First: My brother-in-law spent almost two weeks in Japan — and specifically in Okinawa, where his girlfriend’s brother lives — earlier this month. That means that both Jose and his brother traveled to Japan as their first non-Mexico international destination. What are the chances of that? Japan’s awesome, but it’s not the most popular travel destination. Anyway, Alex, brought us back a shisa decoration; they’re very popular in Okinawa. There are two dragons — one with its mouth open, to scare the bad things away, and one with its mouth closed, to keep the good things in. We both thought it was cool, so we hung it over the coat rack next to our door. It fits in well with the Japanese theme we have on the other side of the entryway already.
Side note related to those photos: why is it that my photos are always rotated about a degree off? It’s not usually noticeable, but when I have a photo with an obvious straight line like that coat rack, I always have to rotate it by a degree or so in Photoshop. Either my lens distorts things that way, or I see things a degree off!
Next: Jose made eggplant parmesan last week and wanted me to take pictures of his awesome dish. He’s made this a couple times before and there are two things you should know: 1) I’ve never really been a huge fan of eggplant parmesan, but 2) this eggplant parmesan is DELICIOUS. Seriously, it is so tasty. It’s not even that hard to make — just time-consuming. The recipe is from one of Alton Brown’s cookbooks but you basically just slice the eggplant, sweat it, bread it (I suggest panko — most grocery stores sell it these days), and fry it. That’s the time-consuming part. Then just layer the eggplant slices in a dish along with sauce and cheese, put it in the oven long enough to melt the cheese and voila! YUM.
Also: We saw Moneyball on Sunday and I really enjoyed it. It made me want to read the book again (I read it years ago when it first came out), and it also made me want to watch baseball again. I have paid zero attention to baseball this year mainly because the Astros suck. They have the worst record in all of baseball and I don’t even recognize 90% of the names on the roster anymore. I mean, they are bad, bad, BAD. But Moneyball made me excited to watch the postseason.
Finally: Yesterday I used a Groupon that was about to expire for Delesandri’s Cupcakes over in Clear Lake Shores. I spent $10 and got $20 of credit, which got me 8 cupcakes. They had a great selection so I got 8 different kinds: tres leches, Reese’s Pieces, margarita, key lime, red velvet, mocha latte, white chocolate macadamia nut, and chocolate mint. Last night Jose and I tried the Reese’s, key lime, and white chocolate macadamia and I’m happy to report that they were all pretty tasty! I can’t wait to try a few more tonight. They look a little lopsided in the photo because I left them on the counter when I got home and the icing softened up and started to slide off, but I quickly put them in the fridge after that. There are also only 7 cupcakes in the photo because we’d already split the Reese’s one. Mmm.
I have the exact same “one degree off horizontal” problem with my photos, too. I’ve just been assuming that I’m crooked – it never occured to me to suspect the lens or camera.
I found your blog while searching for some pictures of Shisa. I’m Okinawan and wanted to find some pictures of different shisa for inspiration on a few things I’m doing. I like that you put yours above your coat rack. 🙂 I do have to mention though, shisa are not dragons, but rather a cross between a lion and dog; they are similar to the Chinese Foo-dogs. Anyway, the fact that you put it near your front door is exactly what shisa are used for. We actually use them in front of our homes to guard the doors/entryways to various places (homes, businesses, schools, hopsitals, etc.) and also have single ones that go on our rooftops to protect our homes. I have one (similar to your shisa hanging) on my front door because I can’t put my ceramic ones outside of the doorway. 🙂