torakris
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Posts posted by torakris
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Your kids are adorable! Do they speak mainly Japanese or English? I'm trying to learn more Japanese cooking. The Chinese here use burdock too but mainly as a herb in soups. We use a lot of arrowroot as well, do the Japanese too?
My kids speak mostly Japanese, though they switch to English when it is necessary. Like when we are in the US or they are with people who don't speak Japanese. I have recently caught my girls speaking English together when they are in a group and they don't want the others to know what they are talking about....
To learn more about Japanese food we have a wonderful Japan forum with very knowledable people!
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For anyone interested in Japanese rock n roll pick up any CD by Eikichi Yazawa, the king of Japanese rock. He has a bunch of English cd's as well nad I found them easily in big record shops in the US. My mother even has a couple, she wa a big (early) Elvis fan.
My husband doesn't like Yazawa....
so I don't listen him much any moreThis guy has a really incredible voice....
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since I was taking pictures this morning..
My neighbors have a beautiful cherry tree, this is what I see from my dining room window.
our new table
it also has a huge parasol (2.7 meters in diameter) and a beautiful stand, these are still in the boxes as there is no point in putting them out since the rain has already started. The two innermost hexagons can be removed and a BBQ grill can be placed in the middle (there is a rack underneath). Sort of like Korean style BBQ...
my box of baby leaf lettuces has sprouted
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our wall map
most of the stickers are red but there are some blue, green and yellow, some parts are hard to see.
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Helen glad to here you guys are ok!
Is it just me or have there been A LOT of fairly strong earthquakes in Japan for about the past 6 months....
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still shaking a bit here....
me, not the house.
At least I have my coffee now.
I picked up some raisin rolls for us for breakfast as well and some pocky for today, these are tow little packets, one caramel and one yogurt.
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wow! we just had a pretty strong quake just now. It was a 5 (on the Japanese scale) in the northeastern part of Chiba and a 3 in Yokohama.
Helen is over there I hope everyone is Ok. Tsunami warnings have also gone out as it was on the coast.
my husband just called to see if we were ok, he had it a little stronger and he is also 18 stories up.......
they have just announced it was a 6.1 magnitude
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wow! we just had a pretty strong quake just now. It was a 5 (on the Japanese scale) in the northeastern part of Chiba and a 3 in Yokohama.
Helen is over there I hope everyone is Ok. Tsunami warnings have also gone out as it was on the coast.
my husband just called to see if we were ok, he had it a little stronger and he is also 18 stories up.......
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I have no coffee in the house.....................
I am getting jumpy...............
I think I need to run to the store and pick up an iced coffee................
be back soon!
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gorgeous Di!
Are the frozen berries thawed? I am assuming that is where the juice is coming from....
I have a pack of frozen strawberries in the freezer and would love to turn it into this!
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Kris, I'm impressed that it is safe not only to swim in Tokyo Bay but to eat shellfish from there. Shellfish concentrate toxins by nature because they eat by filtering water and I would think they would usually be one of the first parts of the ecosystem to run into problems when there is a release of raw sewage or industrial pollution. With such a high population density and, presumably, concentration of industry in the Tokyo area, how has the government ensured water cleanliness in Tokyo Bay?
I have to admit I have never really thought about it.....
a lot of foods come out of that bay....Tokyo Bay is sheltered by the Boso and Miura peninsulas. Facing the bay are Tokyo, Yokohama and other metropolitan centers. The world's largest industrial zone spreads out around the bay. Many ports are located here as well, linking Japan to other countries. The bay opens up into the Pacific Ocean, and until the mid-1800s, it was an important fishing ground, supplying huge amounts of fresh fish to the nearby city of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Even today, many kinds of fish and shellfish inhabit the waters, some notable examples being haze (goby), suzuki (sea bass), kohada (gizzard shad), kisu (sillago) and shako (mantis crab). A variety of fishing methods are still used to catch them.
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Wonderful blog, Kris.
Egg of some form seems to be present in many of the food photos. Are eggs used as a filler, for appearance, or extra protein?
The chocolate banana that Hide was enjoying, is it fresh or frozen?
egg in some form or another is present in many dishes here, not only as a good source of protein and as a filler but also because of the color. It is very important to make the dish pleasing to the eye and have various colors is important.
the banana was fresh.
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Since we snacked all day we weren't really hungry for a big dinner so we stopped at the food court at Aqua City (one of te many "malls") in Odaiba.
The kids had McDonald's, we really do not eat McDonalds this much....
My husband and I went to Hawaiian Bowl, I had the tuna poki donburi and he had the loco moco, they both came with a small salad and drinks. I had an iced tea.
on the way home we ran into some typical Tokyo traffic
and we also drove past Tokyo tower, this was actually one of the places built by my husband's grandfather..
sorry not the best of pictures.
On the way home we drove to the home center and picked up the picnic table we had ordered, my husabnd has just finished putting it together. I will get a picture of it tomorrow as it is dark outside now.
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We then took the elevated train line yurikamome back to Odaiba. This is a great train (if not small) that is completely run by computers, it is unmanned. It also runs through some of the nicest spots in Tokyo including Shiodome.
