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New Years Intentions 2013

2013 Goals and Intentions

1. Eat more cleanly. Fewer processed foods; more vegetables. Eat more intuitively. Eat less emotionally.

2. Go to sleep by 11pm more often. (2x a week to start)

3. Go to yoga 12x a month. Do Mysore regularly for 1 month. (Summer?)

4. Meditate 5 minutes per day (morning).

5. Get up earlier (this will come out of #2…).

6. Log my exercise (I used to do this). And use my Erin Condren planner.

7. Spend less money and save up to start my own business someday.

8. Find at least one other source of income aside from my day job.

9. Simplify. Minimize. Give away clothes and things that I don’t use. Buy less. Have less. Stress less.

What are your 2013 goals?

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{food} Japanese Lunch at Sakagura

A few weeks ago Bobby’s mom was in here in NYC for a few hours on a layover. We took the opportunity to have lunch at her favorite New York restaurant, Sakagura. Sakagura has lunch specials, so we each got a different one.

I think I got this: “Jewel” Oke Bento ($20.00) – Assorted Appetizers , Fried Tidbits , 5 kinds of Seasonal Sashimi , Grilled Tidbits , Mini Rice Balls and Miso Soup.

There were fried intertwined veggies; a hijiki seaweed salad (the black and orange stuff in the dark brown bowl); rice balls (looks like rice sushi in the middle but really was all rice); the white ball with yellow on top (top left) is satoimo, a Japanese sweet potato; fresh sashimi (tuna, scallop – my favorite, squid, salmon, and one other that I don’t remember – mackerel?), and finally on the bottom was eel with eel sauce, a piece of pork, a piece of potato, and some scrambled egg.

My favorite part? I loved it all.

Bobby got a soba box – it must have been this one: Kaisen Don ($21.00) – Assorted Variety of sliced Fresh Sashimi Served atop of Sushi Rice, with Soba Noodles ( Hot or Cold ). You can see the bowl of rice and sashimi (top), soba sauce (top left), soba (front and center), and a few edamame.

He also enjoyed his very much.

Bobby’s mom also ordered a soba set – I think it was set C – Yakizakana Gozen ($20.00) – Seasonal Grilled Fish, Seasonal Appetizers, A Bowl of Rice, Homemade Soba Noodles (Hot or Cold). It looks like the fish was salmon (front slightly right); there was steamed spinach (middle right); some seaweed, potato, and pork (bottom left); soba (back left) and soba sauce (top middle); and something in the middle there that I can’t quite make out.

We all shared a bowl of black sesame ice cream for dessert. No pic! It looked too good and I forgot to take one before diving in.

Sakagura is always a hit. We have been there a few times before, but I don’t think I have blogged about it.

What is your favorite Japanese dish?

I think mine is anything with hijiki seaweed. I even had some tonight – I had some “Japanese fried rice” from Trader Joe’s that had hijiki in it; then I added 2 scrambled eggs – perfection. When we lived in California I used to LOVE going to a place called Delica. They have a fantastic salad – the “Hijiki and Soybean Salad“. My attempt at recreating it is here.

Hijiki is also a staple in macro plates. Here are my favorite macro plates.

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{food} Sunday Dinner with Family

Growing up I always had a friend whose Sunday nights were reserved for dinner at her Grandma’s. I always liked the idea. I guess I just like rituals. So recently Bobby and I have a new ritual with our New York family – our aunt and uncle (this is the aunt I bake gingerbread with) have been having us over for dinner each week and we are loving it! Other family members always drop by as well throughout the night.

This week’s menu was a roasted red snapper, served chilled with homemade cocktail sauce (ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice), lemon wedges, and fresh parsley.

We also had curry rice, a salad, and bread.

For dessert we had an array of little chocolate pasties. They were similar, each filled with chocolate mousse and other various delicious things. There was also vanilla ice cream. The pastries are from a little shop somewhere in the East 90’s. I forget the name but can ask next time.

This past weekend was one of just two weekends I’ll have off during my yoga teacher training and I tried to enjoy it to the fullest. The only other weekend off is Thanksgiving and I have to go down to Miami to be in a wedding anyway. Then this week I jumped back into taking classes (we have to fulfill a certain number during the course of the training). And I have another exciting thing to share but I want to wait until it’s official.

Hope you all are having a lovely week so far. Sometimes I wish fall would last forever.

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{food, yoga} Kabocha & Yoga Love, aka Labor Day Weekend

This weekend was a lot of fun, so here are a few highlights. The number one highlight, of course, included my favorite food:

That is Penang Curry with Beef on a Bed of Pumpkin. Would you believe that I saw other restaurant goers leaving the kabocha squash (“pumpkin”) as though it was a garnish? I wanted to 1) take it for myself or 2) tell them to try it out. I did neither, and Bobby laughed at me all the way home about my passion for kabocha. (The dish in back is Bobby’s Pineapple Fried Rice, also delicious.) I really liked the curry and I want to get it again (soon). The restaurant was called Yum Yum Too (Hell’s Kitchen). It’s a Thai restaurant, and we went here for lunch yesterday.

The second highlight was that I bought a 1-month pass for unlimited yoga at Yoga Vida this month. I’ve been every day since I got the pass.

(Psst – If any NYC bloggers want to go for yoga together just shoot me an email: maggie (at) thesaladgirl (dot) com.)

Lastly, here is a Mooncake. My coworker brought some in for us all in celebration of a Chinese holiday/season. I don’t remember exactly what she said they were for – anyone know? This Mooncake has a red bean filling which is one of my favorite flavors. She also brought ones filled with green bean. I started eating this and then thought it might be an interesting item to share.

How was your weekend? Do anything fun?

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Weekend Link Love – 02.21.2011

Food and Recipe Links

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