torakris

I don't really drink alcohol (it amkes me sick very quickly! ) But I do like umeshu, slightly watered down of course. I love the Japanese vending machines, hot tea and coffee, even soups in the winter, everything cold in the summer... I aslo love CC Lemon Java tea (it seems to be coming back this year) gogo no kocha ("Afternoon" tea) mugicha the new Fanta tropical flavor grape flavored calpis

you're too pretty to think. you just let tommy do all the thinkin round here and everything will be OK. K? oooohhhh! Thank you!

So what Japanese drinks do you like? sake beer teas soft drinks juices ? ? ?

because you don't add preservatives when ya make them at home? stuff don't grow in that stuff. because it's too acidic. or something. or not. That makes sense, Thanks! I knew there had to be a reason for it, I just didn't feel like exerting my brain at the moment

Homemade pastes I freeze store bought I refrigerate not sure why

Japanese yogurt containers suck big time! The little ones are tiny (I can eat it in 4 bites) and have no lid, while the big ones (500grams) are made out this flimsy cardboard stuff with plastic lids that don't fit on them after you remove the saftey seal! They are good for nothing!

Weds dinner: potato and ground beef corroke (croquettes) served with okonomiyaki sauce gobo (burdock root) and carrot kinpira (stir fry with soy-mirin-sesame seeds) satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato) simmered with sugar and lemon Japanese rice

dried spices I use a lot, dried herbs very rarely. The only dried herbs I have in the house are an Italian mix , oregano (both Turkish and Mexican), thyme and bay leaves. I just recently purchased a bay leaf tree, so those dried ones will never see the light of day again! The other ones have their uses, mostly in long simmering sauces where the fresh ones just don't have the flavor to stand up to the long simmer. I recently gave my friend a recipe for eggplant fritters that uses a 1/4 of fresh basil, she couldn't find it and decided to subsitute 2 tablespoons of dried instead, I can't even imagine what they tasted like!

word for 5/8 脂っこい aburakkoi (ah-boo-rah--koh-ee, with a slight pause before the k) this means oily in both good and bad ways, but more often bad.

this is what himono look like: http://www.tenpiboshi.com/main/2.html

21% for natto doesn't really surprise me, it is eaten all over Japan, though it is the most popular in Kanto, Shinshu and Tohoku area (pretty much all the area next to and above Tokyo). The demographics of the survey also showed it was mostly younger people, who might pick up a pack of natto for convenience, no cooking required, sort of like cereal? I really love himono (dried fish) for breakfast especially ayu (sweet fish) or aji (horse mackeral?) For those not familiar with himono they are different then the small dried fishes used for making dashi, they are usaully larger fish, normally cut on the belly(but sometimes left whole) and opened out flat, they are then laid out in the sun to dry and are then grilled before being eaten.

maybe they eat it like my dad, butter it first and then put the jam, therefore the jam would be a given?

What is your favorite Japanese breakfast? Want to see what the Japanese really eat for breakfast? http://www.japan-guide.com/topic/0007.html

Here is an interesting of Japanese people and their favorite and most disliked sushis: http://www.japan-guide.com/topic/0106.html It is very interesting that uni (sea urchin) is #2 on both charts!

elyse, I'm agreeing with you all over the place. I almost always pepper my fries. Is that weird or something? of course it's not weird. i put pepper in the ketchup so i get a bit of pepper on each fry (otherwise, the pepper bounces off of the fries). My husband got me hooked on his way of eating fries: mix the ketchup with lots of black pepper and tabasco, dip. If there is no tabasco available(ie at McDonal's) add more black pepper.

Varmint nice to know there is someone with me in the peanut sized bladder club! When I was a senior in high school my friend and I went to Oahu for spring break and when we got off the plane in Cleveland after getting back her mom asked what we saw in Hawaii and my friend replied, "every bathroom on the island, twice!" You think it is bad now you should try getting pregnant, you don't even have time to get to bathroom when that 7 pounder is doing somersaults in there!

