SuzySushi

Chocolate chip sandwiches on raisin bread. You toast the raisin bread and arrange the chocolate chips on one slice while it's still hot, then cover with another slice and smoosh them together so the chips start to melt. Kind of like pain au chocolat, before I discovered such a thing existed! If you're out of raisin bread, you can use a hot dog bun. NEVER plain white bread!

My wife and I use salad oil only. Some are like us, others add some sesame oil, and I think that those who use sesame oil only at home are rather exceptional. According to several sources, you are recommended to mix salad and sesame seed oils at the ratio of 7:3 or 8:2 to make flavorful tempura. ← Also, sesame oil has a low burning point. My Japanese friends taught me to use a little (they never measured; just poured into the pan -- a couple of tablespoonfuls is what I figure) sesame oil along with regular salad oil for frying chicken karaage. Sesame oil is so flavorful that a little goes a long way!

Oh, my goodness, does that bring back memories! I had forgotten all about them!

I must admit the weirdest thing I've ever eaten was Cricket Cookies, brought to a party a couple of weeks ago by a woman who is an entomologist. They tasted like oatmeal raisin... She also brought stir-fried mealworms, which reminded me of eating the crunchy fried legs of tiny crabs or the fried heads of ama-ebi in sushi bars. Other weird foods that have crossed my path: Lion, hippopotamus, and giraffe, served at a "big game" menu at a NYC restaurant. Alligator, Cajun style ("tastes like chicken"). Ducks' tongues, in a Chinese restaurant. Gristly. Ba-sashi, horse meat sashimi, yup, served raw. A specialty of Hokkaido, Japan. Various fish innards that I don't even know the names for, also in Japan. Chocolate-covered ants, a novelty, tasted when I was a child. They tasted like raisins, too.

Just thought of another one you don't see any more: When I was studying Italian at The New School in NYC oh, so many years ago, after class, a friend and I would sometimes dine at Vesuvio, a long-gone Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. Our entrees varied, but for dessert we'd inevitably order strawberries with zabaglione, which the waiter prepared at the table in a copper bowl. No one wants to touch undercooked eggs anymore.

Interesting experiment!

Now, that's one that really made me laugh out loud!!! I am thoroughly enjoying reading this thread!!!

If you're using a PC, the keystroke combination for the ¢ symbol is Alt+0162 (hold the Alt key down and use the number pad to type in the number combination). ← THANKS! I've made a note of that!

I have a little cookbook called Breton Pancakes (by Simone Morand, Editions Jos) that I picked up in Brittany some years ago. From the preface: "The difference Between a Galette and a Crepe "A galette is a thin and pliable pancake made with a batter containing ONLY buckwheat flour and water. "Buckwheat crepes are made only in Lower-Brittany... They were the staple diet of both rich and poor country folk. The 'Krampouz' (crepe in Breton) used to be 'Kraz' (crispy in Breton). Some are still made this way, but pancake shops prefer to make less crispy ones which are easier to fill and fold." Curiously, buckwheat flour is also used to make crepe-like pancakes in Cheju, Korea. They're typically filled with shredded daikon radish and scallions that have been seasoned with a little salt and sugar.

Oh, yeah, and my mom had no conception of plating foods to make them look moreattractive. She was famous for her all-white meals of broiled fillet of sole, mashed potatoes, and overcooked cauliflower!

If any of you guys come to Honolulu, Hawaii, you have to shop at our "dollar stores" here -- they're Japanese and carry all manner of great Japanese housewares that I'd happily pay five times as much for! Gadgets like dumpling presses, lacquer-lookalike plastic bowls and trays, gadgets to clean hard-to-reach spaces like the spouts of teapots, and all manner of plastic storage containers. One chain is called Marukai 99 cent (darn--my keyboard doesn't have a "cent" key) stores, and the other is a section within Daiei, a Japanese supermarket chain.

Some of the unusual liqueurs I've tried are Chouchen, the Breton version of mead (best I had was made by someone's cousin, and smooth as silk) and Sapin, a green liqueur flavored with pine buds and made in the same manner as absinthe; it's a specialty of Pontarlier in France's Jura mountains.

