My love of food

Wait wait wait...I KNOW it's been a WHILE since I've written..in fact, two years..teehee...but I felt like I needed to get inspired again. Lets face it: I get tired. I get lazy. After work, I just want to plop and do nothing...and I want to stop it! On this day off from work I decided to blog...about one of my favorite things: FOOD, and my memories with it.

Oh how I love food. I love to make it, eat it, and look at it. Often times my eyes are way bigger than my stomach.

Growing up, my mother cooked for us every day. It was her pure love of cooking for us that stuck with me long after she had passed away in 2006. I always appreciated it, and told myself that I wanted to be just as great a cook and baker as she was. We only went out to eat when it was someone's birthday, or for some other special occasion, and it was usually at this old chinese restaurant in town where the old lady who owned it would give us White Rabbit candies when we went to pay the check.

But it wasn't just my mom who cooked like crazy. Our whole family was into food. We always had some kind of occasion, holiday or excuse to get together and have these huge feasts.

New year's was my favorite. My mom would whip out our mochi making machine she had gotten from Shirokiya in the mall, and make fresh mochi on new years eve. I remember when the mochi was ready, we would dump it onto the tray, dust the working surface and our hands with potato starch and try to roll flattened balls of mochi out of the big hot glob of rice. We would eat it with kinako flour and sugar mixed together for the next several days.

We would also gather at my Aunty Honey's house and make laulau - a traditional hawaiian dish of pieces of pork, beef and butter fish wrapped in taro leaves and steamed to perfection. It was a family affair...everyone would gather and start an assembly line down the picnic tables in the downstair's kitchen. My uncle had (and still HAS) a big galvanized trash can he used specifically for cooking and steaming the lau lau in. The whole thing would be full of laulaus, enough for New Years, and left overs for everyone else to take home and freeze for the rest of the year to enjoy.

There are so many memories of family and food that come to mind, and it has become a big part of who I am today. I am always thinking about what I want to make next, constantly scouring the web for new recipes, and perfecting ones I already have tried. Whenever we go out to eat, or I make something for dinner, my boyfriend tries not to laugh every time I stop before we dig in as I take pictures of my food to post on my facebook. I want to share, not only my arts and crafts, but my love of food with the world. I'll be posting some pictures soon of some of the things I've made :)

Long Overdue...

This is way overdue, but I made a promise with myself that I was going to do something artsy that one weekend...and I DID!!!! I did a watercolor of a rose that I had picked from my aunty's rose bush...here it is...

I got frustrated a little...I forgot how un-forgiving watercolor could be...but hey gotta start back up somewhere, right? I was going to enter it in the Black Book art competition at the Art Supple Warehouse in Huntington Beach, but could not due to a HECTIC schedule lately...

I recently found a new job back at home on Maui! I found out about 2 weeks ago that I got hired..therefore less than 2 weeks to move. STRESSSSS. But I am still SO excited and thankful for this opportunity. Will post more about this later, but I wanted to post my painting...so here it is....let me know what you think!

Tight budget till next paycheck = art project!

Sooo, I've been trying to save some $$$. The result? Super strict budgeting...and because of this, I cannot spend any more money until next week Thursday. This means...I've grounded myself and will not leave the house this weekend..and I'm forcing myself to eat what I already have at home instead of going out and picking something up. Hello samin! Hello tuna and rice!!! Hello frozen gyoza!! Hello plain pasta with EVOO (really?? am I using Rachel Ray terms?!), Salt, and Garlic Powder...How I've missed you so (kind of...sort of...not really...)... I feel like I'm reverting to my extremely poor college student diet. I don't think I would have survived if it weren't for those foods..

Me? Not leave the house? Stay in ALLL weekend? Is this possible? I make it sound like I'm in prison, but ever since I got my car, I don't think there is one day where I haven't had to leave the house...you know, gotta go to the bank, run some errands, go get groceries, put gas in the car, etc. I'm just wondering if I can force myself to just NOT go anywhere. Well, maybe the only place I'll allow myself to go is the Gym, since I am paying for it, and I have been slacking the last two weeks...but YOU know what I mean.

