One year anniversary♪

One year has elapsed since I arrived at San Diego with a lot of anxiety and a few of courage. Ah...time flies!!

Among friends, who moved to San Diego at the same timing and have attended in the same ESL class as mine, the topic often goes to English. We are always concerned about how little our speaking skill has been improved and how it's humiliating to say.
One thing I've noticed recently is that if one can speak his own language and has a fundamental knowledge and a bunch of opinions, this person tends to be a good English speaker depending on his attempt.
On the other hand, the person who does not have any opinion to convey or insist, as I am, often suffers from difficulty in improving English speaking skill and ends up not mastering it. It is the contents that counts, not the superficial techniques.

Anyway, I managed to survive my first year, and I thank all my friends for being with me and giving their hand whenever I needed. I also thank my partner here (even though he does not know of this blog...) for giving me this great opportunity to live in the U.S.
I hope my second year to be more fruitful days :)

Hodad's

After fishing, we headed for Hodad's, the hamburger shop I was recommended the other day.
The burger itself was substantial but really scrummy and fries were definitely my type. The decoration and the ambiance were a bit swinging but not uncomfortable!
It was added on my favorite list ;)

Fishing #3 --- again fishing but this time from a pier

I was a little nervous about going out on boat from the experience of previous lousy seasick, but this time, our challenge was fishing from the Ocean Beach pier and it was a breeze. I didn't need to worry about being under the weather. Three of my friends and I all were early birds when it came to fun events, and met up at the parking lot at 7 am. Since it was a weekday, most of the people seemed to be professional fishers who sell their catch to the market, and it was interesting that, to say the least, 90% of them looked Asian such as Malaysian and Vietnamese.
It is said that the best fishing time is around sunrise and sunset; the fish's meal time! And it doesn't last that long. However, the school of small fish were often confirmed even after 10 am from the pier.
Though big fish were not expected like the fishing from a boat, we were able to feel fish frequently rising to the bait and it perked us up more and more. The picture is all the small fish I caught and their size is about 6" at the longest. My catch came to 26 :)

Frankly, I am afraid of fish eye and cannot touch them with my bare hands. My partner had been in charge of cutting fish on every occasion until today.
Believing my friend's words saying "fish is just small objects and don't think it's creatures", I tried to cut all on my own using vinyl gloves. This picture shows some of my first-tried 3-piece fillet. Isn't it great for the first try?

I did not eat them raw and these fish were cooked as under.
1. marinated crispy fish with onion & carrot (南蛮漬け)
2. fried fish with Ponzu souce
3. deep-fried fish bone

Tiramisu

It is a spring break of my ESL school this week and I am a complete full-time homemaker. Since I was invited over lunch by one of my Japanese friend who offered to cook pasta from scratch, I decided to bring Tiramisu to make it in harmony.
Below is the recipe that I found from a local news paper in which the desserts from various Italian restaurants in San Diego were featured.
This Tiramisu is really dainty and easy to cook, from the renowned "Ristorante Arrivederci".
I cut back on sugar into half in order to meet to Japanese taste.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 table spoon vanilla
1.5 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup espresso coffee
1/4 cup marsala wine
24 ladyfingers
Cocoa powder for dusting
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Place a egg and sugar in top of a double boiler over simmering water and beat with an electric mixer for 5 minutes until thickened. Remove from heat and cool for several minutes. In a separate bowl, combine mascarpone cheese, vanilla and heavy cream. Beat until fluffy. Combine egg-sugar mixture with mascarpone mixture; whisk well to make a whipped cream consistency. In a bowl, combine espresso and marsala.
Spread some of the mascarpone mixture into a 7-by-9-inch baking dish to cover bottom. Dip 12 ladyfingers one at a time in coffee mixture and place side by side covering bottom of dish. Cover with more mascarpone. Dip remaining remaining ladyfingers in coffee and cover with remaining mascarpone. Level surface and sprinkle with cocoa. Cover; Chill overnight.