Pasta with Fresh Clams and Pesto

This past Sunday my dear friend from class went "clamming." She asked to borrow a bucket for her adventures. Little did I know she would return the bucket with some fresh clams. I have never cooked clams before but she told me how (via google) and the result was a wonderful dinner. I steamed the clams in a little bit of water and olive oil with garlic for about 10 minutes as the pasta cooked. Once the clams were finished I took them out and added them to the cooked pasta and put some zucchini in the leftover clam broth to cook. I added the cooked zucchini to the pasta with some pesto and there is our dinner! I forgot to take a picture but it was mighty tasty. Miyako even ate one little clam! I sometimes feel like I cook the same things so it was nice to do something a little different...add some spice to our lives.

I thought I would take this time to give a little Miyako update. She is getting so big and starting to talk a bit more...not much, but a little bit. She will open and close her bedroom door and say "hi" and "bye" to you. She knows all animal sounds and loves pointing to the "ruff ruff" (dogs) and "bu" (bus) as we take walks. There are plenty of ruff ruffs and bu to point at here in Tokyo. The other day she went up to her alphabet magnets on the fridge, pointed to the letter "Y" and said "Y." We made a huge step tonight and she actually sat and played in the bath tub. In Japan we have a separate shower area from the deep deep bath tub. Because Miyako has never really sat and played with her toys in the bath, I have been washing her in the shower area and just letting her stand. Tonight I tried putting her in the tub and after about 20 minutes of standing in it while I bathed her, she finally sat down and splashed a bit and played. It was very cute.

The rainy season is upon us here in Tokyo. It seems to rain one day for a long time and then the next day be stifling hot and humid. Can we say "frizz hair" is the new style I am trying to support? I think my hair will be pulled back every day from here until October. So not worth the effort to dry it only for it to frizz by 9AM. Well, a bit of a boring blog, but I was excited about my dinner so I thought I would share. Here is to my friend and her clamming adventures. It was nice to partake in the clams without having to get up at 6AM to actually retrieve them from the ocean!