Hiroyuki

OK, show us your bento tomorrow!

giantbee and I posted about the two kaiseki's here.

Thanks everyone for their replies. After reading your posts, I remembered that I had a bottle of chikusaku eki (bamboo vinegar), given to me from the construction company as part of a year-end gift. I read the instruction sheet, which says that the vinegar lessens the odor of composting and promotes fermentation. I will try composting using the bamboo vinegar and report back. In the meantime, as I said in my first post here, feel free to share your experiences and post pictures of your gardens!

After the snow melted, my son and I started vegetable gardening, and I have come to realize one important fact: Nothing can be had without money. Unlike my son, who likes nature, I wanted to start vegetable gardening mainly because I though it would cost less than buying vegetables at a supermarket. Now I know how silly I was. So far, I have spent: 597 yen for a 20 kg bag of slaked lime 1,480 yen for a stainless steel, home use hoe 1,480 yen for a stainless steel, three-forked hoe 1,970 yen for a 20 kg bag of additional fertilizer 5,527 yen in total! Besides, I must have spent thousands of yen on planter boxes, bags of soil, seedlings, and seeds. As for fertilizers, I considered composting with EM bokashi and with red worms, but I found that a 1-kg bag of EM bokashi cost 300 yen, a special container for EM bokashi fertilizer cost 2,200 yen, and red worms cost around 8,000 yen per kg!! I instantly gave up the idea of composting. I think I'll post some photos here if I succeed in growing some vegetables. In the meantime, feel free to share your experiences in vegetable gardening here.

I got one pack of Prime Vermont (medium hot) for 278 yen today. I'll post a picture of it when I make curry with it, along with some comments. ← glad to hear, also if you dont mind, saying what the calories/fat amount/saturated fat/sodium amount is for a one person serving ? ← I can't provide all of the information you requested. According to the label on the box, Nutrient components of 18.5 g (for one serving) of the product Energy: 80 kcal Protein: 1.3 g Fat: 3.6 g Carbohydrate: 10.5 g Sodium: 1.0 g (sodium chloride equivalent: 2.5 g) Energy of one serving of the curry when made with the ingredients listed* (beef used for meat): 250 kcal (not including rice) Sodium chloride equivalent: 2.7 g *Ingredients for 10 servings: 400 g meat 3 medium (600 g) onions 2 medium (300 g) potatoes 1 medium (200 g) carrot 2 tbsp. salad oil 1,200 ml water *** I wanted to make curry for supper yesterday, but both of my children replied, "Hayashi!" when I asked them which they wanted to have for supper.

I agree with torakris. To make that kind of purchase, you must actually look at and touch different types of bento boxes. I don't think purchasing one on the Internet is a good idea unless you already know what to look for.

Yesterday, my son found asparagus and udo growing on the premises of an abandoned mushroom factory located only about 20-second (not 20-minute) walk from our house. They must have been planted by someone but neglected for years. I took the photos below after we picked more than ten udo and some asparagus shoots. I wasn't sure how to prepare udo, and I cut off the white roots to eat and discarded the rest. I later googled and found that almost every part of udo was edible! I won't make the same mistake again. For those of you who are not familar with udo, here is some information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aralia_cordata

Kewpie mayo does contain MSG ("seasonings (amino acids)", to be more precise) just like millions of other food products made in Japan, and it also contains other special ingredients like vinegar made from apple juice and malt. I don't think it's possible to imitate the flavor of that mayo without using those special ingredients. I would suggest making tart tofu mayo and adding some MSG... What do you think?

I got one pack of Prime Vermont (medium hot) for 278 yen today. I'll post a picture of it when I make curry with it, along with some comments.

Making mochi the traditional way, with a kine and a usu, has become quite rare even in rural areas like mine, but it's still popular at some events, fair, and festivals.

