Astronomy; smoked salmon; urushi lacquering

On my way back from work I snapped the crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter.

Anyway, I didn’t go out fishing over the weekend so I cold-smoked some salmon I bought at my local supermarket (it is not particularly high quality, but answers pretty well).  It came out better than my last batch as I reduced the brining time, as a high-salt cure is not needed at this time of year (being so cold).  Whilst it is perfectly tasty when sliced thin and eaten with onions, capers and squeezed lemon, or stirred into hot pasta, or tossed in a salad, I set half the fish aside to make a coarse-textured smoked salmon paté with cream cheese, black pepper and herbs.  The photo doesn’t do it justice but it is quite delicious on bread, toast, crackers or even baked potatoes.

Also I finished lacquering a ballpoint pen and a new pair of chopsticks.  The latter didn’t quite come out as I had hoped but the pen came out a rich, deep sheen with a very smooth finish.  The original wood is called keyaki in Japanese (Zelkova) and has a nice grain that picked up the lacquer quite well.  Like most lacquer it looks best in natural light, unlike this photo, and in a couple of years will look even better.