adventures | kimberly ah

Sep 01 2013

Japan 2011

Today, we are hopping on our flight to Japan. YAY! Our bags are packed with (hopefully) everything we need. Our cat sitters are ready to go. (We are so fortunate to have friends who are willing to cover the daytime and the nighttime shifts with Presley–what can we say? We love our cat! Plus, it’s nice to have someone around the apartment day and night to keep an eye on things like our 1970s light fixtures!) Our family is waiting for us in Tokyo. Our hotel bed is also waiting…and we will be longing for it by the time we get off of the thirteen hour flight! When we went to Japan in 2010, I made a little blog of our trip, Meeting My Mother-In-Law. The trip was obviously filled will many trips to Mister Donut, but the purpose of the trip, for me, was to meet my mother-in-law. After (at that point) almost five years of marriage, I finally met my husband’s mother. And, even though some of the pressure was off (at that point, it’s not like Naoto could return me), some new pressure was on. I was meeting her after a thirteen hour plane ride to Japan, an ninety minute commuter train ride to Tokyo, a two hour bullet train ride to Niigata and a twenty minute cab ride to the apartment. I was pretty much a wreck by the time we got there. I had planned on “freshening up” on the train ride, but I was too sleepy to care about personal hygiene by that time. Precious sleep was all I could think of. Thankfully, over the few days that we stayed with her, Naoto’s mom got to see a clean me, a well-rested me and a happy me…it was wonderful to finally meet her.

This time, since Naoto’s mom moved to a retirement community in Tokyo, we will be able to see her after a good night’s sleep (well, that’s the idea anyway…jet lag might have a different plan!) on our first morning in Japan. I’m going to miss seeing Niigata, but it will be lovely to have the whole family together and concentrate on one place this visit!

P.S. If you’d like to try my favorite salad from my last visit to Japan, check out the salad Naoto’s mom made for us! Perfect excuse to use up some fresh garden tomatoes!

Tagged adventures, Japan, memories

Aug 20 2013

Pleasant Home Movies on the Porch: The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

On Friday night, I dragged Naoto to see a silent movie.

Pleasant Home, a historic home/museum in our neighborhood, is hosting Silent Movies on the Porch this month. The porch is huge, the summer nights are mild and there is live piano accompaniment! It felt like a real old-time theater experience! I have never seen a silent movie (sad, I know!) so I thought watching one on a porch with live music was a great place to start. At least if the movie lost my interest, I could appreciate the piano, right? Well, the movie never lost my interest…even Naoto had a great time!

Friday’s movie was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a 1920 German horror film. The movie was kind of weird, kind of scary (though not scary by today’s standards). The set was charming–characters walked among jaggedly painted buildings and hills, they opened oddly-shaped doors and windows, they congregated in tiny, spare rooms… The actors were fun to watch…great facial expressions, great hand motions…without the captions, you could still get a feel for what was going on. There was a plot twist at the end. (I love a good plot twist.)The best part about this particular movie on the porch, though, was that the pianist, Thomas Holmes, wrote his own score for this movie! (You can read more about that here.) Apparently, the movie’s original score was too string-heavy to duplicate with just a piano, so he decided to write a new one…no big deal, right? His music really made the movie come alive–the suspenseful scenes were so much more effective with the piano behind them! There were several extreme close-ups of creepy Dr. Caligari during the movie, and Holmes’s music for these scenes was perfect to set the creepy mood!

The movie on the porch was so much fun that I think we’re going to do it again. This week Pleasant Home is showing Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality. I’ll be spending all week talking it up to Naoto…but we all know he’s going to enjoy it, right?

Tagged adventures, Pleasant Home, summer

Aug 19 2013

2 Comments

adventures, Honor Flight Chicago

A Bears Game Double Date

Last Thursday, my friend Barb and I had the pleasure of escorting two World War II veterans to a Bears game. That’s us above with Bill and Bill. As far as dates go, Barb and I hit the jackpot. The Bills were perfect gentlemen and we all had an amazing and special night. The activity was an Honor Flight Chicago event. The Bears gave us tickets to the game that included access to the United Club, a “hospitality area” in the stadium that serves amazing cocktails and beer and gourmet food that you could either eat in the (climate-controlled) dining area or take to your cozy cushioned seat. We all felt a little spoiled by the services, the amazing food (hello freshly carved barbeque beef brisket on a challah roll!) and the spacious seating. We ate inside before the game, and then came back inside to meet up with the other volunteers and veterans at half-time. Otherwise, we were outside enjoying a great game (lots of scoring and a WIN for the Bears!) on a perfectly cool August night in Chicago. I mean…isn’t that a gorgeous view?During the game, George McCaskey came over to thank Bill and Bill for their service to our country. Both veterans were floored at this visit…as were all of the people around us. It was a really great moment in their night. Our “seat neighbor” during the game has been a season ticket holder for five years. He was so kind to Bill and Bill. He helped us safely assist the two Bills up and down the stairs and chatted to them about their service and Soldier Field and he was just a downright great guy. Thanks Season Ticket Holder Section 311 Row 6 Seats 13 & 14!

