torakris

I have mentioned it before on other threads but those frozen packs of shioyude (boiled and salted) make great ice packs for bentos. By the time you get to where you are going they are defrosted enough to eat!

I always buy them from my co-op (Kanagawa Seikyo)... these are the shelled ones I notice the maker is Nichirei so they should be available in many stores. These ones are te best for straight eating, they aren't salty enough for me. I use them mostly in benots, or add then stir fries (today my husabnd's bentos had a bean sprout and edamame curry powder flavored stir fry), fried rice, simmered dishes etc. I tried a couple of the frozen shio yude (boiled and salted) types before I found the one that I really like. A couple of te brands were too mushy. I really like my co-ops brand, though I am not sure of its availability. Last week I picked up a bag at my local drug store (Create) for 100yen, I think it was 300g so a very good deal), and they were surprisingly good... these ones

4/14: one of my favorites! 鮎　あゆ　アユ ayu referred to as sweetfish in English ayu

gorgeous! I wonder how much of that I can smuggle back to Japan.... Now I am thinking I want to spend half my time at least in a place with a kitchen so I can get to try some of the fresh produce. Really embarrassing question here: How far will English get me outside of the hotel areas?

sackville, those look great! I do a similar thing with chickpeas... My favorite way to eat them is boiled and salted then sucked out of their shell. I always have a frozen pack in my freezer, they are still in the pods but already boiled and salted all you do is defrost, either naturally or in warm water. Two days ago I picked up a bag of frozen shelled edamame, 500g for only 198 yen ($1.90), now I am going to try some dishes like soups and such that were just too time consuming before. I often use edamame as an accent to foods, I toss them into fried rice, stirfries and add them to simmered dishes like hijiki, they are a great color contrast.

Thank you for the replies so far! This is actually our first trip as a family and I am really unsure how to go about anything. Since we are going to be there so long I was thinking about getting a place with a kitchen, but many hotels seem to offer free breakfasts. How are the food prices? better outside of the hotels I am assuming. Feeding 5 people for 10 days can add up and i reallt want to do as much as we can. Are there grocery stores near the hotel areas that I could even buy food? The two places I am considering currently are Bali Dynasty in Kuta and Novotel Coralia Benoa Bali near the beach of Tanjung Benoa I was thinking of doing 5 days each... neither of these places ahs a kitchen though...

Thank you for all of your help! but we have decided to bypass Guam and head to Bali instead!

The Yamaguchis are going to Bali!!! The airline tickets have been purchased and now I am trying to figure out the best place to stay. We will be there for 10 nights from December 27 to January 5. I have spent hours scouring the internet looking for hotels but there seem to be a couple different popular areas. I want a place with good food, preferably local foods. Nothing fancy as we are travelling with 3 children. Is there an area that is better than all the others, with good places in walking distance?

after doing a lot of internet searching food in Guam seems to consist of Tony Roma's, TGIFriday's and McDonalds.... I glad I found this out before I booked the trip, I ahve now spent the past 2 hours researching Bali instead!

When I popped Guam into the sarch function here at eGullet, I got a couple hits but they were all (by different people) referring to how bad food on Guam is. If all go as planned we will be there this winter for a week. Anything to look forward too? We will have 3 kids under 10, so anything fancy is going to be out of the question.

too many times to count....... My hood over the range is covered with these filters and a couple of the fires have actually disintegrated them. a couple of unintentional flambes a 1 or 2 grease fires and a couple instances of dropped food catching on fire I even had a wooden spoon catch on fire once....

those look great! now I am wanting some too! We are having shumai tonight....

they were fresh tomatoes that I diced. The dish was topped with romano (pecorino) cheese but parmasean would be fine.

Since no one has responded... I have never seen a sheet of agar in my country. I guess you can get more response in the Cooking or Pastry & Baking Forum. ← here is the agar agar thread in the pastry forum

I have the special powers needed to open up a closed topic! I just wanted to post my last meal on Monday night. Sorry I didn't do it earlier but Monday is All McBeal and ER night..... the food prep the seasonings prep the dishes ninjin (carrot) kinpira, a dish of pretty much anything sauted in sesame oil and then seasoned with soy and mirin and a hit of heat from red pepper in some form. I used seame seeds that were sprinkled on after the picture was taken as that is what the kids prefer kiriboshi daikon, this is thin threads of dried daikon radish I rehydrated it and dressed it with kochujang (Korean chile paste), mirin, sugar and a bit of soy sauce and sesame oil this was a semi-dried squid that I grilled then sliced and served with a mayo and chile paste mixture a salad of tomato, cucumber and nagaimo (mountain yam) dressed with a simple wafu (Japanese style) dressing made with equal parts of a flavorless oil, soy sauce and rice vinegar with a bit of salt. I then sprinkled it with katsuo bushi (dried bonito flakes) It was fun! Feel free to ask any questions you might have over in the Japan forum!!

