torakris

word for 1/23: ふじりんご fuji ringo (foo-jee-rhingo) Fuji apple This is considered the King of apples in Japan and sales account fot 51% of the apple market. Available most of teh year the Fuji is a cross between a Kokkou and Delicious apples. The Fuji: http://www.maruka-ishikawa.co.jp/veg-fru/i...ple/fuji.h2.jpg

All of the miso I have ever bought in Japan has always had an expiration date on it, usually about a year and I have had it go bad on me. I decided to use up some miso that was about a month past its expiration date and it was awful. It had a really bad off-taste and I had to throw the soup out. I have to admit I never heard anything about aged miso, of course I have never asked about it either. I think the Japanese use so much miso that it never even gets close to the expiration date.

wonderful dinner last night! a large pot of cod chowder a gorgeous black olive focaccia a salad of arugula, red onions and large shreds of parmasean

Helen, my kids all hate liver! their dinner was rice with furikake and the gobo-cucumber-carrot salad. My husband and I love liver though and I try to make it at least once a month in some form. Helen tell me more about the satsumaimo and yuzu dish, I have all of those ingredients just waiting to be made into something and that sounds great. Yes the mumps did affect her birthday, all she could eat was the mashed potatoes and whe even had a hard time with the cake,. We also to cancel her birthday party (but we will do it next week).

pork liver sauteed with baby bok choy, onions and bean sprouts gobo, cucumber and carrot salad with a spicy mayo dressing edamame Japanese rice dessert: chocolate cake

The Tokyo Food Page reviews Nathan's: http://www.bento.com/rev/2208.html

word for 1/22: りんご ringo (rhingo) apple The Japanese grow some of the best apples in the world (in my opinion at least) and we will be discussing them over the next few days.

my new thing with miso soup is satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potatoes), sometimes adding a little pork or some onion but always topping the soup with a little yuzukoshou (a paste of green chiles and yuzu). I made this so much last month that my husband actually asked me to stop.

word for 1/21: ブラックベリー burakkuberii (boo-rak-koo-bay-rhee) Blackberry These are not very popular in Japan and can be impossible to find. I have only seen them for a ridiculous price a couple times at International type supermarkets. and that is pretty much it for berries in Japan.....

There are basically two ways of setting up your pole. If you have a yard you will have a two stands that you place about 5 feet apart from each other and then place the laudry pole across them. The pole is used used for hanging up clothes directly (or futons) or you hang teh clothes on theses contraptions that have lots of pinchers and then hang the contraptions to the pole. If you don't have a yard you have a small veranda/balcony andthe ceiling will have some hooks hanging down a couple feet apart and the pole hangs across these and then they are used the same way as described above. I have a yard so have one of the stand thingies here is a picture taken from my window because I am still in my pajamas and it is too cold to go outside. lookf carefully in the back left side of the picture and you will see two stand supporting one blue-green pole, there are two silver poles leaning against it, the silver poles and the blue-green pole are all laundry poles. The pink think is the pincher contraption.

Monday dinner It was Mia's 8th birthday and she had requested mashed potatoes and chicken.... So we had Chicken thighs with a sherry vinegar sauce (a wonderful recipe from A New Way to Cook) Mashed potatoes sugar snap pea and cannelini bean salad with lemon and EVOO Dessert: chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (per request) the only picture we got with the cake was blurred.

here is a picture yuzucha (yellow) and ume sryup (green)

Yujacha is called yuzucha in Japanese and it is really wonderful either on its own or mixed with black teas like Jason said. It is also great used in a mariande with meats of fish (similar to how a marmalade or jam would be used) and goes well in cakes. I love the ume sryup too! It is also great as an iced drink in the summer

word for 1/20: ラズベリー razuberii (rah-zoo-bay-rhee) raspberry Nearly every raspberry eaten in Jaapn is imported with the US holding 80 - 90% of the market. Of all the imported raspberries only 10% make it to the market, the rest are used in bakeries, restaurants, etc. They are hard to find outside of International type supermarkets and are quite expensive, a small container contains only about 15 to 20 berries and will cost you about $10 to $13.