One really funny/scary moment in the night occurred as we were entering Soldier Field. We were going through the ticket gates and (tall) Bill didn’t have his ticket. He explained to the ticket-taker that Barb had it. Barb had already gone through the gate and I reminded Bill that I had given him his ticket in the parking garage. He shook his head and said that I hadn’t given him a ticket. For a moment, I was questioning my own sanity, but then Barb came over and said she had seen me handing off the ticket to Bill. We thought maybe he had dropped it by the car or something. We had all entered through the gate but Bill, and you can’t re-enter once your ticket has been scanned, so we had a small moment of panic. No one wanted Bill to walk alone all the way back to the car to look for his ticket. I felt regretful that I had allowed Bill to be a gentleman and let me go first. But then, Bill went into his pocket and protested, “This sheet of paper is the only thing you gave me outside!” IT WAS HIS TICKET!! He just didn’t realize it was a paper-printed ticket (instead of the “real” tickets he was used to). The ticket-taker hugged him, I hugged her and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief that we were able to go inside without anymore drama and worry.

We all had a great time and I really felt honored to be able to spend the evening with Bill and Bill. When we dropped them off, they hugged us both and thanked us for choosing them to go…it was the least we could do. We have so much more to thank them for.

Tagged adventures, Chicago Bears, Honor Flight Chicago

Aug 12 2013

6 Comments

adventures, crafty adventures, homemaking

Shark Week Cake…& Party

As I mentioned Saturday, we went to a Shark Week Party this weekend. So much fun! Shark-fan Stacy decked out the apartment with hundreds of paper fish, shark decorations, shark-themed food and drinks, Sharknado! on the ceiling (if you haven’t watched it…you should!) and a shark-themed Brett, who sported these fabulous shark footie pajamas. Pictured above is a blurry Naoto at the Bloody Mary bar…he was studying the shark poster for the quiz later that evening.

Ever since the Shark Week party of 2011, I’ve been filling up a Pinterest board of all my favorite Shark Week ideas in preparation for another party. I fell in love with the idea of this cake*. So I spent Saturday baking a cake and making frosting. I never bake, so it always makes me nervous that the cake won’t rise or it will taste terrible…and cakes are especially stressful because you don’t really know how bad or how good things are until you cut it open at the party…

Thankfully everything worked out and the cake was quite tasty. I made this cake. I’ve made the cake a few times (but never the Cloudburst Frosting). I always use Hershey’s Extra Dark Cocoa Powder. It makes a nice, deep, dark chocolate cake that works well with all sorts of frostings. I decided to be daring and try to make the Cloudburst Frosting for the first time. It was surprisingly easy, though it did take all day because of waiting for the milk/flour mixture to cool down. But most of that time was waiting, not hands-on. The frosting was good–not too sweet or too buttery–like a slightly elevated buttercream. And it really was easy enough to become my new go-to recipe. (You know, for when I bake again next year…)For the toppings, I used Teddy Grahams, gummy sharks, vanilla wafer cookies, peach gummy rings, cocktail umbrellas and a toothpick with a typed BEWARE OF SHARKS sign. I giggled the whole time I was creating the little shark scene…Sigh…every week really should be Shark Week…

*Sadly, I cannot find the source for the original cake…both inspiration pins (here and here) only go to a picture. If you know the source, please contact me and I will include it!

Tagged adventures, celebrations, diy, food, homemaking, Shark Week

Aug 08 2013

2 Comments

adventures, cocktails, what's for dinner

K&N and the Girl & the Goat

Naoto has been wanting to eat at Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat for years. Our neighbors have eaten there a few times and have raved about it so much. Naoto has been trying to get us a reservation for awhile now…he was especially anxious to eat there after we ate at Little Goat and had such a delicious experience.

Last Friday, we were able to go after one of his co-workers offered up her reservation to us. (Thanks, Missy!) So at five o’clock on a Friday night, we sat down to a dining adventure at the Goat. My favorite part was the cocktails. Don’t get me wrong–the food was AMAZING–but my cocktail, the Foghorn, was the scene-stealer (pictured above with Naoto’s boring beer). The Foghorn is, according to the menu, “SanFrancisco’s answer to the Manhattan”. It is made with gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur and orange bitters, garnished with an orange peel. So simple, but when it’s the right mix of quality ingredients and good proportions, simple can be so good! It was sweet, but not too sweet and no one ingredient overpowered the others–a perfect drink in my book. I also enjoyed the Charlie Ross cocktail (gin, sugar and bitters)…so tasty!

