u/simplytch

The princess has had a runny nose the past few days. I thought she could use a pick me up, so I put my insomnia towards some solid prep last night. My wife’s finally back home + I’m freshly stocked on groceries too- I had a blast stinking up the house at 2:30am!

Both nostrils are blocked (probably can’t taste a thing), and she’s purely mouthbreathing today. But her majesty sat for the entire meal, for once!

(Clockwise):

-fruit

-a premade Hello Kitty narutomaki ($3.99, just needs slicing)

-riceball with a matching Kitty bow + sesame steamed broccoli

-Enoki mushroom “latke” on a carrot/cuke quilt garnish

-grilled mackerel

-steamed eggs

-a chinese style dried pork microserving (about 1g). She calls it “hair”, we call it “her chewing tobacco” lol.

-a 50% dilution apple juice (not pictured)

(Swipe for the A- completion. Hello Kitty was not spared.)

Flew through dinner prep, and realized while plating- there isn’t a vegetable in sight! Let’s all blame my wife, who left town for a work emergency. No wife = no cache of veggies to steal from. The princess and I will have to gather some proper groceries tonight.

(Clockwise):

-supremed oranges + 1/2 a grape

-some healthy chip (from wife’s stash) + a very plain guac

-steamed eggs

-soba dunked in diluted soy

-garlic soy braised drumstick

(Bonus pic): the meniscus of my steamed eggs. Very smack-able.

Asked babygirl what she’d like for dinner, and she said “GRAPE”. So grapes it is. She’s also been insisting on pink popsicles, but might as well match the green dinner.

(Grapes are cut in half, when she can already handle whole ones- please dont remove, mods!)

(Clockwise):

-corn

-grapes and pear

-love riceballs

-beltfish

-a broken meat patty, dumpling innards kinda

My trusty custom Shibata Koutetsu 80mm petty knife

-homemade kiwi popsicles with suspended/trapped strawberry slices

Think my garnishing ways seem to offend a strange handful of yall. In order to appease the haters, perhaps I’ll take a page out of the lurkers’ playbooks by withholding any extra love/pretty flourishes from my princess. Strictly sustenance, people pleasing, doormat behavior, nothing that might potentially trigger a mother to question “is this dad trulyyyy a dad? Because meal prep is hard for me but UGH, guy has time to garnish.”

I’m kidding. I was truly behind on time here- no love was withheld, I just didn’t have the final minutes to be colorful.

(Clockwise):

Steamed sweet corn

Mysterious Mario mushroom soy eggs

Rinsed/sliced kimchi

Lollipopped drumstick (falling apart)

HeartLESS rice balls

Soba noodles dunked in a diluted soy

NO SILLY CARROTS OR CUKES THAT MAY ANGER MOMS

And..

Homemade strawberry popsicles

Small, but mighty. Recently, my smallest knife has been seeing the most action. I’m having a blast being in charge of princess’s meals.

Koutetsu 80mm petty, with my baby’s name lasered on the other face. Fun shapes keep her seated, and there’s nothing more nimble around a cocktail cucumber than something this surgical.

Looking to grab an usuba or kenmuki, soon, to add to my garnishing.

Her majesty’s fridge was lacking in real proteins (as shown in her near-vegetarian lunch). So dinner was at her favorite korean restaurant. We love this place, as it’s EASY, extremely homely, an overabundance of sides, and she’s adored by all the aunties. It works like a charm- sure enough she went to town on all sides, guzzled down both stews, and kept eating even after signaling that her belly hurt.

Every two weeks or so, we’ll actively seek out somewhere lowkey, with under 100 yelp reviews, in a sad mini mall + a parking lot to match. The whole thing’s orchestrated to let loose the royal demon, for her to explore new foods, and to allow for a mid-meal intermission/sprint. We’ll order for 3, overwhelm her with options, and take leftovers home for ourselves. Like throwing 50 darts at a wall and seeing what sticks, haha.

(Clockwise)

Lunch:

-corn

-soy eggs

-lightly pickled cukes

-shrooms (90% of her weight is comprised of mushroom..)

