BarbaraY

Rather than a pot, I would use one of the boxes that can be found in the home and garden stores. Then you will have room to plant a number of plants. They also look nice as an edge to the deck.

Thank you for responding, however I can't read Japanese so I can only guess. I can see the matsumaezuke has carrots and the kombu but do I see shiratake in it, too? Do you rehydrate the kombu before adding to the other ingredients?

Yesterday, I received an order from my favorite on-line source for Japanese foodstuffs. Somehow I managed to order SHIRAKIKU KIZAMI KONBU and I haven't any idea how to use it. Any help would be appreciated.

You would be surprised how many cooks can do this. The trick is to be very quick and not grasp the item tightly. It's more of a flip than an actual pick up. I can do it with things that aren't very fatty but I doubt that I would do it with tonkatsu. I can do it with lean steaks. I don't do it anymore since I have retired because my hands are too soft now. I wouldn't us sesame oil to fry in. Aside from the fact that it is very expensive, I think it would overwhelm the flavor of the meat. I prefer to use it as a finishing oil.

I once again made Tonkatsu for dinner last night. No photo because I let the batteries on the camera run down. I jumped the gun on this because I ordered from my San Francisco source and expected the order in yesterday. I ordered Bulldog sauce and wanted to try it but since I had the meat ready to go I just went ahead and made it and used the sauce that I already had.

Thanks for all the tips, Helen. It was a search for information about nukazuke that brought me to eGullet. I think my container is part of the problem. It is a large ceramic bean pot. I sterilized it but, for some reason, after the bed gets started, it begins to have a wet icky looking coating on the outside so I think, even though it's glazed, it may be sweating through the pot. Next time I start it I will use a different container. Have to send for more nuka. Since it isn't available here I have to order it from San Francisco.

I learned to make salsa at neighbor Lupe's knee. She was from Guadalajara and never referred to it as "salsa" but "chile". It was very simple, she put a couple of tomatoes, a couple of green chiles, and a clove or two of garlic onto the top of the wood range and roasted them until they were spotted with bits of black and brown. She then began grinding them in her stone molcajete starting with the garlic, then chiles, followed by the tomatoes. She ground it until it was fairly smoth and added a pinch of salt. This, to me, is still the best salsa ever even though it was so hot it would raise your hair. She didn't use Jalapeños nor any chile that I now recognize. They were longer and paler but not as large as Anaheims. I must add this was long ago and there were no crap, cardboard tomatoes to be had so it was made only when there were real tomatoes available. In the off season, it was made with canned tomato sauce and Chiles de Arbol or Chile Pequín.

A few days ago there was a thread on Tuscan Bean Soup so I decided I wanted some. I had everything in the house to do this but my Canellini beans had been in the cupboard for at least three and possibly four years. I figured if the beans didn't soften right I could just toss them. I covered them with water and slowly brought them to the boil for about 2 minutes and let them sit for two hours. They wrinkled terribly but only three didn't appear to have softened so I removed them. I then brought them, again slowly, to a boil and let them simmer until the were nearly tender enough. I was truly surprised to find that beans that old could become tender but they did and the soup was very good. I think the very slow simmering may have been what saved them. Aside from the above, neither of us experienced any flatulence. Having lived my early years in a Mexican neighborhood, I usually do not soak beans. My water is highly alkaline and doesn't cause any cooking problems that I am aware of. Baking soda, IMHO, gives beans a very unpleasant texture.

Thank you so much for the quick reply. I thought it was a blog but I couldn't find it. It just sounds too good to pass up, espcially since they had really nice marrow bones for a change. Could it be that we really are getting civilization?

Recently there was a posting that told of eating roasted bone marrow on croutes. I ran a search but can't find it. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would truly appreciate it. I have the marrow bones but don't remember how she prepared it.

Hiroyuki, I think it's possible that the dressing may have had mayonnaise to get the creamy texture. I have tried several sesame seed dressing recipes but they weren't quite what I was looking for. This was before I learned how often mayonnaise is used in Japan. Thanks for the recipe.

It used to be coffee but due to the fact that it didn't mix well with some medicine I was taking, I switched to tea and have had it ever since. Two cups every morning. Gets me started and tastes good. Preferably Red Rose. I have a friend who has to consume a bowl of Cream of Wheat every morning.

A Japanese restaurant opened in our town about 30 years ago. They had absolutely marvelous food and one of my favorites was a salad of somen and tiny shrimp dressed with a creamy sesame dressing. About a year or two later they stopped serving it and started serving Shrimp and Cucumber in Sanbaisu dressing. I love the shrimp and cucumber salad but would love to find out the recipe for the creamy sesame dressing. The restaurant closed about 15 years ago so I can't ask.

