Showing posts with label Café. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Café. Show all posts

The 'Lab' in the Garden Café


The "Mom" of my air layered quince
Cherry blossom - lab's success story













Maintaining lovingly the café always comes with few heartbreaks. I have experienced loss of some of my beloved plants thru various reasons, ranging from climate extremes, neglect, lack of info on how to provide proper care. A few years ago, I was delighted to be able to propagate my quince thru air layering. among the three air layered, it looks like only one might survives  

(;´゚Д゚)ゞ

Looking at my old photos I realized that I have probably performed plenty of experiments in the café/garden. Some were successful - survived, some perished eventually.  I have read from gardeners' forums that all seasoned gardeners have experienced death of established plants under their care. I mourn the loss of my plant babies and eventually move on, hoping to learn from my journey and pray for more luck.

One of my early experiments, that perished...

With all the losses and few victories in my gardening journey, I came to realize that the café conceals a laboratory, where my experimentations are being done to ensure my plants' survival. The lab is not an intimidating place, it's a space where my hope for my plants' healing manifests. Two of the success stories from the lab that I can share - the cherry plant that I bought online, with the lab's help, it survived the transport shock. The lavender (the last photo) that was left out during autumn and winter, it survived freezing temperatures and heavy rain. 
The main goal of the "lab" for now is to hardened my Japanese Maple seedlings before placing them in their own pot, to avoid sharing the same fate of this unfortunate fella (photo above),  while this gentleman in the photo below ensures the safety of my plant babies from pesky squirrels.  

My "lab" in the café

The future goal, I would love to have my dear Princess get involved in the lab/ garden / café, I wish that all of her beautiful memories from the café would inspire her to be a creative and smart lady.

The survivor






The Garden Café


My garden babies

The patio has evolved into a garden café...it is an ongoing project especially during spring and summer. 
The café is where I put all of my love, energy and where love is celebrated. It has been my escape and source of comfort during challenging times. It's space for my Concha to relax while watching the kids from our neighborhood play in the yard, tea and bbq parties are being held during sunny days.

To evoke happiness and inspiration, I displayed some of my favourite things in the café, It will go through regular changes, but hopefully the welcoming feeling in the café stays the same.

The Princess in the cafe

Maybe who knows, someday you would find yourself enjoying a cup of tea or coffee in my café, while being harassed by my gardening partner. Don't let his size intimidate you, he can only sniff you to death...

Gardening Partner
The gardening partner







Reissue

Visiting this cafe was the main highlight of the day; I pictured myself clearly - me in a charming coffee house, admiring my coffee that was designed by a master latte artist!
There's plenty of coffee places around Metro Vancouver that does latte art, but I haven't encountered who does beautiful frothy sculptures, being in Tokyo where's there a handful of cafe that specialized in latte art, it should be an experienced that I shouldn't miss!

Cafe-Reissue-Sign
You have arrived!
Reissue Cafe is known for its beautiful masterpieces on their coffee, bring a picture or any image in your mind and few extra hundred ¥; the artist will painstakingly turn your cup of joe into a work of art.  Reissue is located on top of another establishment along the quieter street in Harajuku; once inside I was greeted with a very laidback vibe, I would have probably mistaken it as someone's else house if there's no extra tables around. We were still full from our hearty brunch earlier so we decided to pass from their food in their menu, we are looking forward to the latte art.

My dear husband 🐻ordered to have our baby Concha's photo that we got from his breeder, mine the 3D design - the pink Sugar cubs' character - 'Latte'.



3-week-old-Concha
Concha at 3 weeks
Photo credit to Cowboy Up Kennel

Latte-art-Reissue-cafe
Concha on coffee ;)
Unfortunately our orders didn't arrived together, I was hoping that I could get a photo of both orders while the chocolate ink on the froth was still sharp, so pardon my photo of Concha on coffee, the chocolate has (verrry) slightly dispersed. As soon I received the 3D art, I snapped the photo of them side by side right away!


3D-and-2D-Latte-art
Sugar cubs' Latte and my forever pup Concha


2D-and-3D-Latte-Art-Reissue-Cafe
Latte and Concha
Both were beautifully rendered, both tasted great! If I was not pregnant at that time, I would be ordering my second cup of coffee to request for another latte art and for more photos too, I guess sometimes, I can't have too much of the good thing...
They say that having a cup of coffee in a quiet day is one of greatest pleasure in life; having coffee rendered by an artist take this statement to the next level!

My First Food Photo Here!

cheesecake Trees organic vancouver
I have lots of food photos, I have this hobby of taking photos of most food that I ate when we dine outside and not mainly for the purpose of reviewing, but compared to a real food blogger, my food pix collection is minuscule, then I remember---before Instagram i have been taking photos some of my dine out experiences in the past! Unfortunately, I lost (eventually deleted) some of them. Nowadays my Instagram account (604Emijoy778) is pretty much 80% food photos, and there's more unposted!
I love good food!

Here's the pic of one of my favorites: cheesecake 😮😮😮

 My "Cheesecake Paradise" in Vancouver---Trees Organic Coffee & Roasting House.