I always buy whole kabocha, they keep longer that way and they are a heck of a lot cheaper than the cut pieces. I often get 3 to 4 meals out of each one, this is what I made with my most recent kabocha kabocha salad microwaved until soft, then mashed with Japanese mayo and salt, at the end I added pine nuts and then refrigerated until it was time to eat kabocha and camembert cheese gratin the kabocha is sliced then microwaved until soft, I then sprinkle it with salt and pepper, layer it into a casserole with slices of camembert, sprinkle the top with panko and drizzle it with EVOO, then toss under the grill/broiler for a couple minutes till is is a nice brown color this was a North African dish of kabocha and chickpeas, they were simmered together with onions, bell pepper and tomatoes and seasoned with just salt and pepper. I served it with harissa and topped it with a mixture of parsley and preserved lemons. This was the first time to make this and I loved it! A wonderful use for kabocha.

I'm back! 4/12: ニギスの塩焼き nigisu no shioyaki salted and grilled nigisu nigisu no shioyaki

but is it served as a dessert? or a main dish?

I almost bought those exact same ones today!

There was another quake around 3:30 this afternoon, I was at the elementary school so I have no idea where it was centered of how strong it was, but it was similar in intensity to the one this morning. Today was the first kondankai of the year, today was for Mia class. A kondankai is meeting between all of the mothers in the class and the teacher, there are about 3 a year. The class stopped still when the earthquake hit.

Yoshiki from X Japan? Depends on who you ask I guess. I am also a fan of X Japan, their ballads cd is one of my all time favorites. They moved around a lot from rock to punk to pop while Yazawa was true to his rock roots. If you are coming to Japan in the spring avoid the week called Golden Week, this runs from April 29 to May 5 and pretty much everyone in Japan is off during this time and they are all traveling. Everywhere is crowded and prices quadruple. Early to mid April is nice because it is cherry blossom season and very beautiful, but a lot of places will be crowded because of cherry blossom viewers and the kids home on spring break. For the best weather and least crowded time I would suggest mid May, after Golden Week is over. June is when the rainy season starts and that won't be much fun....

I forgot to mention that before the first store I stopped at Freshness burger (a Japanese style burger shop) to try their yucha soda that tokyogurumegal recommended on another thread. The yucha soda is a drink made with yuzu-cha (a sort of marmalade made from the citrus yuzu) and what I think is soda water. It was quite good though I would have preferred it a little sweeter. For lunch Hide had the curry I purchased above and I had leftovers from Saturday, leftovers are typical lunches for me... Hide's preschool in half days until Friday so he will be eating lunch with me all this week.

I had a couple stores to go to this morning. One called Yamaya is a liquor/import shop, I go here once ever 2 or 3 months and stock up on things that they have much cheaper than other stores. Today's purchase many of their foods are only 105 yen ($1) like their pastas, coconut milk (I bought 6 cans), kidney beans (also 6 cans), etc I love green olives and keep the jar on the counter when I am cooking to snack on.... the cadbury fruit and nut bar was just finished off minutes agao.... the two Indian style curries were new products I had never seen before and wanted to try. At the second store I got some furikake (rice sprinkles) only 88 yen each ($.80) and some instant miso soup for my husband's bento, the box with the ranger characters on it was for Hide's lunch, it is an instant curry rice.... In the back is shampoo and sink nets, houses here don't have garbage disposals, instead there is a little basket in the drain part and lining it with these nets makes cleaning it easier. I forgot to buy coffee at both stores so had to stop into one last one. This was good though because it is the only around me that sells my second favorite type of pocky. coffee! katsuo bushi (dried fish flakes, cherry tomatoes and shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves)

I just checked amazon.com -- they have a bunch of Yazawa's CD's listed, but as they're necessarily all imports, the prices of many of them are a bit steep. Plus--no clickable music clips. I'll have to come up with another way to get a sample of this artist's music, as the credit card has been taking a little too much abuse recently. I know only a very little bit about the Japanese pop/rock music scene--I've been to a couple of shows by Shonen Knife, who have a definite cult following here in the US. What has their popularity been like in their homeland? To try and drag this query vaguely on-topic: I can't help noticing that Shonen Knife, as well as the US-based Japanese alt-pop band Cibo Matto, have a number of songs about food items. Is this in any way a running theme of other Japanese pop groups, or just a coincidence with these two groups? ← try this link, you can only listen to part of the song but it will give you an idea. Just click on the headphones. This song is called Pure Gold and is one of my favorites. Shonen knife doesn't seem to be as popular in Japan as in the US, most people I have asked have never heard of them...... songs about food, hhmmm... never paid that much attention A lot of Japanese enka songs seem to have the word sake in the title...

Have you ever tried to freeze bananas? A question about the cherry trees that are in bloom: These are all ornamental cherry trees? Or are some of them of the eating variety? ← I don't like bananas, I freeze them sometimes when the kids don't eat them all and then make banana bread. All of the ones in my area are ornamental, I am not sure about other parts of the country.