I Pickled! Daikon Radish Threads and Easy Red Chilies

I feel like I'm one step closer to grandmother-hood. No, there is no man involved, or God forbid, children, but there is canning. I made my first canned things and if they don't get all mouldy in the next few weeks I'll feel an even great sense of accomplishment. So after an entire summer of twiddling my thumbs preserve-wise, I jumped on the canning bandwagon with two simple recipes:

Pickled Red Chilies and Pickled Radish Threads

Why not start with jam, you ask? That seems like where everyone starts. You get lulled into stuffing excess seasonal fruit into jars. Maybe tomatoes or peppers, but radishes? Who has an excess of radish? Apparently, I do.

Actually, what really happened is that I bought a really nice organic radish from the farmers' market and had some on a salad, only to remember that I hate daikon radish. I mean, a tiny bit is okay, but there was no way I wanted to force that whole radish into my body. So it was throw it out or find something fun to do with it. I also had a quarter pound of cayenne chilies sitting in my fridge from when I bought a huge bag of them a few weeks ago to make an amazing Vietnamese cooked hot sauce from VietWorldKitchen. The appeal of this recipe for pickled red chilies (not from the same website) was that I didn't have to remove the seeds from the chilies and I didn't need to chop them very much. They're pretty fuss-free as far as chilies go. They're also about 5 pages apart in one of my favourite books, "Beyond the Great Wall", a cookbook/travel book about the food and cultures of the ethnic minorities of China. It's a very interesting hybrid of recipes you may think of more as Korean, Thai, Afghani, etc. because of the outside influences and the vast terrain that is China.

Anyway, to pickle these things I combined all my just-learned canning knowledge. I had to adjust the process a little to be extra safe. Here was the method.

I brought a huge pot of water on the stove in my stock pot and put 3 empty (cleaned in hot, soapy water) jars and rings inside to make sure the water came a good 2 inches above the tops of the jars. You could double or triple these recipes to make lots, but I was just experimenting, and the recipes only made about 3 jars-worth of pickles. I brought the pot to a boil and boiled for 5 minutes. The bringing it to a boil stage took so long since there was so much water that I had time to prepare the rest of the recipe. I'd bought new lids for my recycled jars (skipping using the jar that had contained moose meat...) and washed those in hot soapy water too, being careful that my hands were very clean. I lay them on clean towels and didn't touch them again with my hands. I had another clean towel ready for my jars too.

Okay, then the recipes.

Red Chilies:
1/4 pound of long red ones, washed, stems removed, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (measure out 1 packed cup)
1 cup rice vinegar
1 tbsp kosher salt (I had coarse sea salt. Apparently recipes call for kosher salt because it doesn't have the iodine or anti-caking additives of table salt that make the pickle brine go cloudy and the pickled things dark, but any salt is fine. It'll just look weird. My coarse sea salt may be fine since I doubt is has these additives)
1/4 tsp sichuan peppercorns
1 start anise, whole or in pieces

So you've got the chilies chopped and measured. Now bring the vinegar to a boil. While it's coming to a boil add the salt and stir to dissolve. Then add the peppercorn and star anise. Bring it to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer 30 seconds. It'd not like it'll go from a boil to just a simmer in 30 seconds, but just don't let it boil out of control. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm. You only want to add hot brine to your pickles so it can't get too chilly. Done.

Pickled Radish Threads
1/2 pound daikon radish, peeled and coarsely grated (or very thinly sliced, but it won't be "threads" this way)
1 scallion, minced (I figured they meant green onion here, but I didn't have any, so I skipped it and upped the onion below)
1/4 of a small onion (I used a small red onion that kind of had green onion ends. The ends weren't fresh anymore but I figured the red onion was enough like a shallot to substitute for both the onion and scallion in the recipe, so I used a bit extra)
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tbsp kosher salt (here's that salt again. See above for what I did)
1/2 tsp dry-roasted sichuan peppercorns, ground (OOH I love these things. To roast, put them in a frying pan over medium heat for about 4 minutes, or until they're fragrant. Then grind them in a mortar and pestle, coffee grinder, or in a closed bag with something heavy like a pot. You can also skip them)
1 1/2 cups rice vinegar

I have this cool slicer thing that looks like a relic of the industrial revolution. It has fun attachments for grating things to different sizes. I used the small grater and made angel hair pasta sized radish threads. I then chopped the red onion but realized I should have just sliced those up too using the same size attachment on my contraption. Could have done the same with the ginger, but minced is nicer since it spreads better in the pickle.

