My sis and I had a rare and welcome Christmas alone, which meant parade and movies, lighting the Christmas tree and playing records – no family drama, how sweet is that? But we didn’t want to have just your ordinary, everyday Christmas dinner. We decided to do it the KFC way, the way so many people celebrate in Japan.

Well, we can’t get to a KFC and we don’t know all the recipes, so we just had to find a recipe for corn salad and sort of wing it then buy the chicken and cake at Hy-Vee – here’s how it’s supposed to look:

And here’s what our make-shift Christmas dinner looked like:

Pretty close, huh? Okay, not exactly – but it was fun and tasty!

I’ve never been a big fan of Ryan’s, partially because I just don’t like buffet style food, but this last year I’ve been there a few times and it’s always been really good. This time was no exception!

I nabbed two big platefuls ( Mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken, potato wedges, BBQ ribs, carrots, rolls and macaroni and cheese ) and a little ice cream. I would’ve had more but one of our party got sick (as usual) and decided to be a downer the rest of the time, including freaking out because we were still enjoying the buffet after she had already had her fill and gone to the car. Women!

Ryan’s gets 3 stars out of a possible 5, the food was good but not necessarily great and the atmosphere always leaves something to be desired. Plus our service woman was rude (not just to us, to everyone).

4302 North Belt Highway
St. Joseph, MO 64506
(816) 390-9855

I’m in the jolliest of jolly good moods and I have been since Thanksgiving day (happy holiday, belated, btw!). My mother and stepfather were being asses, my sister was upset, my fakie brother ran away at the beginning of the month and I had to get along with strange relatives I didn’t know – and yet I’m bliss. Let me explain…

You see, there’s nothing about Thanksgiving Day that I love more than the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I wait eagerly for it every year, and every year something stops me from seeing it – that something is usually my mother. But this year that something was going to be the lack of a television, a contraption I haven’t watched in six or seven months. This year I thought, for sure, that I was going to miss my beloved parade.

But, instead of letting it happen and ruining what would without the parade be an uncomfortable, painful holiday, I decided to take matters into my own hands and use the tools available to me. In everyday language that means I started to search the internet. For anything, for any footage of the parade that may stream live or be posted after the fact. I tried metacalf, I tried dailymotion and I tried youtube. Heck, I even tried myspace and the official NBC website – nothing! But, I did find out that Earthcam streams a strategically placed camera’s worth of the parade from stories above the ground right, and I thought, eureka! It’s not the same without the announcers, but still good!

Well, on the day Laota and I were getting ready to stream our parade when all of the sudden I hear her say, “Got it!” and I looked over at her and say, “Got what?” – what she ‘got’ was a stream from Boxtv that was the actual show with the actual announcers – we got it right at the beginning, I about flipped! So now I’ve seen my parade, the holiday season is now officially started for me. And you didn’t think I’d leave you out, did you? Of course not! Here are some crappy snaps of my favorite floats, including Super Cute (Hello Kitty) and Virginia!

I had such a good day and am in the best mood. I’ve gotten almost all of my work done, the doggy’s been out multiple times which means I got a nice walk away from my computer. I’m drinking iced tea right this minute. Life is sweet.

Granted, this is only a momentary lapse in horrible. It was brought on by my mother being out of my life for a day and taking her hubby with her, which means I’m free to clean, work and so forth without hearing my name hollered from downstairs eighty times a day, lol! She’s still angry with me because I didn’t make a big deal when she asked what we would be doing for Thanksgiving dinner. Honestly, I’m not a big Thanksgiving fan – for the most part I just love the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and try to watch every year, which she doesn’t like because it cuts into my cooking-for-mom time.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I do actually need to start preparing for that. I know I do, but I’ve been procrastinating! My big issue is that mom and hubby like things just so – fatty, salty and generally not very tasty. They put butter in rice…. in rice! And not just any rice, but my beautiful short grain sushi rice. I love that rice, my gorgeous Wolfgang Puck 5 cup does an amazing job on it, I think it’s my all time favorite piece of cookware and I don’t know what I’d do without it. So I spend a small fortune importing this rice, I wash it several times, soak it for 20 minutes then cook it until it’s just right and what do they do? Put butter on it! I swear they’d put gravy on it if I turned my back for two seconds, lol!

Speaking of rice, maybe a wild rice and mushroom stuffing would be a treat? I don’t know if they’d like it, though, but I think Imouto chan will be happy with it. Now, how can keep my mother from literally stuffing it into the turkey?

I can’t believe I’m going to be passing on Halloween. We’ll hand out candy, obviously, but we don’t have near enough time to even carve Pumpkin Chan. Thank you Mom, The Boy and Hubby for sucking up all of our time – appreciate it!

For your viewing pleasure HL isn’t gone – I bet you thought it would be, didn’t you? I did, but that’s because I’m broke and it’s renewal came up. How, pray tell, did I avoid losing it like I lost Shibuya? My best of all bestest buds Natalie renewed it for the year along with a few others I was about to lose, on account of she’s the greatest.

Thank you Natalie for being an awesome friend!

One thing I’ve really grown fond of is the Kitchen God and the rituals that surround him – very cool. I didn’t know any of it, what were they teaching me in school!? All we *ever* did in school to celebrate ‘Chinese New Year’ was basically learn to wish you a happy new year inaccurately in Mandrin, have fortune cookies and make paper lanterns with construction paper. School is useless sometimes, lol.

At least I’ll be making lots of gyoza – which is a first for me, since I just learned how to make them. I wish I had connection on my laptop so I could upload pictures of my adorable dumplings and star-shaped mini lemon meringue pies. *sigh* Love. Food has really become my passion. I hope to have pics soon!