Tempura:

Mina is a pretty amazing cook. She usually writes about the recipes she really likes on her own blog, but the other night she made tempura and it was so good I decided to put a picture and description here.

The selection included mushrooms, pumpkin (actually, buttercup squash, but it is the closest thing we can find to Japanese kabocha pumpkins at a reasonable price), kaki-age (a mish-mash of sliced onion and carrot), and shiso leaves. Along side she had some marinated and fried beef strips. Bowls of white rice and tempura dipping sauce completed the meal. We had ice cold beers with this dinner, but I really wanted a nice, cold sake. One of these days I will do something about that jones.

In any event, this was the first time Mina had ever made tempura for me. Hopefully it won't be the last!