I learned yesterday from a local TV news program that Niigata Beer (Japanese only) announced on April 28 that it had succeeded in kinsho saibai (mushroom bed cultivation) of black truffles with their new technology. According to this (Japanese only), as a result of two years of trial and error, the company discovered on April 20 black truffles grown to sizes of 5 to 30 millimeters in 20 of about 10,000 bags in which mushroom beds were created in February. But 20 out of 10,000? Do you call this a success?

Did you watch the May 10 edition of Tameshite Gatten on NHK, which featured hijiki? I didn't, but here is the webpage on that edition: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/gatten/archive/2006q2/20060510.html (Japanese only, of course) An interesting topic is a new way to cook hijiki. The webpage says that hijiki is simmered for four hours on the site of production, so it doesn't require much cooking in the home kitchen. The new way is to simmer it for only three minutes. The details are as follows: 1. Reconstitute hijiki by soaking it in water for 30 minutes. (In the meantime, make dashi.) 2. Wring hijiki lightly, spread it on a plate, and heat it in a microwave (for 1 minute and 30 seconds for 10-g dried hijiki) with no plastic wrap on. 3. Fry other ingredients in oil, such as carrots and aburaage. 4. When they are cooked, add hijiki and dashi. 5. Simmer for 3 minutes. The dashi is now absorbed in hijiki and other ingredients. I will try this way and report back. So far, I have usually simmered hijiki for about ten minutes.

Here is rather a personal question for you, Kris... Do you have a snack budget?? In that show, you seemed to be depicted as a frugal wife, but I really can't believe this, considering all of your posts here. And, I'm not the only one who wants to ask you this question. This blogger wonders if you really are a frugal wife. http://lipz.oops.jp/ She is a fan of yours.

This variety, called Yuki Boushi (lit. Snow Head), is a new one developed at a laboratory in Niigata, so I think the enoki take that you saw was of a different variety. You can see another photo of Yuki Boushi here.

I never really thought there was an English word for tobi, but I just found this: Steeplejack I have never heard of the word myself though.... My yellow notepad with the contents of my refrigerator? Were you able to see the show? ← No, I just read the description:

Any linguistic specialist out there? To pronounce the m sound, you close your lips, and to pronounce the n sound, you open your lips, right?

http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/okusama/back/060509/index.html SO, your husband is a tobi? How do you say tobi in English? Show us your yellow notepad...

It's probably because, while the correct spelling is n, the actual pronunciation is m. The same goes for shimbun (newspapar) vs. shinbun tempura vs. tenpura.

I found one that serves Osaka-style okonomiyaki at Odaiba, Tokyo: Tsuruhashi Fugetsu. http://www.walkerplus.com/english/tokyo/go...nts/jam062.html I've never been there, though. You can find some other information here: http://www.gnavi.co.jp/kansai/en/k109706h.htm There are several other shops in and around Tokyo.

I didn't know about it until you mentioned it, and I think I have seen a TV commercial for it for the first time today. You can view a commerical from here. You must click OK to view it. It sounds like an attractive product. I'll look for it the next time I go shopping.

This is the akunuki (harshness remover) that I usually use to remove aku from sansai. Today, I collected some warabi and removed aku from them.

It's quite true. It's very dangerous to use a shichirin in a comtemporary, more airtight Japanese house. Some people don't know this, resulting in fatal accidents. I was referring to products like this. I don't know anything about sterno. I hope torakris or someone else answers your question.

My wife told me they were like fuki in shape. They really didn't have any flavor left except some earthy smell. The texture was somewhere between fuki and bamboo shoots.

According to that wagashi shop's website, wari goori (lit. cracked ice) is made by drying kanten slowly for six days. One 150-g box (red or blue) costs 700 yen.

I changed the water once before I went to bed last night. I tasted it this morning and found that sourness was completely gone . I was disappointed because I wanted to make some itadori jam... I ended up making stir-fried pork with itadori. The seasoning was the same old soy sauce, mirin, and sake (1:1:1) mixture.