Japanese-y Creations and the Sources of my Inspiration

Let me just say that I feel as though I've completed an important rite of passage. I have stepped over the threshold into a new realm of personal identity. At last, I can call myself a true cook. I have made ice cream. From scratch. Without a machine. And it was delicious.

This is kurogoma (black sesame seed) ice cream. Since the first time I sampled this unique flavor a little less than a year ago, I've been enamored with the distinctive creamy-nutty quality that makes it, quite possibly, my favorite flavor of ice cream (Maybe even better than mint-choco-chip. Just maybe.). And, if the taste weren't already enough cause to hanker for a bowl of icy goma goodness, top it off with the exciting bonus of getting to eat something that looks like it should have just come out of a cement mixer. See the full recipe here.

Tonight, however, my creative juices flowed not through culinary canals, but rather into a reservoir of of a more crafty nature. A few days ago, after thoroughly admiring some innovative scrapbooking techniques by giddy giddy, I was all pumped up to make a shadowbox/scrapbook/diorama/collage of my own. Well, shadowboxes are lots of fun, but tonight I only had the energy to make one, rather than a full-on collage of shadowboxes. My own creation ended up looking very Japanese: it kind of reminds me of a butsudan, a Buddhist family alter found in Japanese homes. My version, of course, is not explicitly religious; rather, it commemorates a small paper crane that was anonymously left in my bicycle basket and which I discovered, with much delight, as I was leaving school one afternoon. Anonymous gifts from students are the best. Even if it's just origami.