Golden Week

Golden week is a series of holidays that fall close together in the spring, and this year it fell as a three day weekend followed by a four day weekend.  John and I didn't do anything in particular, but we had a fun time relaxing and enjoying the extra time together.

Early in the week we made a trip out to Kawasaki and signed up for a Costco membership.  It's exactly like the US, except there are a bunch of Japanese products for sale as well.  But we bought a lot of produce and John found an enormous bag of chocolate chips.

So many chocolate chips!

Another evening we went to a beer garden selling frozen beer.  To be honest, the concept was great but the evening was a little too cold to enjoy it properly.  The frozen beer itself didn't taste great, but it kept the beer underneath (a huge glass, by the way) delightfully cold.  I think it would be excellent on a hot afternoon.

And every once in a while you need a bottle of champagne in the morning to go with some pancakes like we did on Saturday.

Perfect weekend brunch

Speaking of pancakes, John prefers "pancake" syrup while I prefer maple syrup, and I will argue forever that the real thing is better.  But I have to admit that the pancake syrup here has an amazing bottle with a spout that pours both a thick and a thin stream of syrup.

Lots of syrup?

Or a little.  Cool, right?

After our boozy brunch we decided to rearrange the furniture in our living room.

It seems more social this way

Besides that, I've been cooking a lot.  When we moved here I found a food blog - Tokyo Terrace - by another expat in Tokyo that I really liked, but unfortunately she had moved back to the US and wasn't writing anymore.  But just recently she started up a new blog - Set the Table - that I've really been enjoying.  I'm putting up pictures of the recipes I followed, but her photos are waaay better than mine.

I've made her Brussels Sprouts that are cooked with soy and pineapple.  They paired really nicely with pork chops and mashed potatoes.

We got the brussels sprouts at Costco

I also made her Bacon and Egg Polenta.  I'd never eaten polenta before, and wasn't sure what I'd think, but it was amazing!  John and I both enjoyed it and I can't wait to make it again.

So delicious!

When I was making the eggs for the polenta I cracked one open and discovered it had two yolks!  I've never seen that before.  Of course, I immediately broke one of them, but I think you can still tell in the photo.