Anyway, combine the radish, onion (scallion), and ginger in a large bowl and stir to combine. Roast the peppercorns and have the vinegar handy, at least at room temperature, but it would be better to put it on low to medium heat in a small saucepan. Canning safety and all.

Now just wait for your jars to be boiled for the five minutes. Rolling boil. None of this wimpy steaming simmer business. So I don't have a jar lifter. I have tongs and a slotted spoon. I figured women have been canning without jar lifters for ages, so so could I. They probably didn't have tongs either, but the point is they adapted and worked with what they had. I took the pot off the heat and carefully got my tongs under the lip of the first jar and my slotted spoon under the bottom of the jar. I got it out of the water and carefully poured out the water from inside the jar. With a little re-adjusting of the jar I then got it onto a clean cloth next to the pot. 1 down, 2 to go.

When all three were out I pout the lids of the three jars in the hot water to have a tea party with the rings that I just left in there. Out came my chopsticks (of my drawer, not the water. I cleaned them in more hot soapy water - really my hands are like prunes now - and got to work on my chilies). I stuff as many chilies as I could into a jar, filling it up to the first lip and stuffing them down to make room for some more. I poured the heated vinegar/salt/star anise over it to just a little below the edge. There was a little leftover of both the chilies and brine so I put that in another can. Then back to my tongs and slotted spoon since enough time had elapsed to soften the wax on the lids in the hot water. I got two lids out, one by one, and put them on top of my jars of chilies. The second jar wasn't full, so I wasn't really going to let it ferment like it should, but I figured I'd do all the rest of the process for practice. Then I got two lids out and tightened hand-tight. Phew!

Now the radishes. I took half the vegetable mixture and stuffed it into a mason jar (bigger than a normal jam jar but with the same size lid) since I only wanted to make one jar. Then I added 1/2 tbsp of kosher salt and all of the roasted and ground peppercorn. Then I added the rest of the radish mixture and then the rest of the salt. Finally I poured on the vinegar to just below the top. The jar was stuffed pretty full, as it should be. Back to my tongs and slotted spoon. Out came a lid, carefully placed on top and then a ring to tighten. Now you shake the mixture to distribute the salt and vinegar. Oh I also "bubbled" it after adding the vinegar. That means pressing down with chopsticks or a spatula to get air bubbles out and condense the jar contents. My only concern was that the radishes were threads so they'd spilled a bit over the rim and were tough to get into the jar, and I probably should have wiped down the rim with a clean cloth, but I used my chopsticks well to move things into the jar and I hadn't touched anything with my fingers except the body of the jar and the tightening ring. I never touched the lid. Done! Well, almost.

The recipes say now to leave the jars in sunny places, but after my canning workshop I wanted to be extra careful, so I put my jars (only the 2 full ones since the other was going to be opened right away anyway) back into my almost boiling water using my tong/spoon method, and brought the water back to a boil. When it got back to a boil (just a few minutes since it retained so much heat from before) I set a timer for 20 minutes. Ding! Tong/spoon and the jars were safely out onto a cloth to cool. Now it went to a sunny spot by the window for 2-4 days. Well, it went there for a few hours and then I figured it wasn't warm enough and so I put it in the oven with the light on. During these 2-4 days you're supposed to occasionally shake the jar. That's all there is to it. Keeps indefinitely if refrigerated and well sealed. What a miracle.

The chilies also got some window time before going in the oven with the light on. They get two days of light and then get refrigerated for 2 weeks. That mellows the flavour, takes away the heat and increases the sweetness. Mmm...My extra half jar got opened right away (it popped! but that doesn't mean it was properly sealed. With all that air in there it couldn't have been good, so it's good to know that a jar can pop and still not be okay).

A few notes: if you use a different kind of chili you can strip out the seeds to decrease the heat and emphasize the flavour.

I had extra vinegar brine for the chilies and that's apparently normal (says the recipe). Just use a funnel or a yogurt container with the bottom cut off to pour the brine into the jar. Pouring from a saucepan is not a great idea. I now have vinegar-ed kitchen cloths.

Maybe eating a quick-pickled cayenne is not a great idea, even if it is delicious. I took my half jar and had it with some potatoes and mmm...it was good, but wow did my stomach and mouth burn after that one. A little goes a long way. Stop before the burn kicks in because by then it's too late.