The menu at Girl & the Goat is separated into three parts: veggies, fish and meat. It is a small-plate restaurant, where you order several things and share a few bites of each thing. I like this style of restaurant, because if something is underwhelming, it’s good to know something new and different will be showing up at the table soon. But, at Girl & the Goat, nothing was underwhelming.

We ordered six dishes (pictured in order below): Squash Blossom Rangoon (crab and yogurt inside a lightly fried squash blossom), Kona Kompachi Crudo (raw fish with aioli and pork), Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon (salmon with a peach panzanelle salad), Roasted Cauliflower (pure heaven, with pine nuts), Sweet Corn Goat Cheese Wontons (goat cheese wontons served with tiny heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn and popcorn!) and Wood Oven Roasted Pig Face (pork cheek served with a fried egg and potatoes). Every dish was really creative and interesting, but my favorite was probably the most simple–the cauliflower. Naoto and I roast cauliflower pretty often around here, and it’s pretty delicious, but it’s nothing like this. I can’t stop thinking that they must really have a secret to making it so good… I’m glad Naoto let me eat most of the cauliflower, and because of his generosity, I only had a bite of the pig face. He was crazy excited to eat Girl & the Goat’s most popular dish. Of course, we had to get coffee and dessert. Naoto got the Miso-Butterscotch Budino (a creamy miso and butterscotch pudding with cashews, pineapple and bacon toffee on top). After this dessert, and the other miso dessert at the Little Goat Diner, I’m convinced that Naoto has the utmost respect for Stephanie Izard and her skills with this Japanese ingredient. I ordered the Goat Cheese Bavarois (brown sugar cake topped with blueberries, caramel krispies and goat cheese). I would tell you that the creamy goat cheese was the best part of this dessert, but then I’d be leaving out how amazing the brown sugar cake was, and the blueberries, and the caramelized krispie gems…What I liked best about Girl & the Goat was that it’s a casual restaurant…no white tablecloths or pretentious servers…it’s just incredibly creative food in a comfortable atmosphere. We definitely want to go back again…the menu changes all the time, so it would be fun to go back in another season to see what’s new. And to get another Foghorn.

Tagged adventures, cocktails, coffee, food, summer

Jul 30 2013

3 Comments

adventures, gardening

Oak Park Conservatory–Uncorked

I am a sucker for local events. The Oak Park Conservatory is hosting Uncorked Summer Nights on the last Fridays of the next few months. The first one was last Friday and I went with Naoto and our neighbor friend Karen to check it out. For $10, you get two drink tickets, a tour of the conservatory, passed appetizers and then a chance to mill around with other plant lovers both inside the conservatory and outside on the patio.

I’ve never been to the conservatory…what a shame because it is such a local treasure! The actual conservatory was built in 1929 and it holds more than 3000 plants. There are three sections in the conservatory–the fern room, the rainforest room and the desert room. Our docent gave us a thorough tour of each room and I took plenty of pictures.

Above is the view as you walk into the fern room. You are overcome with green, in the best way possible. Here are some other views from the fern room. I’m not sure what the first two plants are (I just loved their interesting shapes!), but the last one is a lemon tree.

As we walked into the rainforest room, we could feel the change in humidity. Three birds live in this room (they chatter at you as you walk by!) and there’s a river running though the room with a few large, colorful koi fish and a tiny turtle! (It’s hard to see the little guy in my picture, but he’s right by the koi’s tail.) We also saw a cacao tree (third picture down) and a huge fiddle leaf fig (not pictured), the biggest “thing” in home blogging since chevron.The last room, the desert, was dry and warm (obviously). I was most looking forward to seeing the century plant, an agave from Mexico that only blooms once every thirty years. The picture below is from a few weeks ago when the plant started growing through the roof of the conservatory. The book club ladies and I walked down one evening to take a peek at it poking through the roof of the conservatory. Sadly, before it had a chance to really flourish, it broke off in a bad storm the week before. But we got to see the blooms up close on display since the conservatory staff was able to save those from the broken plant. From the inside of the conservatory, the base of the century plant looks like an enormous, Dr. Suess-ish plant with a giant asparagus poking out of it. I’m really not a desert person, but I loved seeing the cacti and succulents up close. There were so many interesting ones! The one below was part of a series of enormous aloe plants. Naoto cut his leg on one. (We were warned not to touch the cacti!) There were also plenty of little mice frolicking about the plants in here. It was alarming at first (they were really out in the open!) but they quickly became fun to watch (as long as they didn’t run out into the walkways!) Karen took this picture of Naoto and me in front of the century plant. I decided to wear my new floral dress (as a departure from my usual summer black and grey and cat shirts) for the gardening occasion. I’m already looking forward to going back and exploring more during August’s Uncorked event!