Tuesday dinner: 2 adults 5 kids tagliatelle with bolognese sauce (Marcella Hazan) coleslaw (using the up everything I had in my vegetable drawer)

I have yet to run across a Japanese vegetable that I don't like. I have had daikon so crunchy and juicy that it was actually dripping with its own juice and the sweetness.... kabocha quickly became my favorite squash and I often use it in Western style preparations as well. takenoko,gobo and renkon are truely some of the worlds best foods and I can never understand why they are not used more around the world. then there are the greens: komatsuna, mizuna, seri, mibuna, takana, nozawana, nanohana, etc

I use a rice cooker, along with 99% of the Japanese, and find it makes quite good rice, but you can can also make good rice quite easily on the stove. However they are many variables in the rice that can make it less then perfect each time. Things to pay attention to: All rice is different! Japanese style rice grown in the US needs a little bit more water then Japanese grown rice, because most American rice farmers use the dry field method, while in Japan everything is grown in wet fields. If the bag is marked 新米 shinmai (new crop) the rice needs a little less water as it is fresh out of the fields. When cooking more then 3 cups the water to rice proportion gets slightly less. If you like your rice a little harder (firmer) add less water, if you like it softer add more. If you are using a made in Japan rice cooker read the manual carefully to find out the size of the cup! In Japan when they are referring to a cup of rice, it is only 180cc (an American cup is 250cc), so the cup lines on the inner bowl of the rice cooker may be referring to the Japanese cup! (180cc is the old cup measure of Japan, and I think it is pretty much used only to measure rice , the common everyday cup is 200cc) Washing the rice: this is a very important step that is often over looked. the rice need to be washed until the water is no longer milky. Place the rice into a bowl (I use the bowl of the rice cooker) and add enough water so that it is covered about twice over, give it a couple swirls with your hand and then dump out the water. Next put a little water (just enough to cover the rice) and mix it around with your hand (lightly rubbing the grains together) for a good 30 seconds, pour it out and repeat until until the water is clear. this can take up to 5 minutes. Then drain the water completely or pour the rice into a colander and let sit for 30 to 40 minutes, this "rest" can make all the difference between a decent rice and a really good rice. If you are not sure of how much water to add, place your hand flat on top of the rice and the water should be just enough to cover your hand, using a little more or less for the different variables mentioned above.

word for 5/7: さっぱり sappari (sahp-pah-ree) this is very similar to word we learned yesterday, assari, it means light but in a more refreshing sense, sappari foods usually contain acid in some form from citrus to vinegar. Think of sunomonos (vinegared dishes). some sunomono: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...T&f=19&t=19462& Now you are on your way to be able to understand the comments made on the Iron Chef in Japanese!

Jason it is interesting that you mention that because it is so true of some of the more well known dishes are based on proteins with a side accent of vegetables. Tonkatsu with a side of shredded cabbage, teriyaki something or other with some misc veggies, oyakodon with a sprinkling of green onion, green peas or mitsuba for color, etc. In the everyday meals in the home those dishes would be just one small part of the meal rather then the whole meal itself. It is more common to eat vegetables just on their own, or vegetables with a small bit of protein added

I think of pepper like any other spice, it adds a little oomph to the food, either as a background flavor or out in the front depending on when and how much is used. I keep both black and white in grinders at arms reach from the stove. Some cultures use very little pepper if any at all, think of Japanese, you'd be hard pressed to find tradional dishes that use pepper.

Burdock root (gobo) is so wonderful it even had its own thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...T&f=19&t=17759& Next time you are in Tokyo, you will have to take me to dinner with you! I have never been to any of the places you mentioned!

closest i could come is between 9 and 15 kcal and 2-3.7 mg cho(carbohydrates). these are for Listerine Throat Lozenges and Halls cough tablets. source is Bowe's & Chruch's Food Values of Portions Commonly Used or call your local reference librarian goddess Oh please don't send him to me (no longer practicing -reference librarian goddess), these are the kind of questions we guffaw about after the people walk away from the desk and talk about for years!

Monday dinner: shrimp with chili sauce served on a bed or ice water crisped white onions ground pork and water chestnut saucy stirfry with hoison, chili sauce, lots of ginger and garlic scooped up with lettuce (Boston bibb) leaves cucumber sticks with inaka-miso Japanese rice