How Do You Mess Up A Lemon-Butter Sauce?

There are really only two primary ingredients in a lemon-butter sauce. You'd think I could do it properly...

Mais non, with me, the easy things become hard and the "any idiot can do it" things become disasters.
I bought fish at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto at 4pm. That means everything goes on special. I bargained and asked if the fish guy would give me an extra discount on the black cod if I bought some smoked salmon. Sure, $3 off per pound. What that meant was I could afford the black cod. I bought one fillet. Just one. Enough fish for 2 people. It only cost about $8. This is still ridiculous but if you've had black cod you will understand. Really you don't need a sauce for this fish. The flesh itself already tastes like butter. Just add a little salt and pepper and grill, bake, roast or broil this fish to perfection. The only thing you can even do wrong is over-cook it. It should fall apart at the touch of your fork. To me, this is heaven.

So by adding a lemon butter sauce I was probably asking for trouble. Why mess with a good thing, right? I figured adding a tiny bit of butter would enhance the natural buttery-ness, and as long as I didn't add too much lemon, it would contrast the sweetness. I searched long and hard for a good lemon-butter sauce recipe, which is stupid because it's so simple, but I had vermouth, see, and I wanted a sauce that would use that as well. I also didn't want to add any cream because a little butter is all my poor lactose-intolerant belly can handle. Oh, and I had no chicken stock, the recipe had to be just lemon, butter, oil, salt, pepper, vermouth and capers (I bought some capers because those go with fish and lemon sauces, right?

I can't even find the recipe I used but it had way too much lemon juice (1/2 a lemon's worth I think), too many capers (my fault, I think. It only called for 1/2 a teaspoon or something way too small, so I doubled it and probably didn't drain them very well. So it was pretty brine-y), and just a dab of butter at the end. I should have dabbed more, probably. I deglazed with a splash of vermouth, as called for, but it evaporated in about 1 second even though my temperature was at the right level. So I added another splash to create some actual liquid. Probably there should have been more to balance the lemon juice.

Worst thing was I still managed to under-cook the fish, only slightly better than over-cooking it. I wasn't too worried about under-cooking it because of all the lemon and the anti-microbial properties thereof.

Still, it wasn't great. It was way too lemony to taste the exquisite black cod. Less is more, Amie. Skip the sauce entirely next time and let the fish flavour shine.

Or follow a proper recipe, one that's published...in a book...or on a blog or website I trust. No more taking chances with black cod. It is far too delicious. At least the anise flavour from the top of the fennel was subtle enough.

I roasted some fennel and tomatillos. The fennel was perfect. The tomatillos made me cry a little, they were so bitter. I missed my Quebec tomatillos. No wonder no one buys them...they're often so disgusting...but my perfect ones from the market in Montreal...heaven.

Hits and misses, this meal. Maybe I'll get it right next time.

Sticking Things In Cans (Well, jars, really...but it wasn't such a "jarring" experience)

Today I learned to can. I'm a very strange girl in her 20's who obsesses about things such as canning. I've been trying to find someone to show me the wonders of this jar-art all summer. Well, I understand already how wonderful it is, so maybe more the intricacies of canning was what I needed to learn.

And finally, an opportunity! The Concordia Sustainable Food Festival and a one-hour "learn to can" workshop. There was a hand-out. I sat in the front and was the overly eager student who asks a ton of questions, not even noticing the people around me and whether or not they were becoming pissed off. Fortunately there was a lot of time to ask questions, and nobody got to the point where they started yelling at me to shut up and watch. So that was good.

The jars were pre-sterilized before coming to the site (20 minutes at a specific temperature. Look it up! Or clean them in the dishwasher, or my aunt's method of 20 minutes in the oven at 220 Fahrenheit), which is not ideal, but they got warmed in boiling water so they wouldn't burst when put back in boiling water once stuffed with vegetables. The vegetables were all pre-sliced (raw) - carrots, cauliflower, green beans, zucchini, onions, garlic - and some standard spices (coriander, black pepper, and fresh thyme.

Important stuff:

When you warm the jars, don't wait for the water to boil and then put them in. That defeats the whole point. You don't want to shock the glass by putting them directly into the boiling water. Better yet, just leave them in the water after sterilizing them, until you're ready to fill them.

When you stuff vegetables you want to avoid touching the lip of the jar. That was important. That can cause contamination. That's why you want to sterilize immediately before stuffing, if possible.

