Mothers Day Ikebana

Mothers Day and her Birthday

SPAM in NYC is expensive.  At Walmart it's less than $3 a can so why not buy a whole case?

dog lady mom takes Brody to Tail Waggin Tutors.  She says the kids collect these book marks of the different dogs.

the biggest news in town is that they are replacing the dead "world famous" Canisteo living sign.

My mom took an ikebana class (Japanese flower arranging) when she visited me in Japan.  We came up with the idea of her interest in this and her love of the land they own and hanging out with her family and doing a big ikebana day with a picnic and foraging across the land for beautiful natural materials to arrange together back at home whilst drinking wine.  First the safety video.  JK I made a powerpoint slide show of the brief history, styles, and inspiration photos of ikebana arranging.

adorable Harper is young and chases the swallows that swoop down low in the field.

Japanese themed picnic with karaage, pork tonkatsu sandwiches with hand crafted bespoke artisanal tonkatsu sauce, miso soup, and onigiri.

then it was time to grab our various clippers and shears and hunt for flowers, branches, grasses, mosses, leaves, or anything that inspired us to make an arrangement.  We also bought 10 kinds of flowers at the florist but only 2 of them were used so its cool that almost all of the arrangements we made were made with stuff from our land.

the haul.  cat tails, wild dog wood flowers, cedar branches, fiddle head ferns, other kinds of pine, multi-flora rose, other thorny things, daffodils, 

My mom already bought one in Japan so we ordered 3 additional Kenzans (spiky frogs) that have metal spikes on them and you push your plant materials down on them and it holds them in place. 

the gang at work on their respective arrangements.

this one is mine.  slanting style.  My dish is long and oblong.  For most styles the dish is supposed to be super shallow and you don't necessarily place the kenzan in the middle.  Symmetry is not the name of the game.  There are actually rules to follow about lengths and ratios and angles but in the spirit of keeping if more fun for the first time I decided we should just be aware there are rules and do what we felt.  It is supposed to be spontaneous too.

a broken robin's egg shell on a moss island.  My main piece was that loooong thorny multi-flora rose branch and with the egg shell I call this piece "Allegory for the Human Condition".  I don't know man.  those thorny bushes were the scruge of our childhood.

Bob's upright/slanting hybrid

he had the nice addition of the floating leaf and hypercurium berries.

my dad's upright style

nice addition of that mossy fallen log bridge.

my mom's upright/slightly slanting style.

nice use of the different mosses to cover up the kenzan and look at the huge thorns on her main branch!

paired with a local Keuka Lake Vineyards semi-dry riesling.  So I think it was a big success.  Everyone really liked picnicking and surveying our land.  Everyone said it really did make them appreciate the land and see different aspects of it that you don't normally pay attention to.  And everyone was really into the arranging part.  Probably one of our most successful family outings ever.  Best sons ever?  I'm just gonna leave that on the table here for you to consider......

Wegman's in Hornell New York has changed Oriental to Asian in the food isle.  Political correctness has made it to small town upstate new york!  I've put on my blog before this very sign when it said oriental.  You can even see how the plastic on asian is newer and whiter.  I suspect that since Wegmans is a big corporation that this was a corporate policy.  Did Hornell just slip under the radar or did it say oriental in all their stores?

I don't understand how ginger is so cheap.  Someone has to grow and harvest and ship it.

bob made tortillas with lard

I made chicken green chile taco filling.  Aneheim peppers, tomatillos, super browned chicken thighs

we also made gringo tacos, like tex mex ground beef old el paso style.

parents got this huge mixer and its too big for them and asked if i wanted it and said....ok.  Jen's really happy with how much space this takes up in our small apt.

the ramp to get onto the brooklyn bridge to brooklyn.  Ari Halberstam Memorial Ramp.  I guess when the streets and plazas are all taken you have to settle for a ramp.  Before you laugh, do you have a ramp dedicated to you?  Didn't think so.  Actually I heard a podcast saying how it's really easy 

and upstate souvenir, Southern Tier brewing company pale ale pack.