Of a weekend filled with collies and cooking..

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Mine was extremely busy. Venus was in her first dog show. She didn't get any points, but I wasn't realy expecting her to.  Some of the best collies in the country were present.  I was trying to expose her to the lights and the crowds and the thousands of dogs.  She carried herself quite well! 

I hope to handle her myself at her next show, which will likely be the Charlotte dog show in April.

Handling a dog in the ring is no easy task, believe me.  There's a lot more that goes into it than meets the eye.  A good handler can make or break a great dog.  For instance, I watched a gorgeous dog perform poorly on one day of the show with a particular handler.  The second day the handlers were switched and this dog won its class.

After the dog show Saturday, we chilled at the house and made sushi and drank Sapporo, which is "Asian Budwieser" as Dave says, but whatever, I love it!.  I haven't made sushi in quite a few years but have wanted to for awhile.  I have been accumulating dishes and bamboo mats which were crying to be used!   I tried (unsuccessfully) to use the (non electronic) rice cooker you can see in the photo which was a Christmas gift.. I tried to make sushi rice in it and had to throw it out and start over.  The rice was gummy on the outside and crunchy in the center....  Neither the directions on the bag of rice or those that came with the rice cooker were correct to use with it. It was wholly frustrating.  I don't think my stock pot is large enough for it to work properly.  We had to improvise a bit to get perfect sticky rice and make it on the stove...

Items on the menu included spicy tuna, spicy salmon, california roll, some nigiri, and I attempted to make a caterpillar roll (with imitation crab since I couldn't find eel) that ended up being too big and ended up breaking.  The eel sauce recipe was a bit too sweet also.  I'm hoping that the next time I make this roll it will be banging!  We ended up eating the last bit of fish as sashimi since we ran out of rice.  I wanted to tempura fry some of the rolls but ended up being too worn out.  Next time I will also make the sauces and cut the veggies a day ahead since that takes the most time.  I actually over-bought fish and ended up feeding a bit of the fish to the dogs, who loved it.

I didn't post any listings today.  I think I have bronchitis and just didn't feel up to it.  Tomorrow, for sure!

xox