Always follow a recipe! An online recipe is fine, but don't just wing it unless you're a Grandmother who's been doing this all her life, and even then you'd have to be a Grandmother who was okay with potentially dying from botulism. I mean, you really only ever want to be so old anyway, right?

Use an old yogurt container as a funnel to pour the brine of vinegar, water and salt into the jars stuffed with vegetables into the bottom of the jar lip. Stuffed - as in really full. All-you-can-eat sushi kind of full.

Once the brine is in the jar use a spatula or chopsticks or something pointy and thin to push any air bubbles out from under the vegetables. You want them as packed in as possible. The brine should come up a few centimetres above the vegetables, so it shouldn't overflow the jar, but make it pretty full.

Use tongs (or chopsticks) to take the heated and sterilized sealing lid (the tops that pop on jars of homemade things when you first open them...in theory). Don't pick it up with your hands or all your careful sterilizing will be for naught.

Then you can use your hand to pick up the sealing ring (the thing that twists) and place it over the lid, and tighten it. Not too tight, but just closed solidly without too much extra tightening.

You've got to do all this before the jars cool off or they may explode in the boiling water. You can also put them into not quite boiling water and then start timing the 20 minutes to seal them once the water returns to a boil.

Boil 20 minutes on a high rolling boil. DO NOT lower the heat. It's like lobster - just let it boil.

Wait 3 or 4 weeks (or less depending on the vinegar, or the pickling method, apparently, since pressure cookers are different and different methods that don't use vinegar may give different times, or if the vegetables, sauces or fruit are already cooked they may not need much time.

To put the jars into the boiling water and take them out you're going to want to invest in just one item: a jar lifter. Not too expensive and well worth it.

Just make sure the jars are covered by at least two inches of water when you sterilize and when you boil them after stuffing. Very important.

Some places say turn them over when you remove them from the boil at the end to seal, but some don't, so just follow a recipe you trust. The workshop people recommended a blog called "Food In Jars" for lots of tips and recipes.


Why I love canning:
You can buy in bulk and eat local all winter if you can stand a ton of sugar or vinegar or lactic acid or oil.

You don't actually have to cook the vegetables! It's not "raw" food since some things get boiled (the vinegar and all and the vegetables sort of get cooked, but I'm sure it's better than boiling the heck out of the zucchini in the first place.

It's so versatile! Everything from sweet sauces to infused liqueurs, to jams, jellies, pickles, fruits, herbs, etc. Brilliant.

There are no preservatives!!!!!!!!!!!

It's so affordable and you can recycle jars (the jar itself and the tightening ring, but not the lids). So all those jars of preserves you didn't want? Well, if you didn't re-gift them on someone else you can suffer your way through them and then sterilize them and make something even more delicious. At then you''ll understand all the work that went into making them in the first place.

Next stop, chili peppers.

Happy canning...er, jarring...er, happy disturbing canning?

A Newfoundlanders' Shot of Chartreuse Verte

I did not make this. In fact, this is probably a heavily-guarded secret recipe.

Chartreuse Verte is delicious (whatever it's made of) if you like strong liquor. It’s mildly sweet, a little herbal, and very alcoholic. It’s also translucent green. To me, these are all very good reasons to drink this beverage. I first had it in a very good cocktail at L’Assommoir. Skip the salmon tartar and go for the cerf tartar, but either way, try a few drinks from their pages and pages of options. This is a place where mixology is an art. You want to see the show. They don’t really do drink discount specials, but when you have a bit of extra cash for a fun night or early evening, it’s a good place to come.

Anyway, I don’t often have a ton of extra money for splurges, so months and months after first trying a drink with Chartreuse Verte, I finally looked for it in a liquor store (SAQ). Actually it was Game 3 of the last Montreal playoffs series that I first tried it at L’Assommoir, a good restaurant/bar in the Old Port. It was August before I got to a liquor store. So you can figure out the time-line on that one. I was just curious what this stuff looked like…and how much it cost, of course.

Apparently there’s another kind of chartreuse (a different colour, presumably) that’s even better but the SAQ doesn't carry it. So I hummed and I hawed over the price of the green stuff, which really wasn’t that horrible since you certainly don’t drink a lot of this stuff at once, and decided it was time to splurge.

