torakris

what is your favorite chocolate combination? I love chocolate with either cherries or raspberries or chocolate and mint

honeydew, just honeydew ground with a litttle crushed ice. I aslo do strawberries and lime

Tuesday dinner: mackeral and satoimo (a type of taro also called field yam) simmered in a soy-sake-mirin-ginger sauce gobo (burdock root) and cucumber salad with a spicy mayo-sesame dressing daigaku-imo = Japanese sweet potatotes first deep fried and then coated with a a thick sugar syup and then rolled in almond slices (usually they are sprinkled with black sesame seeds) tomato slices sprinkled with salt Japanese rice

depending on my mood either wonton or hout and sour.

oouuchhh!

Hey, for 3 weeks one winter that was my sole job! (to make the popcorn at a car dealership) bad, bad stuff!

by the way, the most popular bread basket bread in Japan is the black sesame bread/roll, a basic hard roll filled with balck sesame seeds this is incredible! the loaves make great sandwiches, and some bakeries fill the rolls with cheddar cheese. yum!! picture of the hard roll type: http://www.onsenpan.co.jp/web/ajikurabe/goma.html edited for picture

definitely a nut and fruit bread, maybe varying the nuts and fruits week to week.

Okay, okay, raisins don't go with everything! but why do they go so well with rice? both savory and sweet? How can you not eat them sauteed with spinach and pine nuts? or in a curried couscous? or in a rice pudding?

let us count the ways! I can't imagine cinnamon rolls with out them they are an essential ingredient in raisin pie add a wonderful sweet note to various dishes especially rice dishes both sweet and savory etc etc

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! chocolate covered cherries come second only to yuke in my book! Perhaps there's a distinction to be made between cherry cordials and mere chocolate covered cherries. Kill 'em all. YEAH! And add to that ANYTHNG with artificial cherry flavor. Canned spinach. Chocolate-and-mint anything. YUCK! Skim milk. Why bother? Puffy white bread that sticks to the roof of the mouth. Cooks who turn suid to rubber. No chocolate-mint? oh, dear

I've been meaning to try out this Gelato recipe and serve it with the great looking Peach Crostada from the book the way he does. How did it turn out? Did u use a regular icecream maker or do you actually have a gelato maker ? FM I used my Delonghi gelato machine! I have to admit I really don't care for honey, so I wasn't really very impressed with it, but everyone else loved it. Definitely use a good flavored honey because that will be all you will taste.

I am in complete agreement with Vengroff. Why do people insist in using soy in such unnatural ways?

my MIL loves these, I have to admit it took me a couple years to get to that point . Everyhting I use them for has pretty much been mentioned, congee cold tofu topping plain also salady type dishes with and/or tomatoes cucumbers jellyfish shreds

with lots of small kids in the house I use a very large block set up high and never buy more knives then fit into it.

Ja ja myun is noodles with black bean sauce. A Chinese-style dish invented in Korea. ja ja myun is wonderful, back in college one of my Korean friends would make this for me almost daily, I currently have two packs of the instant one is my cupboard I know, shame on me!

some favorites of mine is US restaurants bulkalbi BBQ beef with the bone still attatched, it MUST have the bone! all of the kimchis and namuls they have to offer chijimi preferably with either seafood or kimchi (savory pancake?) the name is currently eluding me, the soup like dish of a whole chicken cooked with rice, natsume (sorry I only know the Japanese word but i think they might be called jujubes in English a kind of date) and ginseng, this is soooooo wonderful! ojingeo pokkum a stirfried squid dish with a kojuchang sauce also look for a dish (my favorite is stirfired in a kojuchang sauce) of the korean mochi, preferably the tubular ones and of course you need to start and finish the meal with yuke, and maybe one in the middle of the meal too just for the ehck of it!

yuke yuke yuke yuke yuke yuke yuke yuke

Great article and illustrations! Sorry to disagree but I am a raisin lover and would but them in close to everything it I could, unfortunately my husband and 2 daughters won't touch them. well that means more cinnamon rolls and raisinets for me!

I just checked this out! My old thermometer just broke and with grilling season upon us, I don't want to do with out it. They are impossible to find in Japan and I was going to ask my mom to look for one but she is clueless. Speaking of mom, she is the most gadgetless person I know, her kitchen consists of 2 things: a paring knife and a wooden spoon, nothing else! I bought a chef's knife and a cutting board to keep at her house for when I visit. and the thing is , she can make wonderful stuff with just those 2 things!

the very afternoon that I wrote this my MIL gave me 2 cans of spam, she was going to grill them on the BBQ? and make spam burgers but i insisted that we were too full. So she gave them to me to take home In Japan they are seen as a gourmet product and cost about $6 a can!

Spicy ground beef chili, definitely no beans or veggie chunks. Also cheddar cheese, minced onion and diced hot pepper rings. ditto

in the sushi, yes that is a quail egg.

chocolate and cherries are one of the best combinations ever! though raspberries and coconut are a close second. I will second the spam (adding all canned meat products) and non-fat products.

yuke sushi: http://www.zaq.ne.jp/v2k/asp/v2k.cgi?id=30368 I have got to give this a try!