torakris

koya-dofu is used mostly in simmered dishes, it can also be deep fried before simmering for a slightly different taste. It can also be used in the tamago toji style where is is first simmered in a seasoned broth and then eggs are added and allowed to set around it. If you are unfamiliar with this technigue look at this thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...st=0&p=535935 I describe it in more detail there.

as an afternoon snack I had two kurozato caramels and a handful of red grapes from Costco. Kurozato is literally black sugar and it is a type of raw sugar mostly from Okinawa. These caramels are incredible! I also forgot to mention that during my morning English conversation class I had a glass of cold kuromama-cha (black bean tea).

most days I eat lunch at home alone, my children all receive hot lunches at school. My daughters are in 1st and 3rd grade and go to the same elementary school, my son who is 3 goes to pre-school/kindegarten, this is sort of a combined 2 year or 3 year program. The parent's decide whether to send the kids at age 3 or age 4, this is not mandatory education but I only know of 2 people who did not enroll their kids. My son is school from about 8:30 or 9:00 (whenever I take him there) until 2:00pm, 4 days a week, Weds he comes home at 11:30. My daughters leave for school at 7:50am and return home around 2:00 or 3:00 depending on the day. In case you missed it I did a photo essay on the Japanese school lunch system a little while back: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...st=0&p=636583 and there is also a great thread about the kyushoku (school lunch program): http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=15429

I bought the inari pockets in preparation for this weekends undokai (sports day) bento (boxed lunch). I make this quite often and usually as part of a bento, though sometimes I do them for lunch when the kids want to help make something, they love stuffing them!

I just had lunch a bowl of rice topped with raw tuna (maguro) with a sesame sauce, this was a frozen product I ordered from the delivery service last week. and a glass of water. I had a glass of water with the hot dog and curry bread also.

Tuesday mornings around 10:30 I get a food delivery, every week I receive a catalog I look through it, fill out the order form, turn it in then one week later the food arrives. I do this as a group with 4 other women in my building, the truck comes to our parking lot, we unload our groceries and then sort them out. It is paid for by automatic bank transfer a couple days after the food has been received. I have been doing this for 9 years, it was very convenient when my children were small and now I keep doing it because the quality is good. The amount I order really depends on the week, I didn't order much this week because I knew I was going to Costco the day before. today's order in the front are 3 varieties of sweet potatoes (they came as a set), the package of small yellow things is kuri gohan no moto, this is a seasoning pack for making chestnut rice. You just pop the bag of chestnuts, the liquid seasoning pack and washed rice into your rice cooker and 45 minutes later you have a wonderful dinner. This particular brand is really good and this is the 3rd time I have bought it in 4 weeks! chestnuts are very seasonal here so in another month or two you won't be able to find this anymore. Next to it are three packs of furikake or rice sprinkles、they all contain chirimen (baby sardines) and one is flavored with umeboshi (Japanese sour plum), one with nozawa-na (a type of green) and the other is seasoned with katsuobushi (bonito flakes), these are all a frozen product. The white box is tofu and next to it are pre-seasoned pouches of aburage (tofu pockets) for making inari-zushi.

I used to teach the cooking classes as part of my English class, once a month we did cooking instead of conversation. I then had a lot of people that were just interested in the cooking part and not the English, so now my cooking classes are separate and I do them in Japanese. Anything Mediterranean is popular as are desserts. The difficult part is that not all Japanese have ovens and they don't have the same kind of pantry that I stock, so I try to fix meals that don't require a trip to an international supermarket. Things like Indian and South East Asian are more difficult because it can require a lot of speciality shopping so I only do those kinds of classes once in a while. I pass out a 2 to 3 month schedule to all of those who are interested and they only come to the ones that they are interested in.

usually they are separate but you can find them combined as well, at first I was going to go just for the curry pan (deep fried bread filled with curry) but then this one caught my eye... I don't know why this stuff doesn't catch on more out of Japan, this is some damn good food and it only cost me 83 cents....

I did very good this much and didn't get too much, mostly vegetables like lettuce mix, carrots, celery, onions a big pack or gound beef and pork and sanma (saury pike) I also got some bagels, dinner rolls, paper plates, dish detergent and a pumpkin. Like everything in Japan it is definitely more expensive than the Costco in Cleveland, and of course I went! i love all the attention I get when all of the workers come running over to see the card from Costco Japan..... When I was in the states this summer I was commenting to my family that I found only two things (beseides Japanese food/products of course) that are cheaper in Japan than the US and that is cigarettes and chicken breasts. A pack of cigarettes in jaapn is in the 260-280 yen range (about $2.40) and I can buy chicken breasts at Costco for 40 yen per 100g (or about $1.40 a pound). Some examples of price differences on the same products would be a canister of coffee I paid $6 for in the US costs $10 here and a huge jug of maple sryup that I paid $12 for runs $26 here.

This is called lazy and poor!

just as I predicted I was tempted at the drug store and I succumbed.... a "weiner-curry donut" this is a deep fried bread filled with a long sausage and some curry, it was actually quite good! I swear, I really don't eat like this every day..... By the way I shop at the local drug store to buy my milk because it is the cheapest place to buy it. I pay 118 yen (just over $1) for 1L (1qt) there at the supermarket it will cost around 200 yen (just under $2). I aslo picked up some bread and 2 cartons of apple juice for my neighbor who doesn't have a car.

He is probably very happy with Chinese food as it is very popluar in Japan, to make him VERY happy mae a pot of curry rice!! the curry rice thread for ideas: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=15137&st=0

I would estimate it at about 60% Japanese and 40% American. Some of the Japanese things that were purchased were things like dried tofu, nori sheets, various seaweeds, etc. Most of the products like flours, sugars, milks, eggs, etc are all from Japanese companies.