Tagged adventures, garden, gardening, summer

Jul 29 2013

1 Comment

adventures, Japan 2013, Office Supplies

Japan Bound

Last week, Naoto booked our flight to Japan! We were going to wait until November to go…that way we could avoid planning around Honor Flight and the garden. But when Naoto saw a deal for the first week in September (that would save us more than $400 per ticket!!), we knew we had to book the flight right away. Lucky for us, it doesn’t interfere too much with Honor Flight (on September 12th) and hopefully we will get to enjoy most of our tomatoes throughout August.

I am already plotting out my office supply shopping, washi tape wishlist, my Mister Donut menus…you know, all of the important stuff. We are staying in Tokyo for our whole trip this time. (Last time, we stayed in Tokyo, Niigata and Mie.) Most of Naoto’s family is there now, and Hisae (of the famous care packages) is coming in from Mie to join us in our adventures.

August is going to be full of Japan preparations, so I’m sure I’ll be blathering on about it here on the blog.

Tagged adventures, Japan, office supplies, summer

Jul 22 2013

4 Comments

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Community Garden Progressive Dinner

On Saturday night, the community garden board hosted a progressive dinner for all of the gardeners in the Forest Park Community Garden. Naoto and I had a really fun time getting to know all of our fellow gardeners. We’ve decided that gardeners might just be the nicest group of people around (gardeners and letter writers, for sure!)

We all met at Amelia’s for a drink and then we walked to Bambi’s house for tapas and mojitos. We could have ended the night here…there was so much food! At Gina’s house, we enjoyed grilled pizzas and sangria. Naoto and I brought basil from the community garden planters and from our balcony and Gina made a magical tomato, basil & mozzarella pizza with it. At Michelle’s house, we enjoyed dessert–a homemade plum clafouti and an ice cream pie (generously donated by Brown Cow!) Every step of the evening was just perfect, and even an unexpected rain shower didn’t spoil our festivities!

Have you ever done a progressive dinner? This was our first one and it was loads of fun, especially for a group who was just getting to know each other. Walking from house to house gave us an opportunity to mingle with more people, either on the walk or in a different seating arrangement at each house. I think it just might be the most ideal way to break the ice with a group of new people.

Thanks for a great evening, fellow gardeners!

Tagged adventures, food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jul 18 2013

1 Comment

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Farmers Market Thursday

This morning, I headed over to the Hines VA Hospital for their weekly farmers market. Since the Forest Park market isn’t happening this year, the Hines market is going to be the next best thing. Well, it might be anyway…it’s pretty small.

That’s it up there…thankfully there is a lot of signage at the Hines campus, because, really, if you blink, you might miss it. There were a few farmers and a few people selling bottled products (vinegars, honey, salsa) and there was a bakery. One farm was selling berries and plums and green beans and they were serving freshly grilled corn. Yum! Another farmer, Jessica of Purple Leaf Farms, who I know from our Forest Park Community Garden, was selling greens and turnips and flowers. I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the summer. As more fruits and vegetables mature on the farms, I’m sure there will be more offerings, but for now, I’m happy with my tiny purchase of gorgeous blackberries and pretty blooms.

Tagged adventures, food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jul 10 2013

5 Comments

adventures, summer manifesto

Boston: Part 3

On our last day in Boston we ate seafood! Lauren and Mark took us to Legal Sea Foods right on the water. Naoto had a crab salad and I had my first lobster roll (pictured above). It was huge and delicious, as was the maple smoked salmon bruschetta we all shared. After lunch, we walked down to the Harpoon Brewery and had a tour. I am not a beer drinker at all, but it was still fun to learn about the process and the history of Harpoon and Naoto enjoyed my portion of the beer tasting (though, they did have cider for me to enjoy!) I only wish we weren’t too full to eat a giant pretzel in the beer hall…those looked so good! (The goggles pictured above on Mark and Naoto were all part of the tour.) Harpoon lost a bet with a brewery in Chicago and had to display this tap in their beer hall, Ruined Bruin. As a Chicagoan, it was a fun sight to see (while subtly laughing and not giving away our Chicago origins!)

After lunch and beer we headed back downtown to hunt for Necco treats (pretty much a failed attempt…I got a couple of SkyBars and some Candy Buttons for a small fortune and two different candy shops seemed perplexed about the existence of Necco) and had cocktails in the Prudential Tower (views pictured above). It was a bit hazy, but we were able to see the whole city sprawling beneath us. It was a nice little end to our vacation.

At the airport, while we waited for our (delayed) flight, Naoto and I toasted our first Dunkin Donuts coffees of the weekend. (Why did we wait so long?!) We decided that we definitely want to visit Boston again, but in my mind, it’s one stop on a long New England road trip!

Tagged adventures, coffee, food, summer

kimberly ah

kimberly at home

Category Archives: adventures