-ricecake ovalettes plucked from soup

-beet daisies on radish (radish was thrown on our puppies)

-> my custom Shibata Koutetsu 80mm petty knife, which I use for all of the meals/garnish work in this Princess series

Dinner:

-hungry princess, self-censored

-various dishes (rinsed in water, if necessary)

-chicken bulgogi

-rice cake soup (dduk gook, ceremonial new years soup)

-veggie wrap medley

-soybean stew (hidden)

Bit of a light lunch for her highness, as she feasted on trail mix all morning. Going clockwise:

-moody, brooding orange bear

-spicy korean radish strips, but very rinsed/cut

-daily olives

-plain, cut rolled omelette

-rice+roasted nori (slammed flat, as she insists)

-korean rice cake ovalettes picked out of soup (she likes 3/4th’s sizes but will reject full sized ones)

-spiky cukes

5k in 9mm with a small case of 20gauge.

S&B (personal fave range ammo) 9mm avg’d out to $0.266/rd OTD.

The old walmart cheapy (back in the day) Fed Champion came in slightly higher at $0.293/rd OTD. I still have receipts from when Fed Champs were $0.14/rd. Ugh..

This one was a bit of an experiment. Her majesty has moved on to the finer things in life (guacamole), and will no longer accept plain avocado. She’s not normally picky, so I intentionally made plain avocado as the star of her dinner. As her dada/private chef/royal serf- I enjoy exploring/challenging her dislikes, and I don’t think any differently when it comes to her palette.

She prefers to completely deconstruct her kimbab/maki before eating them, and today was no different. Honestly, I think she prefers these plain (simply nori + rice) and slammed flat, over rolled/tubular. Shapes matter.

Going clockwise:

-avocado rose

-braised lotus root (this one’s fun for halloween skulls, more to come)

-soy braised soybeans

-tomato

-avocado kimbab

-mackerel kimbab

My very first Ashi! I haven’t really seen any of these since Ashi announced the series in March (on social media). Just going with “Ginkou” for now, as it was spelled “Ginkko” on their IG, “Ginkou” on their shop page, and “Ginkko” on google translate.

I know that JKI included the Zelkova handles on their last Gesshin drop. But that’s all that I’ve seen, other than a Walnut one recently on the BST. I’m slightly colorblind, but I had my eyes set on the lighter shade of mono Ho (‘s in different area codes). And a favorite seller of mine just happened to have one!

To my knowledge, and with the help of some of you here, this series is really just their Gingas that come with their new “Precious Woods” handles. 6 colors/shades, in both stainless + carbon (not in stock), and limited to 210mm’s at the moment.

I’m waiting till the end of the week to put this through the ringer, after our usual weekend grocery haul. I just couldn’t believe how light it was (my current lightest gyuto is a Kashima 240), so all I’ve done is weigh it. It clocked in at a whopping 109.5g, which is lower than what I expected. Probably lighter than usual due to the handle. It seems pretty dead centered, maybe atomically blade-heavy.

Will report back on my first Ashi experience, vetted head to head against my small collection of lasers!

Kept things light yesterday, as babygirl had gone to Costco before dinner. And when babygirl visits Costco, she shakes down every sample lady (multiple times), which ruins her appetite for a real meal. I cheated by repurposing a Raising Cane’s finger as the protein.

Going clockwise:

-strawberry hearts

-cuke butterfly, rinsed kimchi, baby anchovies

-tomato, olives, rice love balls

-sliced Raising Cane’s chicken finger, with most of the crust peeled off. Sitting on a dollop of ketchup+Kewpie mayo, my home edition of Cane’s Sauce. Topped with matchstick “fries” for a tiny bit of crunch, and to scam/coax babygirl out of getting the actual Cane’s crinkle cut fries.

G48 fresh out of jail. Buddy kept it BNIB through both of our wives’ pregnancies, finally got around to PPT. Freshly renewed COE, and slowly getting back into the swing of things.

Back at it with dinner + breakfast. Dinner was scraped clean with refills (12x more soba), but the bastardess only picked out the fruits/crushed pistachios from breakfast.

When dad has all the time in the world to prep (carrot lunch) vs when dad’s in the weeds (minecraft watermelon dinner). She’s 20mo, so please don’t take this down over the raw butterflies.

I’ve found that I have a signature pattern of: overloading (double/tripling) the protein, keeping babygirl focused with an edible garnish (my cheap trick).

Introducing my Avo-Aspa Rose, and Mr. Orange Bear.