I have never seen that before!

Still haven't eaten anything beside the oatmeal and coffee and am not really hungry. I am off to the store to buy milk and know I will be tempted by the candy aisle.....

I really didn't think these would be popular as you can only cook 1/4 of it at a time in a Japanese oven......

Two malls by my house have started halloween events in the past couple years. Grandberry Mall, an American style outlet mall, is offering the following: http://www.grandberrymall.com/index02.html (Japanese only) on the first three weekends in October, though not actually on Halloween day... they have 1. a parade of witches and monsters and if you say trick or treat to them they will give you candy 2. there will be games using pumpkins or Japanese kabocha squash, I am not sure which theya re referring to 3. there will be various monster costumes for kids to take turns dressing up in and the parents can take pictures the other mall, Mosaic Mall is offering: http://www.mosaicmall.co.jp/event/event.html (again Japanese only) on the last two weekends of the moth there is a stamp rally, the kids go around and collect stamps from various areas then when they fill their card they get candy. The filled card also gets the kids a free ride on the ferris wheel that is on te top of the mall. They are also having a Halloween Carnival Bazaar with games, face painting, etc. There will also be a halloween show and picture taking with "real" witches.

halloween isn't really celebrated in Japan, though it seems to be getting a litlte more and more popular every year. Some stores will put out some decorations, mostly small (tiny actually) pumpkins with little faces drawn on them. therisn't any trick or treating really done in Japan, though I do know a couple neighborhoods that do it very small scale. For the past couple years I have taken my kids to an area of Yokohama that is mostly populated by ex-pats and does an American version of trick or treat. However te last two years has seen probably close to quadruple the number of attendees and less and less houses offering candy. So this year I decided to do our own with the children who live in our apartment building and some other close neighbors (everyone is Japanese). We bought all of the candy together and the kids will go "trick or treating" to the houses in our apartment building, it is small with only 12 families, and then afterwards we will have a Halloween party complete with lots of games.

A little bit about Costco. Once a month a group of friends (all Japanese women who live in the same apartment or very close by) and I make a trip to Costco. The closest one (there are now 5 in Japan) is a 30- 40 minute drive away. As I am the only member, and also drive a large car, I take two different people with me every time as only two guests are allowed. We make up a list, we had 14 people place orders this current time, then spend about 3 hours finding everything, eat lunch and come home and spend another 2 to 3 hours dividing up the food. yesterday we spent 118,000 yen (over $1,000) and purchased 130 items, this is what my living room and dining room looked like after unpacking the car.

I picked this week because it will make it seem like I actually have an exciting life! Tuesday through Friday are just my boring regular days, I teach two English classes on Tues and one on Weds, this Thursday I have a cooking class (I teach these twice a month). Saturday is the biggest event of the school year, the undokai or sports day, these are a lot of fun and I will discuss it more as the day approaches. Then on monday we have our Tokyo egullet trip to Kappabashi also known as "cook's papradise". Don't worry I will include lots of pictures of everything! I am still drinking my iced coffee ad since I wrote the first post I have eaten about 4 mouthfuls of oatmeal, Julia's leftovers... Mia went for a second bowl, this time apple-cinnamon, and all three kids ate a dinner roll a piece. I spent yesterday at Costco, you will be seeing a lot of Costco foods this week....

NIIGATA PREFECTURE (region = Chubu) Some people refer to Niigata as together with Nagano as the Shinestu region, others time it is grouped into a region often called Hokuriku, the sometimes the Hokuriku region and Shinetsu region are combined to make the Hoku-shinetsu region... http://www.city.niigata.niigata.jp/E_PAGE/delicacies.html to discuss the foods look here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=52859

Hiroyuki, take it away! look here for some links: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...22entry730522

I will be taking a one week break from the daily nihongo as I am doing the foodblog this week: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=52858&hl=

Hello everyone! My turn again. In case you may have missed my first blog, I took everyone through the New Years festivities in Japan about a year ago: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=34074&hl= A short intro for those who might not know me...... My name is Kristin, I spent the first 18 years of life in Cleveland, Ohio in a large family of 8 kids, I then spent the next 6 in Athens, Ohio at Ohio University working on various degrees. The past 10 now I have been in Yokohama, Japan with my (Japanese husband) Tora (hence the name torakris) raising our 3 children Mia (soon to be 9), Julia (soon to be 7) and Hide (soon to be 4). The math should have been easy enough to figure out, I am currently 34 years old. I come from a family that loves food, even with 10 people to feed on a very strict budget my mother always put out great meals. Family get togethers are always filled with incredible food, my mother's parents came over from Italy between wars, but in the years since then our family has grown to include a number of nationalities. I have one uncle from Mexico and an aunt from the island of Martinque, this past June my sister married her French boyfriend who is from Strausburg and loves to cook. So now we all get proper Alsatian dishes. It is 7:00am (10/5) Japan time and it has has been raining straight for the past two and a half days and is forecast to rain all day today as well..... yuck! I am drinking an iced coffee (my drink of choice) made with the Toddy cold brew method, if I remember to I may eat something for breakfast a little later. My kids have eaten, the girls had maple and brown sugar instant oatmeal and my son had a peanut butter sandwich. My whole family wakes up around 5:30am and I make a lunch and pack an onigiri (rice ball) for my husband to eat at work for lunch and breakfast respectively, he leaves the house around 6:00.

tofu..... I like that idea. I didn't have a whole lot in the house yesterday so I ended up sauteing some onions to which I added some bulgur, stock, dried oregano and double concentrate tomato paste. I simmered it until the bulgur was fluffy then I tossed in some fresh mint and feta cheese, then seasoned with lemon juice and salt and pepper. It was quite good but I wish I had had some kalamata olives...