They are a short tubular pasta. Italian for little thimbles. In America, the most popular use is in macaroni salads.

Coming in a bit late to say this is a marvelous blog. I've never been to Seattle. We started to go there once but my back went crazy and we had to cut the trip short at Astoria.

I won this in a silly competition to see who had the largest number of tins, bottles, and plastic food containers in their fridge. I won without listing everything and this was my prize. It works by pushing the handle downward which makes the blades spin. I used it once to mix powdered buttermilk and water. Will stay with my stick blender and send this off to the thrift store next trip.

My cooker is very old and I have replaced the seals several times and it still cooks very well. I use it for dry beans, chuck, short ribs, and I'm planning to cook lamb shanks in it. I don't cook vegetables in it because I find I have better control cooking them in the usual way. My SO used to make stew and pot roast in it by cooling the pan with water, opening it and adding the vegetables to cook for their alloted time. Too much problem for me. I can't see any reason to cook fish in it because fish cooks so quickly. (Might be great for octopus, though.)

OK, I concede that the Bay Area and the Wine Country have some very fantastic cuisine but for the rest of the area, it is pretty grim.

Northern California has identifiable cuisine? Perhaps I can't see the forest for the trees and didn't even realize that we have one. Please explain what it might be, if you will. I'm lost here.

I do mine in the pressure cooker. Soak in cold water for 1 hour, more if you really dislike salt. Put in the cooker with a handful of peeled garlic and a bay leaf, a handful of dill seed is good, too, or pickling spice. Bring to full pressure and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Let pressure drop naturally. I removed the meat when the pressure dropped and added red potatoes, carrots, turnip and cabbage and let it simmer till vegetables were done. Had the meat not been tender enough I would have left it in with the vegetables. Corn beef needs to sit in it's own juice for a while after cooking to prevent dryness.

I was inspired to make Sopa Toscana by reading this thread and the fact that I have a bag of Cannellini Beans in the pantry. Found a huge number of sites with recipes but none of them suited me so I created my own version. The beans are about 3 years old and, after reading upthread that old beans were impossible to soften, I was concerned that the beans wouldn't cook properly. I gave them a 1 minute boil and 2 hours soak, simmered them gently and they turned out just right. 1/2 lb. Canellini Beans 1 bay leaf 1 onion, minced 2 stalks celery chopped 2 fat cloves garlic minced Extra Virgen Olive oil 2 Italian sausages browned, split lengthwise and cut into half moons Tomato paste, about 3 tablespoons (I just squeezed enough out of the tube to get the taste I liked.) Kosher salt to taste. Several grinds black pepper About 2 tablespoons minced fresh sage 1/2 bunch kale, torn into bite sized pieces 1/3 cup Ditalini Splash of Balsamic Cooked beans until about half done; softened onions, celery, and garlic in olive oil and added to soup along with sausage to cook until tender. Then added seasonings and tomato paste, followed by sage, kale and Ditalini. Finished with a few drops of Balsamic Vinegar. We had it for dinner topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and Italian parsley. Sourdough roll was all we needed with it. Authentic? I don't know but it sure was good on a cloudy day. That may look like a lot of sage for 3 quarts of soup but it was baby new leaves and very mild. I would use less if they were mature leaves. I love white beans and sage together.

BarbaraY, I do not believe there is a recipe for that kind of dried beef. I have looked at the index and don't see any such thing. ← Thanks Anna, My daughter wanted some chipped beef gravy so I bought a jar of the Hormel stuff. Naaaaasty! It is no longer made from, what I believe was, beef round but ground up Who Knows What. It was distressingly salty and had no other taste. Obviously some time since I bought any. I have my grandfather's butchering book from 1939 that has a recipe for 100 pounds of meat but that might be a bit much. I found one on the net for 3 lbs. and may give that a try.

A question for those who have this book. Does it have instructions for making dried beef? Not jerky but the kind that's sliced thin for chipped beef. Haven't decided yet whether I want to buy it since I haven't done any curing for about 8 years, except for jerky.

I love shopping in ethnic markets and only once had an unpleasant experience. Not in a Mexican market by the way. My daughter and I often shop one of the Mexican markets in a nearby town. Absolutely the best pork available, tender and not dry. They also have a deli area next to the meat counter with excellent tamales. My grand kids love Mexican sodas so she usually stocks up while we're there.

This is my "go to" Japanese cookbook. I have had it for over 20 years and will have to replace it soon as it is getting very battered. Everything I have ever cooked from it has been excellent.