You want to serve it on ice, so you need a glass big enough for a shot of it plus some ice cubes. That's where my former roommate’s Newfoundland shot glass came in. It’s the size of four shots, so just the right size. It even marks off 1 oz if you’re a mainlander, 3 oz if you’re a townie, and 4 oz if you’re a bayman. Now I’m not from ‘round the bay. I’m definitely a townie since I’m from St. John’s, but I wasn’t about to have 3 oz of this stuff, so I downgraded myself to a mainlander, and a weak mainlander at that, as shown by the picture.

It was just enough. The first sip is very strong, but once the ice starts melting just a little, before it’s too diluted, the mix is perfect.

So get yourself a good shot glass, or a small, heavy tumbler and have just a taste of something delicious. Note: that does not necessarily mean Chartreuse Verte (they’re not paying me) and that does not necessarily mean something alcoholic. How about some fresh blueberry juice from some strained, crushed jam berries?

Wild Blueberry Sauce, Or Jam, Or Pie Filling

I bought “jam” blueberries from Jean-Talon market. They were the cheapest wild blueberries I’ve seen in the city - $7 for about as many cups. None of this crazy $35 a basket business. I come from Newfoundland where you go out and pick your own gosh-darn blueberries. You maybe buy blueberries from the man who comes door to door selling them. Or maybe you buy the local ones at the grocery store to top up your own jam or frozen berry supply, but you don't go spending a fortunate on them.

So these were the only blueberries I bought this year. I will not bankrupt myself for the sake of over-priced fruit.

I’ve also grown up on blueberry pie. It’s nothing special. Homemade crust-making is in my blood. So that’s the last thing I wanted to do with my blueberries. Oh, “jam” berries just meant the berries were a little over-ripe, or should be used right away, so they were cheaper. They were just fine, though. Not even squished. So I washed them, froze about half, stuck some of the firm, less-ripe ones in my fridge to eat fresh on salads or yogurt or cereal, and put the rest in a saucepan on the stove with about 2 tablespoons of sugar, a few tablespoons of water, and a cinnamon stick.

I brought the pot to a simmer over medium heat, and then reduced the heat to medium-low for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure they didn’t burn. Next time I think I’d do this in the slow-cooker with way more berries so I could cook them longer at a lower temperature and get more of the cinnamon flavour into the berries.

After the 25 minutes I added a few tablespoons of lemon juice (succo di limone – bottled, not fresh, but still good. I’d been disappointed in my organic lemons lately. They seemed too sweet. I’d had to use way too much fresh lemon juice to make things lemon-y). Just add it to taste. I like it a bit more sour because it brings out the flavour of the berries. Wild berries are usually naturally more sour, but these were both sweet and flavourful – a rarity.

This “sauce” is perfect on its own – eat with a spoon…or you can serve it over ice cream, yogurt or on sponge cake, angel food cake, any white cake, or cheesecake. I also think it’d be great on a rich fillet (lamb, beef, venison, bison, or even pork). It’d even be okay with chicken and very good with fish – trout, char, salmon or even white fish such as swordfish or halibut. Ooh! Scallops! But don't expect to taste much of the fish if you're heavy-handed with the sauce.

Pancakes or crepes! Crème caramel…panna cotta, chocolate cake…zabaglione. Toast, bagels, croissants, French toast. It basically is jam, after all, just without the fridge life. There’s a world of possibilities.

So go to Jean-Talon, and find the vendor on the south side of the fresh market stalls selling jamming blueberries (the small berries in the plastic containers), I think across from Au Pain Doré or Frites Alors. Take them carefully home without getting them more squished. They’re good for making jam because you would squish them anyway as the first step in the jam process, but they’re just fine for pies, or anything cooked, and I like them fresh too. The saucepan mixture also makes a great pie filling, so you can put it into a pre-baked pie shell, or add a little flour or cornstarch and let the filling cook in the oven in an un-baked pie shell instead of on the stove. I suppose most people love blueberry pie. I'll just have the filling, thanks.

The Other Way I Hurt My Back: Japanese Food!

After the Matsuri Japanese Festival in the Old Port of Montreal where I played big drums and made takoyaki squid balls with other like-minded people, all the volunteers were invited to the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre for an appreciation BBQ. There were hotdogs, yes, but there were lots of leftovers from the festival – mix for takoyaki, okonomiyaki and the accessories for Japanese hotdogs.

