they appear out of the little thread snips. They'd make great gifts for my SCA friends.
"The Legend of 1900" was on again this afternoon, so I watched it again. Somehow never managed to finish sewing tabs on my hata, but I can finish that this week easily enough. Watched the first bit of the new HBO "Mildred Pierce" and am now sipping the lapsang souchong, which smells like a campfire. Very nice.
