torakris

word for 2/13: 薪水　　しんすい shinsui (sheen-sue-ee) Another of the red (brown variety), these ripen a little slower than the kosui and you can find them in September. shinsui: http://www.maruka-ishikawa.co.jp/veg-fru/i...sui/shinsu2.jpg

Hey! I want to go someplace too!!! I have spent some more time going through Japanese pages and they really seem split on the origins, some say just tempero others just tempora (s) and some mention both... I guess no one really knows. I did run across this interesting page that listed all of the Portuguese words that have made their way into the Japanese language: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/amato-network/musica/portugal05.htm

I didn't touch anything.... was there something wrong with it?

Thanks for all of the replies, I think the idea of slightly cooking the cranberries with the butter and sugar sounds good, I really don't mind an extra pan. That is the way I normally do it for pineapple upside down cakes. This cake was REALLY good, the best upside down cake I have ever had and the leftovers are all mine even, the kids aren't getting them!

word for 2/12: 幸水　こうすい kousui　(koe-sue-ee) This is the most popular of the red or brown variety and was created by crossing two nashi varieties in 1941. This is only of the earlier varieties ripening in mid August, though you may see some as early as July that come from greenhouses. As with most nashi, these are best enjoyed if they are refrigerated only about 2 hours before eating, chilling for longer periods can lessen their sweetness. the kousui: http://www.maruka-ishikawa.co.jp/veg-fru/i...sui/kousui2.jpg NOTE kousui written in characters like this 香水　means perfume.

for those unfamiliar with SMAP here they are: http://web.singnet.com.sg/~keyuz/smap/

I have to admit to enjoying some of their most recent music, my husband even has their popular song "sekai hitotsu dake no hana" as the ringer on his cell phone. It just that they are pretty much talentless in almost every way, yet they are on tv in almost every type of program... Oh dear maybe I am getting old...

Weds dinner: Major kitchen crisis occured when I did not properly read the recipe I was cooking from. I some how missed an hour of cooking time and my family could not wait, so I will save that chicken for tonight and last night I ended up throwing together miso nikomi udon udon noodles and vegetables (carrots, gobo, onion and kabocha) with satumage (deep fried fish patties) simmered in a miso sauce dessert: cranberry upside down cake (you can read about this other disaster here http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=37104&hl= )

They were frozen, I froze them myself about 1 month ago, and I added them to the pan in their still frozen state.

Though not nearly as painful as these other mistakes, I did a major no-no in the kitchen last night. I did not read the recipe all the way through thoroughly! gasp! I was making a braised whole chicken Chinese style and read that I needed to braise it for 45 minutes, some how I missed the very last sentence that said to turn it over and continue braising for 1 MORE HOUR! Well my family couldn't wait that long so we ended up with noodles and will have the chicken tonight.

Is that show still on? I have to admit to never watching it, those SMAP guys have always touched a nerve with me and I normally avoid anything they are in......

Many of the Japanese articles I was reading mentioned the Chinese being the biggest influence for deep frying. Aren't batter fried foods more popular in China? I wonder if it was a combination of the two influences...... As to were the word came from we will probably never know, but almost every Japanese source I found ahd the word tempora or temporas, it there a possiblitly these could have been Portuguese words for tempero 500 years ago? Or maybe a word in the dialect the sailors spoke or maybe some kind of pidgin spoken between the sailors of Spainish, Portuguese and Italian descent? I was just thinking of how different the English language is now as compared to 500 years ago.....

Last night I made a cranberry upside down cake from a Williams-Sonoma book called The Complete Seasons, the cake tastes incredible (I am eating the leftovers right now for breakfast) but I had a couple problems. First the caramel like topping, it said to melt butter and brown sugar in the cake pan over a medium heat, until the sugar melted. I think I messed this part up because was still a little lumpy (but evenly lumpy) and there was butter separated at the edge of the pan, even mixing didn't seem to pull it together. I was worried it would become to brown so I pulled it off. My second problem with the topping is that the cake pan I used has a ridged bottom, it looks like a waffle grid but on a very small scale. The finished cake did not release well, I lost parts, and the caramel was lumpy and hard in places and non-existent in others and the caramel had grid marks on it. My next big problem was with the cranberries, it said to place them in the pan with the caramel topping and then to place the cake batter on top, this I did. However, while cooking I noticed the cranberries were popping up at the top of the cake, I assumed they would sink back down to the bottom but they never did. So my cake looked a little like an upside-upside down cake, when inverted onto the caramel was on the top and there was a layer of cranberries on the bottom! The picture in the cookbook has a lovely layer of caramel and cranberries on the top with a wonderful creamy looking cake below. This was by far the best upside down cake I have ever had, but I think it could have been better or at least looked better. Suggestions? This is what the cake should have looked like instead it looked like this

I just ran across this article about a new Indian restaurant that focuses on the cuisine of South Asia. It sounds great I am going to have to check this one out! http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getart...g20040206rs.htm

Tuesday dinner: sort of a take on the chicken and rice recipe form Best Recipe, but I used Basmati rice, swordfish (instead of chicken) and added lots of black olives and lemon juice. dessert: chocolate mint ice cream bars

Probably about half of the store is the same products you can get in an American Costco, but I wouyld estiamte cloer to 75% of the food products are "Japanese". Bags of panko, wheat gluten and seaweeds that are bigger than my 3 year old, lots of sushi and sashimi style fish, Japanese salad dressings, cereals, canned goods, etc.

