Hanami with Latest Blooming Tree 遅咲きの桜で花見

This year’s cherry blossoms have been a bit unusual. Our three cherry trees bloomed at different times.  As a result, while hanami arrived early, the staggered bloom made the “hanami” season really long. The last cherry tree to bloom was the oldest we have in our backyard. It was here when we moved in.  I am not sure what type of cherry this is but it’s blossoms are a more classic old fashioned variety such as those that appear in old Japanese wood cuts and painting. This cherry tree can be admired from the second floor window (as shown in the picture below.) As an aside; the spring cherry blossoms are a contrast juxtaposed to the Poinsettia shown in the bottom left hand corner. This plant is several Christmases old. My wife tends the plant through out the year (trimming it, feeding it, finally in the fall putting it through the required 12 week darkness setting by placing it in a closet where it is not exposed to any light for at least 8 hours at night) all to get it ready for it’s display of red, as shown in the picture, the next Christmas.

We moved to our deck and started hanami.

I just thawed a block of yellow-fin tuna. In the pic below on the left is marinated (zuke) 鮪のずけ and on the right is also zuke but one side has been torched. We used a beautiful crane-motif plate to serve this. Unfortunately, the face of the crane is covered up. The green is blanched edible chrysanthemum in Japanese noodle sauce with bonito flakes.

The second dish was cubes of tuna and avocado鮪とアボカドの角切り.

We had psuedo-negitoro 擬制ネギトロ after this.