cold floor guide 3

the temperature is dropping down again this week.  i`m starting to enjoy the cold!  i don`t know that this would have been possible without my fleece lined jogging pants and shearling slippers.  i did purchase a new rug this week; i lucked into finding a large vintage guatamalan co-operative woven wool rug at a vintage store/gallery space for 3500¥.  we gave it the `wool wash` cycle in our washer with special detergent and hung it out to dry.
if you are a lucky enough ducky to have snow, here is an article from apartment therapy on how to snow clean antique rugs.  (here)

what better place (than my multicolor cat rug) to enjoy some sweet and salty snacks?  sakura mochi on a pickled cherry leaf.  yum!

i was craving western, so i baked a batch of snicker doodles yesterday that were insane.  i`ll post the recipe soon i think,  they were so good my husband and i sat down and ate them all fresh out of the oven before dinner.  we didn`t intend to, but he would take one, then i would take one, and it kind of turned into a territorial cookie standoff.  then i cooked a huge batch of a chinese style fried noodle dish, with ginger, garlic, pork, shiitake mushrooms and mustard greens (komatsuna actually) in an `an` sauce (ie. like a starch thickened soup)  it turned out so darned good we ate all of that too. i had a tummy ache all night.  ginger and garlic are so good this time of year; the ginger warms up your body, and the garlic helps build up your immune system to fight infections.  of course shiitake, pork & komatsuna are full of vitamins.  i love japanese cuisine because so many of the ingredients are so nutrient rich or have health benefits.  an all time favorite of mine is gobo (burdock root) because it aids in digestion, and is thought to be a blood purifier. i like shaving it into thin slices with a vegetable peeler and adding it into a nabe (hotpot people).  (make sure you wash it well first, they are so muddy!  i use a crumpled piece of aluminum foil to scrub the dirt off).  think you can`t get those ingredients if you live outside japan? not so!  in canada we grew our own komatsuna in the garden (you can do it in a container if you rent) and burdock grows wild (don`t go there if you don`t know exactly what you`re doing wildcrafting,  i would dig up the burdock in my garden but i was too scared to eat it in case i`d made some terrible mistake, haw haw, no joke).