Here is a thread we had on takikomi-gohan in the Japan forum: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=28658 to give you ideas of what you can throw in your rice cooker with good results.

In Japan a kamado is earthen ware vessel that was used for coking rice, just recently it has popped back into popularity and it is currently the "new" way to cook rice. They look like this: http://www.r-tsk.net/life/kamado.html I can't see what purpose a kamado setting on a rice cooker, it sort of defeats the whole idea... As to cooking things other that plain rice, the Japanese do it all the time. Takikomi-gohan is a mixture of rice and/or meat and vegetables that are all cooked together in a rice cooker, sometimes the meats and vegetables are sauteed before being added other times they aren't. You might have to experiment a little to find out what works and what doesn't. I have never had good luck cooking Basmati rice in my rice cooker, it just doesn't turn out right. Japanese short grain and Thai Jasmine work wondefully though and I have made many dishes combining the rice, meat and vegetables all in the rice cooker. One tip: After cooking anything other than plain rice, make sure to clean the metal plate that is on the inside lof the rice cooker's lid. Otherwise the smells can linger and your next batch of white rice may have an off taste. We very recently had a similar discussion in the Japan Forum of various uses for your rice cookers: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=36465

word for 2/11: 建国記念の日　けんこくきねんおひ kenkoku kinen no hi (ken-koe-koo-key-nen-noh-hee) Today is a National holiday in Japan called National Founding or Foundation Day. The National holiday on 11 Feburuary, held to commemorate the founding of the Japanese nation, is known as "Kenkoku Kinen-no-hi", or National Foundation Day. It was originally called "Kigen-setsu", and is said to be the day on which Japan's first Emperor, the Emperor Jimmu, ascended to the throne. The holiday was abolished after the Second World War and was reinstated under its present name in 1967.

here is a very interesting article that explains the most probable sources for the word and a little more about its history in general: http://www.kikkoman.com/forum/015/ff015.html I also spent a while searching Japanese sources and they kept coming up with the two same words: temporas --from the Portuguese language which all of the sites said meant "seasonings" but when I look it up in a Portuguese-English dictionary there is no such word.. tempora --which they say is an Italian/Spanish word referring to a specific day when priests ate no meat, however I can't find this word in an Italian dictionary and the article above mentions this same word as being temporas (with an s, and basically the same word as above) A lot of sources seem to look at Portuguese/Spanish sailors who on fasting days would deep fry some shrimp and thus the beginnings of tempura. Tempura became a very popular street food during the Edo period at which time it was written all in kanji (Chinese characters) like this: 天婦羅 天 means heavens or the sky 婦 though this character means woman, apparently it was a play on words as another meaning of the word fu (pu) is that of wheat gluten and thus a reference to flour in the batter 羅 means a silk gauze or thin silk netting apparently in reference to the look of the batter on the finished product the current writing of the word today is 天ぷら

I have only made this once because it is so cheap to buy it already made in the stores here and also because no one in my family likes it except for me. I didn't salt overnight, just one hour. Here is what I did: Very heavily salt (about 2tbsp per fillet) the mackeral and place in in a colander (or a bamboo strainer if you have one) for an hour. Rinse under cold running water and then pat dry. Place into a mixture of vinegar, mirin (or sugar) and salt and leave for 1 to 2 hours, remove and pat dry again and then peel off the paper skin and remove any small bones. It is ready for eating. Jamie Oliver in his Jamies Kitchen book has a recipe for mackeral that I have been wanting to try. he doesn't salt at all and just "marinates" the raw fillets in a white wine vinegar and salt mixture for about 7 hours and then mixes it with pomegranate juice, lime juice and tequila....

Yes, that would be a good idea, as I'm in Canada and can't get wine either I can get wine!!

I'd love to join to, but since Costco Japan has many different products than what would be in an American Costco should we stick to th things that anyone would be able to buy?

Only Pepsi and only in a large glass with lots of ice.

Hate to follow all of these gorgeous meals... Monday night: I found a gorgeous block of Japanese beef at an incredible price so I seared in in my griddle pan, till it was still 90% raw then I thinly sliced in and placed it on a bed of finely julienned daikon and topped with ponzu, voila! beef tataki A miso soup with various root vegetables, daikon, carrots, gobo and konnyaku and chopped Japanese leeks eaten with some yuzu-koshou (green chile and yuzu paste) Japanese rice