Someone asked me on a post I wrote where they could find good okonomiyaki. In Montreal, it’s hard, but L’Entoilage was determined to be the best bet, and it’s good quality.  Haven’t been there yet, but their food philosophy is very respectable. A small menu of home-made Japanese food – not just sushi – at an appropriate price. This is not a fastfood joint. I’m convinced it’s better quality than what we made at the Japanese Cultural Centre, but that had to be made en masse for the festival. The pickled ginger probably had some MSG in it, and the sauce that goes on top of the pancake was bottled and probably had some intense forms of sugar. These are things I cross my fingers that L’Entoilage wouldn’t use.

Still, it was fun to learn to make these Japanese street foods. Okonomiyaki is made with a pancake-like batter with tons of cabbage and some other bland but crunchy vegetables. Then you can add thinly sliced meat, a lot of traditional Japanese kewpie mayonnaise sauce and sticky sweet teriyaki-style sauce. The tricky part is flipping the messy thing over on the grill.

The takoyaki are a little more nit-picky. These are squid balls. You pour a pancake-like batter over an oiled, special 12-hole (half-spheres) grill pictured above. Then you stick a diced piece of squid in each, and then scatter some pickled ginger, green onions and tempura bits over the whole grill, not just the holes. Then pour over enough batter to cover the entire grill surface without spilling the batter on the counter.

Then the hard part. Take two chopsticks and drag the batter into each of the holes. It looks like a giant, soupy mess, but slowly, as the batter solidifies it’ll shape itself into the holes. Just keep scraping. Of course this is all done by peering over the oiled grill in poor light. It takes a good few minutes of careful scraping, piling and smoothing to get these into rough balls. Then you use the chopsticks to turn the balls around to squish all the dangling ends of the batter underneath the weight of the ball and to brown the other side. Then you just keep turning until you can pick the balls up with the chopsticks, they're not too mushy, and they're not burned. 

That's the tricky part. If you didn't work fast enough in the scraping step then the bottom of the balls may have burned a little. Then when you turn it it may not cook evenly on the opposite side because some of that batter cooked before you scraped it off the grill. It certainly won't brown evenly, anyway. Sometimes it takes an age for the ball to cook through, and if you scraped slowly, you're just extending the amount of time it's going to take to cook. The trick is to get the (probably) frozen squid piece to cook through. It should have thawed before you put it in there, but if it's still slightly frozen you're pretty screwed, since water will seep out of it and make the takoyaki cook much more slowly...and squishily. That's a word.

So I was straining my neck over the grill for a few hours...long enough to know I never want to work a grill. Or at least to know that it's a luxury to have big fat cooking utensils. None of this small chopstick business. Big chopsticks only...and good lighting...and counters at the proper height...and thawed squid...These are things that are are essential in life. I think that makes it an educational day.

Yellow Watermelon Bliss Massage

Don’t:

1.     Cart a watermelon home in a bag over your shoulder

2.     Cart a cantaloupe home in another bag over your other shoulder

3.     Cart lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers home in another bag in a sack over both shoulders...

…And think that your back is going to be okay. It won’t be okay.

In effect, this was the most expensive watermelon I ever caved and bought. the watermelon itself cost $5, a relative steal for organic fruit, but my back was shot for a week. I think I burst some blood vessels judging by the red splotches on my shoulders, and the cantaloupe wasn’t even very good. 

But the watermelon was incredible. There were even black seeds like all watermelon used to have! It as basically an heirloom watermelon. That’s what I dreamed about (the sweet flavour, not the seeds) while I was getting my first massage in a year.

Bliss Studio is a massage and yoga studio on St-Laurent south of Mont-Royal. I’ve had maybe four massages there. Really, the best thing about it the studio offers standard therapeutic massages, but they also offer shiatsu, reflexology, reiki, Thai yoga massage, hot stone massage, four-hand therapeutic massage, etc. They have a legion of practitioners that come in on different days and even if you call last minute you usually have a choice of massage type or massage therapist. I’ve had some hits and some misses here, but this time I knew I just wanted someone to beat the heck out of my back. So shiatsu it was.

Really it’s nice just walking into Bliss Studio. There’s a wonderful feeling of calm. Way too much money later you should feel relaxed and bruised. Next time I will not buy a watermelon without bringing my granny grocery cart. The massage was long enough to allow me to come to this conclusion. As wonderful as it was, this will not be a regular event.Yellow watermelon will, however, hopefully be a regular part of my life.