Swoosh!!

I'm not 100% sure I'm supposed to be posting these pics, but last October we visited the corporate offices of a well known swooshy logo'd shoe company in Oregon. A friend who works there got us in to the well secured "campus" to see where she works, but we only got to tour outside of the buildings. Above is a lake which separates the various parts of the campus.

Since we don't get the full effect of the fall season in Hawaii, where the climate is very stable and tropical, we always marvel at the beauty of the turning leaves.


And here are the offices where the designers work, carefully measuring athletes and coming up with swooshy logo'd shoes and apparel. Imagine Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods walking into your office. How cool would that be?


What an awesome place to work! Too bad Ni.... I mean, the swooshy logo'd place doesn't hire engineers. Or maybe they do. Hmmmm.........

DeMaris Farm

Last October we went to Oregon for my grandpa's 90th birthday. It was a fun trip. My aunt and uncle own a farm in Woodburn, which is between Portland and Salem.

It is a wonderful farm. My uncle grows beautiful tomatoes that are the sweetest and tastiest tomatoes you will ever eat. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of pics of the ripe tomatoes but here are some on the vines.



My uncle was also growing some pumpkins for Halloween carving. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to carve any before we left.


He also raises steer. They were just calf when we were there, so he was bottle feeding them. He also goes to other farms to buy turnips, which he feeds to the calves.


It was a fun trip and I'm glad we got to spend a little bit of time on the farm!

Happy New Year's / Valentine's Day

Kung Hee Fat Choy! Today is Chinese New Year's. This year, Chinese New Year's coincides with Valentine's Day. My mom always prepares Chinese New Year's dinner. For dessert, I made some chocolate hazelnut won tons, which are the perfect way to marry the two occasions!

I'd like to say I thought of this myself, but I happened across this recipe this morning on Food Network as Giada DeLaurentis was preparing what she called "chocolate hazelnut ravioli", using won ton wrappers. You take some store bought won ton wrappers, fill with Nutella, and fry in oil. When it comes out, you sprinkle a little bit of confectioner's sugar and top with a candied mint. Yum!!

Nitrous Extreme

New camera

We have picture taking tomorrow, and I picked up a Canon EOS Rebel XSi this past week. I've been wanting a digital SLR for quite some time now, and team picture taking was a nice excuse to finally order it from Amazon. I've been trying to replicate the aperture settings that one of our parents used last year to take team photos, but I'm still working on some lighting issues of taking pics outdoors. Hopefully this means this blog will finally get better pictures, but I'm also still just a very amateur photographer with no skills! I guess things can only get better from here!!

Tonkatsu

Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish that is made with lean pork (I used pork loin), dipped in a batter of cornstarch and egg, then coated in panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) and fried.

It's a very simple dish that is served with a side of Tonkatsu sauce, which is ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and a little bit of Tabasco. It sure hits the spot on a day where we have a long soccer practice and come home hungry.