If you are trying o decide what kind of miso to buy, it may be best to buy a couple small packs of different ones to see what kind you prefer. They can all be used in miso soup but a soup made with a white miso will taste completely different than that made with a red one. White miso is also usually used in dressings/sauces and for the miso grilled fish. The yellow/golden miso is sort of the all-purpose and is used most commonly in the everyday miso soup, it is also sometimes blended (at home) with a white to give it a little more kick or with a red to tone it down. The reds are used for some sauces as well, especially dengaku where it is spread on vegetables, tofu, etc and then quickly grilled, it is also common to add it to stirfry like dishes. For soups I don't really measure but for 4 people I would use about 4 cups of dashi and 1/4 cup miso, this is really personal prefernce and I may increase or lower the amount depending on the type of miso I am using. Just make a pot of dashi and add the miso tasting as you go along until you hit what tastes good to you.

here is a little I wrote about miso on the daily nihongo thread a little while ago: word for 6/26: 味噌　　みそ miso (mee-soe) fermented bean paste There are probably as many different misos in Japan as there are cities, towns and villages. There are generally three categories with many subdivisions and local varieties/ 白味噌 shiro miso, this is the white miso and is the sweetest 信州味噌 shinshuu miso, this is the yellow/golden/light brown miso that is probably the most popular, it is named for the shinshuu region (which covers Nagano and surrounding areas). 赤味噌　akamiso, this is the red or dark brown miso, it usually has the strongest flavor. Two of the most famous types are Sendai (a city in the northern part of Japan) miso and Hatchou miso, which is the reddest of the reds. misos can be smooth or chunky with the addition of additional ingredients, such as barley. Some miso talk: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...t=11690&hl=miso http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...t=18840&hl=miso http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST&f=19&t=17794&

what station is that burrito truck at? I forgot about the laundry pole trucks, they don't seem to come around as much in the winter, but in the summer they are out there daily. I mean come on, do people really hear their song and think, oh yeah I need a new laundry pole!, I have had mine for 9 news and still don't see new ones in teh recent future.... We also have a music playing truck that collects old electronic appliances. ko-iwashi vendors, that is a new one for me.....

I don't think there are ice cream trucks in Japan, I ahve never seen them or even heard of them. The yaki-imo trucks have a sort of moaning like song that just says yaaahki-iiimmoooooh, it is quite loud and can hear even you are in a house with all the doors and windows closed and are quite far away from the street. Our garbage trucks play songs too......

Sunday dinner: I didn't actually cook since I was helping a friend out at her yard sale all day but my husband made: homemade sausages cooked over the BBQ baking soda biscuits made in a dutch oven over the same BBQ bacon, cabbage and onion soup made in the dutch oven after the biscuits were done dessert: choclate ice cream bars by the way it is winter here in Japan and actually yesterday was the coldest day we have had so far this winter.

It is so nice to know I am not alone.... I want to enjoy wine, I really do, but I just don't care for the taste of it. I have friends who are very big wine drinkers and they always tell me, oh you'll love this one, but I never do. I actually can't drink most alcohol, only heavily sweetened cocktails with very little alcohol, my alcohol of choice is amaretto but only when it is cut with a lot of lime juice.... Keep suggestions coming, I always walk into a wne shop and then walk out empty handed because the selection is so overwhelming and I don't even know where to start. At least whatever I do buy doesn't go to waste because my husband will drink anything.

word for 1/19 sorry I missed yesterday had another busy day and never made it to my computer. ブルーベリー buruuberii (boo-rue-bay-rhee) Blueberry In recent years these have beoome quite popular and you can find them in most stores all year round. The Japan grown blueberries are in season mid-summer, while American blueberries (from Florida, Georgia and Oregon) show up at the same time as well as during the spring. Those from Australia and new Zealand keep Japan in supply during the winter months.

I saw this show sometime last year on Japanese tv about the "original" wandering vendors of the Tokyo area. I am not sure when it started but it was very common during the 40's to 60's and these young women would gather the vegetables from their gardens in the very early morning and then ride the train (often for a couple hours) into Tokyo. The vegetables were placed into baskets on their backs, these were quite big, 3 to 4 feet in height and weighing about 50kgs (over 100lbs). With these baskets strapped to their back they would wander the streets selling the vegetables. They had their own "neighborhood" and would visit the same place 6 days a week. They would spend a lot time in people's houses enjoying a cup of tea and a chance to remove the basket from their back. The show was talking about how this is a fading tradition and it showed some women who were still doing it even though they were well into their 80's now. This was really an incredible show and I have at times tried to find more information on this on the web, but to no luck....

We have "medicine" vendors in our neighborhood, maybe a little bit different from your friend's family. Ours gives us a kusuri-bako (medicine-box) full of various medicines and we keep it in our house and use what ever we need, then at the end of the month (or les often I am not sure since I have never used this service) they come back and check the box and you pay for what you have used and they also will refill it for you.

That is an interesting question! I quess if you did it when no one was looking it wouldn't be a problem, but I can also see the point of them not letting you for legal reasons. Hhhhmmmmmmmmmmm........ quess there is only one way to find out Let us know what happens!

They don't seem to have a homepage, but I did find this with an address and phone #: http://meguroku-net.com/interior/meguro-ot...r/p5-Lecker.htm Sounds great!