a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: November 2016

  • Dainty Wall Flowers

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    The winter flowering cherry is in bloom. It doesn’t put on a showy display of flowers. Its flowers open a few at a time, hanging like forgotten ornaments on barren branches. All winter long it will bloom, even in the snow. A few sad, dainty flowers waiting for suitors who never come.

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    The cauliflower is none of that. Wild and woolly, it flays its strong arms about in the winter gusts. Bold, brash, grumpy, if it had a voice, it would roar. When you hold a cauliflower in your hands, you’re holding the decapitated head of a proud, angry vegetable.

  • Ginger-Garlic Pockets

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    Take slices of firm tofu, A Man and His Hoe® tofu if you are lucky enough to get some, and using a sharp knife, carve out pockets on one side of each slice.

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    Make a filling. I used the carved out tofu, ground pork, grated ginger, crushed garlic, and salt. Be creative. Use your favorite spices.

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    Stuff the tofu pockets with the filling.

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    Fry the pockets in hot butter or oil for seven minutes until crispy brown, flip over and fry for another seven minutes until both sides of the pockets are nicely browned. You may need to cover the pan with a lid for part of the time to thoroughly cook the filling.

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    Serve immediately while piping hot.

    Warning: Only make this for yourself. If you make it for your spouse, friends, or children, they will demand you make it over and over again.

  • Like a Cloud

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    What does homemade tofu taste like? Hmm, that’s a good question. I was thinking how to answer that yesterday when I looked up and saw my answer floating by in the blue autumn sky. Fresh, homemade tofu tastes like a cloud.

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    The best time to eat it is when it is fresh out of the press, floating in cool water, warm and fluffy inside like white clouds floating through the blue sky.

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    On cold nights, there is nothing better than filling a pot with vegetables, chunks of fresh tofu, and pork, and letting it simmer on your wood stove for several hours.

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    Miasa 美朝 and her chicks love it cold. The whole family gathers around to make a communal meal out of blocks of fresh tofu. The mothers and chicks keep an eye out for me. When they see me heading out to the cottage to make tofu, they stay nearby, hoping to get a feast of fresh okara (the soybean mash leftover from making tofu) and tofu.

  • Less Is More Except When It Isn’t

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    We were shopping the other day and my husband purchased some packaged cookies. The picture above is what the cookies look like on the package. The picture below is what the cookies in the package look like in comparison to the cookies on the package.

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    Shoot me if I ever create deceptive packaging like that for my products. According to Field Day Organic “We take a less-is-more approach …” I think maybe they are taking this less-is-more approach too seriously. Another value they say they are committed to is “No confusion”. Confusion is exactly what we felt when we opened the package and looked at the cookies inside. Did the cookies shrink somewhere along the way? Maybe we didn’t store them correctly, though I don’t think they would have shrunken so much in just one day.

    The packaging does say in small print, “Enlarged to show detail,” but it would be helpful if they indicated the exact cookie size somewhere so you wouldn’t be confused when you opened the package. Looking at the package, I don’t know if it the picture is enlarged 10%, 50%, or 100%.

    Well, I’m relieved to know that like so many other companies, they “treasure customers”. I would hate to think how small the cookies would be if they didn’t treasure us.

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    Here again, there is the cookie as depicted on the box, and what the cookies inside the box actually look like. Less is less, don’t you think?

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  • When Your Heart is Heavy

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    On a day when it seems like hate triumphs over love, taking a long bicycle ride helps, especially when there are spectacular clouds rolling over the hills. In the end, love will prevail, it always does. Hate ends up snuffing itself out, while love keeps on growing, no matter how many times you cut it down.