Back at Odaiba we took a rest on the boardwalk and we were in luck because a group od "rock n rollers" was performing. I am not sure if this is even what they are called anymore, I haven't seen these kinds of kids around in over 10 years.
they play songs, mostly Japanese rock n roll songs from the 80's and dance and sing. It is fun to watch and Hide had a great time dancing along with them.....
Back in college this was the kind of music I listened to almost everyday, I had some Japanese friends who were really into this.
this car probably belonged to them....
there are really some intersting cars here, it is hard to see but there are black lace curtains that run the whole interior and a sort of "wing" that sticks up almost a foot from the top back of the car.
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The main reason I am asking its that want to know a country of origin. A couple weeks ago my kids and I bought a large wall map and we put stickers on all of the countries that we eat foods from and I am not sure where to put the sticker from last night.
At some point we need to see a picture of this map.
I will get that done!
currently my laundry is hanging in front of it......
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Those anzu ame sound tasty! Is the outer layer just corn syrup? (I googled, trying to find out, but it wasn't very helpful.)
The outer layer is made with mizu ame, it is thicker and stickier than corn starch and originally was made from rice malt though today it is more commonly made with a potato starch.
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we picked up some snacks
one of my absolute favorites in anzu ame. Anzu means apricot and ame means candy, these are usually some kind of fruit that are coated in a thick sugar sryup. This stand had a choice of 5 fruits and I chose sumomo (a sort of sour plum), I then got a chance to play a sort of roulette game which I won ans was able to choose another one. I took apricot. These are placed in a block of ice to harden them, but as soon as they are removed they start to melt so you need to eat fast. 150 yen ($1.40) a piece, but I got 2 for the price of 1!
Julia had a chcocolate banana in an ice cream cone (there is actually no ice cream, just whip cream) and if you look really close you will see a pocky stick in the back of it.
Hide had a regular chocolate banana
those were 200 yen a piece ($1.85)
on the way back to the station we couldn't resist the smell of freshly made sembei (rice crackers) and picked up 5 of them at 50 yen a piece ($.45) and ate them hot.
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After lunch we wandered over to Sensoji temple, probably what Asakusa is most famous for...
if you look to the left you will also be able to see th 5 story pagoda
stalls line the street for as far as you can see
food is everywhere... someone even gave some bread to this statue
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from the boat we saw a couple hanami (cherry blossom viewing) parties
the laundry (like we discussed earlier..
When we got off the boat in Asakusa we were hungry so we ducked into a tiny kaiten (revolving) sushi place that had some really good prices. It was decent but I wouldn't count it among the best I have eaten....
It was cheap though the 5 of us ate for 3600 yen ($35)some of the dishes
the crisscrossed dishes were 126 yen ($1.25) and the fancy dish with the maguro was 99 yen ($.95)
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Today was really the first day we have done anything really fun in a couple months, we tend to stay in when it is cold. We visited modern Tokyo then boarded a futuristic boat to go back to the old days....
We started out trip in Odaiba.
This is probably one of my favorite spots in Tokyo and we go there often, there is so much to do and see, or you don't have to do anything at all just sit in the sand (or on the boardwalk) and watch everyone else go by).
Odaiba seaside park
this is a man made beach right in Tokyo Bay, it is hard to tell from the picture but is stretches in a long c shape and can get extremely crowded in the summer. Some people like to find various shellfish for their dinner....
Julia found a shell and Mia is taking a picture with my husband's cell phone.
We then boarded the Himiko, a brand new boat that travels the Sumida River between Odaiba and Asakusa.
inside
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Just for fun, the word comes from the three syllable root (past tense) verb "Ta-ba-kha" which means cooked. Tabikh would mean "something cooked". In the Levant "tabikh" or "tbikha" generally seems to imply something cooked in a big pot, as a stew. Just in case you were looking for, like, a fifth language there Kris
I have no desire to learn another language, but I do like to learn things like this! Thank you for breaking it down like that it makes it easier to understand and the next time I see one of these words on a menu I will know what it is!
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Thank you!
You can't even imagine how bad I am at math. I can't even use a calculator right!
Sunday breakfast
I am still trying to clean out he house of odds and ends so we had ochazuke and furikake and nori.
I had a mentaiko (spicy cod roe) ochazuke--this was an instant product
for those who are unfamiliar with ochazuke, ocha is tea and basically the hot rice is topped with anything you desire and hot tea is poured over the top. In the instant version there are little granules of tea in the pack so you just add hot water.
Furikake are various sprinkles for your rice.
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Flat leaf parsley or cilantro and prserved lemon can be traditional. Depends on the choice of the cook in Algeria.
I see your version served more with rice, bread or berkoukes.
She didn't mention how to serve it and couscous is the fastest.
Is this specific more to one country or pretty much eaten in a variety of places?
My kids put stickers on a map showing all of the different countries dishes we have eaten and I am not sure what to do with this one....
It is normally seasoned just with salt and pepper?
She listed harissa but as an optional ingredient.
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pumpkin, chickpeas, tomatoes, onions and an optional red bell pepper
probbaly not traditional but I topped it with a mixture of parsley and preserved lemon..
eG Foodblog: torakris - Pocky and the geisha
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
my family would never let me!!