What's a girl to do? How will I keep my sanity?

Do I hear..."ART PROJECT"?!

HELLS YEAH! I need to keep up with my blogging commitment of staying crafty and documenting my every artsy-fartsy move. I'm scared to even say all of this because it means that I HAVE to put out....but what do I want to do?

I was thinking of doing a watercolor painting. I bought a set of watercolor tubes from the Aaron Brothers store when I first moved to Cali almost 2 years ago, and I think I've only used it less than a hand-full of times since then.

I remember in the 6th grade, my mom had me enter the Maui County Fair art show. She never forced me to. It was my own decision, always...and I always enjoyed doing it...ever since the 1st grade. I did a still life of some fruit in a wicker basket with a chiffon scarf and Japanese tea kettle...and I won best in show :) My mom taught me everything I know about art. She taught me how to watercolor paint....and I want to remember it all, and continue it. And, because I haven't touched paints as often as I should, or picked up some charcoal or colored pencils and started drawing my heart out..I feel kind of guilty. I also kind of forgot how to get inspired. When I even THINK about wanting to draw or paint...I kind of freak out and don't know where to start...and when I do start, I get frustrated if it doesn't look like how I want it to look.

I guess I'm a perfectionist when it comes to art..but maybe I'm being too hard on myself? Especially since I haven't kept up with it, I can't expect things to just pick up where they left off and have everything looking fine and dandy..I kind of have to just, well, go with the flow, and deal with the kinks along the way....

So my reader(s? lol), I am challenging myself to a watercolor painting. Let's see what I can pull off. Time to whip out the newspaper, paper towels, paints, and brushes!!!!

Aloha! はじめまして、どうぞよろしく！

I'm finally doing it! A blog! Something I've always wanted to do but just never got around to it. I was always the type of person who would start a journal or diary, write in it for the first 4 days, forget about it for months, and repeat the cycle again...hopefully it wont happen here! I've been posting my creations on my Facebook like crazy, but you're so limited with just a picture and a caption...then there are the notes...but to me it's a humbug and unorganized...I just want a place where I can dedicate and document all the creative and culinary creations that I come up with. Hell, maybe I'll even post some makeup blogs too. I've really gotten into tutorials on Youtube, and have been getting better at my makeup application, so it would be fun to post that stuff here as well!

So, for those of you who don't know.....Who am I? I'm Miss Aiko. Born and raised in Hawaii, currently residing in California. I'm Japanese, Hawaiian, & Korean fun. I love food..eating, cooking, trying new recipes. Growing up, we never really went out to eat unless it was a special occasion, like a birthday, etc...therefore, or family was ALWAYS in the kitchen. My family was always big on food. We never skimped and would always go ALL OUT when it came to family gatherings. Hawaiian food is what I grew up with. I use that term loosely...there IS real deal Hawaiian food: lau lau, poi, lomi salmon, kulolo, etc....but also a huge impact from other cultures as well going back to the Plantation days...mainly Japanese, then Korean, Portuguese, Filipino, etc. I am so fortunate to have grown up in such an environment, as it taught me to be open-minded about different cultures and their foods.

I love art. My mom was an art teacher and so, ever since I could remember, I was always drawing or doing arts and crafts. You name it, I've done it...beading/jewelery, sewing, crocheting, kniting, polymer clay, ceramics, origami..the whole shebang! It's a passion of mines. I love creating something different and unique..seeing something in the store, or something that someone is wearing and thinking to myself "I could make that!". Up until my days at the community college, I was really crafty...after that, you know, life happens, I got busy (or maybe just lazy LOL), and kind of lost touch with my creative side...hopefully by starting this blog, it will kind of force me to keep up with it and showing the world what I have to offer...one day, I would love to sell my creations on Etsy! My problem is that, I always come up with a whole bunch of ideas, get excited about it, start, and not finish. I really need to just take it one project at a time..this might be a good place to start and enforce that!

Well, that's good for now...lets see how this works out..I'm excited!!!