I suppose the drawback is that I can't possibly go get anything framed without running across the street to the bakery for almond cookies. A little taste of buttery heaven!
I hadn't really thought about going to take pictures last week, I was more focused on the pastels I was framing, so these pictures were taken with crazy settings on my iPhone.
iPhone Chinatown
January 2012
mmmmm ...
Golden Dragon Gifts has fun and inexpensive trinkets ...
And this is where I got my 5.99 replacement slippers (in red of course!)
Love the red lanterns! They always remind me of the incredible cinematography in the film,Raise the Red Lantern,for obvious reasons. Every shot in that film was like a work of art!
This is a great little higher end shop called Realm that is in an old restaurant that opened in 1939. Wish I'd gotten a better shot of the ceiling but it was tough with the lights!
I think I need a neon Buddha. Just saying.
Raise the Red Lantern is an incredibly beautiful movie, visually, but subject-wise it's rough and quite haunting. Gong Li is amazing in it and it was worth seeing, for me, for the visual feast.
Each moment is a place
you've never been.
~Mark Strand
Hope this week, you are enjoying places you've never been.
Can you believe it? We are already a week into 2012! For the most part, I just finished cleaning up the last days of 2011!
I returned from spending the New Year with friends in San Diego, to emptying the hall closet for plumbing work, in the midst of yet unpacked luggage and Christmas ornaments. I pretty much have it all under control now and am feeling ready to get going with the new adventure of 2012.
My friend Karen, from Italian class, and I have decided to broaden our culinary repertoires this year so we began that little adventure Friday night. I had purchased a cookbook for my niece Rachel (Italian Country Cooking by Loukie Werle) for Christmas, which it turns out she already had, so I kept the book and this was the result ...
Guazzetto di pesce e fagioli
3 tablespoons evoo
2 large cloves of garlic (I used 3 and we halved the recipe!)
1/4 tsp chili flakes
1 pd cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup dried cannellini or great northern beans, cooked
good handful flat-leafed parsley coarsely chopped
4 white fish fillets, about 6 oz each (we used cod) cut into 2 inch pieces or left whole
lemon wedges and grilled bread (it was so yummy we didn't used the lemon)
So easy! (And better than it looks) Basically you are heating olive oil, throwing in garlic, a small amount of red pepper flakes, the white wine and halved cherry tomatoes over a medium heat. After that gets warmed up and the tomatoes soft, you throw in cooked cannellini beans and chopped parsley and cook another 5 minutes. Lay the fish on top and season with salt. Put the lid on and cook for about 10 minutes.
We started eye -balling everything because we used canned beans and they were absorbing the liquid so we added more wine (before adding the fish) and of course, as always, I more than doubled the garlic.
mmmm ... The recipe is definitely a keeper! It was delicious!!!
That night we watched a very entertaining documentary about an Italian guy in Rome, who put together a multi-ethnic orchestra of immigrants living in the Piazza Vittorio area. It was great seeing these musicians come together from different backgrounds and religions and create wonderful, fun music together.
At first the main guy has trouble finding musicians. When he asks around the neighborhood, if anyone knows anyone who plays, you'll see in the trailer, everyone shaking their heads no. The documentary is subtitled in English. Unfortunately, the trailer isn't, but you don't really need it. :)
Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio
Let brotherly love continue.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
I saw this YouTube video on the great blog The Road to the Horizon. You might have already seen it but I thought it was pretty fun ... and gets more fun as it goes along, so keep watching!
