SuzySushi

Meringues for dessert (egg whites & sugar). Can she eat nuts? Flavor them with a bit of chopped nuts or coconut. But I agree it doesn't sound like a pancreatitis diet, which typically restricts fat.

I've never seen Spam musubi here made as a sandwich. Usually, the rice is on the bottom, the Spam is on top, and it's wrapped in a strip of nori.

OK, come on guys and give up the recipes. They sound compelling. ← Spam misubi is essentially a rectangle of spam fried up with teriyaki sauce then laid on a little box of sushi rice and tied/wrapped with toasted nori. And if anyone is heading to Hawaii soon and wants to bring me back a mold for this, I'd be eternally in their debt! ← It's musubi (correct spelling in case any one wants to Google it). Personally, I don't like to eat Spam in any way, shape, or form, but if you PM me with your address, I can send you a mold for cost + postage.

Personally, I wouldn't use 12 year old anything, except wine or Scotch! But maybe that's just me -- my motto is "when in doubt, throw it out."

Swiss roll cakes are usually removed from their pans immediately and rolled up snugly in a tea-towel sprinkled with confectioners' sugar or cocoa. They're then allowed to cool completely before being unrolled, filled, and rolled up again. You can use the towel to help roll the filled cake to achieve a rounded shape.

Oh, you mean an oshizushi box. That's also sold at Asian grocery stores or online. http://www.sushilinks.com/oshizushi.html

I'd slice up some pears and Fuyu persimmons. Or serve whole or halved Bosc pears that have been peeled and lightly poached in cranberry juice; sprinkle the plates with a few dried cranberries.

Do you mean a Benriner (Japanese mandoline slicer)? See pictures here: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/cookwar...andoline-047203 They're widely available at kitchenware stores, Asian markets, and online.

Thanks, Helen! The kanji does show up on my computer, but that nutrition label and your explanation is very helpful. Actually, it's not surprising to me that Japanese cookbooks for diabetic include sugar, mirin, etc. as seasonings. Even the American Diabetes Association has revised its dietary guidelines to include a small amount of sugar in its recipes. Carbohydrates are carbohydrates, no matter what the source. Some are metabolized more quickly than others, and some provide less nutrition than others. The key is a good nutritional balance (and enough insulin or other medication to cover the amount of carbohydrates being eaten).

How available are sugar-free foods and beverages in Japan? I'm planning to visit Japan this winter with my 12 year old daughter, who has diabetes. We'll be staying with friends part of the time and doing some of our own grocery shopping. This is something I never paid attention to before. What kinds of artificial sweeteners are in use? Aspartame? Sucralose? Others? What should I look for on the labels (kanji or kana) to identify such foods and beverages? (e.g., "diet" or "lite," Japanese names for the sweeteners, etc.) How do I read carbohydrate content on the nutritional labels? I'm particularly interested in being able to identify products such as diet sodas, sugar-free fruit drinks, "light" yogurts, etc. Brand names? Thanks!

My daughter has diabetes and I've tried some sugar-free baking using Splenda. We were generally unimpressed with the cookie and cake results because there, sugar is needed for texture as well as sweetness. What's turned out best are cheesecakes (I use a standard cheesecake recipe, substituting Splenda granular for the sugar) and pumpkin pie (ditto). To me, Splenda tastes a little flat, so I perk up the flavors by adding a little lemon juice or other flavorings (more spice for the pumpkin pie). You can make either in mini-portions such as tarts, or use a rectangular pan and cut into bars. I recently tried a pumpkin pie recipe on an oatmeal-cookie-like crust and that was a real hit at a potluck.

That's a gem!

So.... PETA would rather exploit women than cows, and take milk away from nursing infants? (If women were paid enough for their breast milk, more than a few might sell their milk and feed their own babies formula.) Besides which, women don't produce enough milk to make manufacturing ice cream feasible on a large-scale basis. It takes about 1-1/2 gallons of milk to make a gallon of ice cream. At $22/liter for breast milk, a gallon of ice cream would cost about $66 just for the milk component! P.S. For Ben & Jerry's response, see this article.

Maybe by "mythic" they mean "iconic." When we were last in France (8 years ago), our local McDonald's in Paris 14e offered excellent espresso and the kids' meals came with toys based on the American "Peanuts" comic strip. The toys stood at least 8" tall and would've cost as much as the meal in the USA! But when we were on the road with our daughter (then 3-1/2), we discovered we much preferred the food at Quick, especially their chicken strips which were breaded with a crunchy oat coating.

I'd go with green tea or plain vanilla as well. Maybe a simple confectioners' sugar glaze drizzled over the top? A light honey glaze might also work.

Easiest and most accurate way to measure liquids is to use a measuring cup with milliliter markings (such as standard Pyrex measuring cups which are marked in milliliters on one side and cups on the other). Approximate conversion chart (from Australian Women's Weekly cookbooks) is as follows: Australian = American 1 cup = 1-1/4 cups 3/4 cup = 1 cup 2/3 cup = 3/4 cup 1/2 cup = 2/3 cup 1/3 cup = 1/2 cup 1/4 cup = 1/3 cup Note that an Australian tablespoon (20 ml) measures 4 U.S. teaspoons (5 ml each). A U.S. tablespoon = 3 Australian teaspoons.

Ah! But there is a Bunmeido in Hawaii, and they do mail orders: http://www.hawaiibid.com/bunmeido/

You must have cotriade, a Breton fish stew. I don't recall where we first ate it, but it was also my introduction to samphire (aka sea asparagus, sea beans, or glasswort).

Borders bookstores here carries them in paperback for $9.99 each. I've seen Germany, Russia, Italy and one or two other countries. If you'd like, PM me a list of the titles you want and I can mail them to you at cost + postage. (The online prices are much higher!)

I don't get cockroaches (knock on wood!) but I do get ants. My solution is a trigger spray called OrangeGuard. Its active ingredient is orange oil and it's nontoxic around pets and food (I wouldn't spray it on the counters, though). Most drugstores and hardware stores carry it.

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my recipe! Now I need to try baking it with a (greased) cookie sheet on top!

You should be able to find hamachi at a good fish market that sells fish for sashimi. Kanpachi is rarely available at retail; most of it goes to the better sushi bars.

No specific recommendations because when we were in Brittany with our then 3-year-old, we dined mostly in creperies and other casual places where we could decide on the spot by seeing if there were any other children inside. My daughter could also be easily contented with an order of frites or a loaf of bread. For those occasions when we needed a really child-friendly place where she could run around, the Quick fast-food chain was a godsend. Unlike the Quick's in Paris, the ones in the suburbs have a large play area with (at the time) a netted area of balls kids can jump in.

Saw another article yesterday... don't recall the source (WebMD, perhaps?). It said that lobsters usually DON'T have toxins. There's currently a red tide problem. Maybe the FDA is becoming uber-conservative about warning the public because of all the other recent food-related illnesses (salmonella, e. coli, etc.).

As junehl says, thinly sliced red-cooked meat, soy sauce chicken or white-cut chicken. Not on a combination platter but served in separate dishes, Chinese pickled vegetables and cold noodles with sesame sauce.