Okay, this is going to sound heretical, but I make my goma-ae (for spinach or green beans) with tahini! I then sprinkle in a few toasted sesame seeds -- or not, as I feel like. Faster than using a suribachi and delicious! And I use cilantro leaves in Japanese noodle dishes -- it's hard to get mitsuba here, and I don't like it that much, anyway. (edited for typos -- the pull-out keyboard shelf of my computer collapsed!)

Zaru-soba all the way, preferably cha-soba, which makes me natsukashii for my first trip to Japan in the sweltering summer. Nothing like having freshly made cha-soba in a little open-air soba-ya across from Kinkaku-ji. (I wonder if it's still there, 20+ years later.) I can easily find zaru-soba in restaurants here, but not cha-soba, so I buy the noodles and cook them myself at home. Yesterday we had wakana soba (spinach soba?) marketed (imported? or made by? - the package doesn't say - a local Hawaii company). It tastes almost exactly like cha-soba. I wish someone sold them here fresh, though.

Tokyo Food Page. Mostly articles, but some recipes, too: http://www.bento.com/tokyofood.html

I've never used baking soda in blanching almonds. Just boiling water does the trick. Wonder if hazelnuts are the same? (No one here sells hazelnuts out of the shell... sigh.)

Adam, I'm jealous! What a wonderful, mouthwatering diary! I never thought of photographing all the food I tasted during my travels with such loving care. I just scrolled down again to show the pictures to my husband (who's also a certifiable foodie) and his response was to put the back of his hand across his forehead in a ock swoon and say, "I've got to go lie down..." Keep up the good... well, it isn't exactly work!

When my husband was a boy, he used to grab his meals on-the-run. His parents (of German-Austrian background) told him that if he ate standing up, his legs would become as thick as an elephant's. Forever after, he made sure to sit at the dinner table until he was finished.

Well, some of these have a grain of truth... <<eat carrots and you'll see better in the dark>> Carrots are rich in beta-carotene/vitamin A, which is necessary for good night vision <<milk will make your throat phlegmy>> Milk does thicken mucus secretions in the throat, and also makes hem more visible.

I do, I do! Besides their crepes (nothing like real French crepes, but I liked them), I loved their side-salad of spinach with a mandarin-orange dressing (which I still haven't been able to duplicate).

Now that's REALLY impressive! Who delivered the brats, the supplier or friends of yours? How did they get through airport security? (My mind working... who do I know in which cities?)

Sounds like a restaurant I need to try! Where are you?

Well, something in black-bean sauce. Bittermelon? And dollars to doughnuts, I'll bet the red flakes are chile.

We got married on Waikiki Beach, then we and about a dozen guests walked half a block to a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant. I don't remember the food distinctly (a lot of different dishes were served), but it was tasty and ours must've been the only wedding reception the restaurant held in its entire existence. A few months later, we held a "real" wedding reception for my family and friends in New York City at a Chinese dim-sum restaurant. Again, the actual dishes just kept coming around, so no one item stood out. No wedding cake at either party. The one thing that did stand out at the dim-sum brunch was the bill afterwards. My husband and I had stopped at the wine shop on the way over to pick up Champagne for the party and had spent most of our cash. The bill arrived and he tried to pay it by credit card. No go, said the manager. Credit cards are only accepted at dinner. But this was a meal for 40 people and the bill came to well over $300. Sorry, no credit cards. Luckily, my sister was still there and we could borrow cash from her. I wonder if the manager would have put us to work washing the dishes... All this was 14 years ago (and we're still very much happily married).

Okay, don't crucify me, folks, but of all the woks I've owned over many years (and I currently own three woks), my very favorite is a nonstick-coated wok by Wearever that I've had for several years! It's heavyweight aluminum, conducts heat well, doesn't rust, doesn't warp, is well balanced so it doesn't tip, and needs very little oil for cooking. I've had it with carbon-steel woks (everything rusts in the salt-air of Hawaii), and with the lightweight ones that tip over when you have a panful of ingredients (or worse yet, hot oil!). And I much prefer one handle, which I can grab easily to lift off the burner while stir-frying with the other.