torakris

2/22: たらちり　鱈ちり tarachiri Also known as tarachiri-nabe. This is a hot pot using tara. A wonderful description and pictures

I don't watch a whole lot of Japanese tv but my kids really love the Cooking Papa animated series. It is about 10 years old but they are showing it on one of our cable channels.

2/21: どんがら汁 dongara jiru This soup is a speciality of the Shonai area in Yamagata. It is miso based made with the kan-dara. dongara jiru

The ume one was quite cheap, only 500 yen for 800g. The sakura one on the other hand was 600yen for only 300g. I haven't eaten the ume one yet but we had the sakura one on Sunday. There was a definitely noticeable sakura taste (good taste) when the noodles were eaten plain with no tsuyu but once you dipped them in the tsuyu they tasted no different than any other soba...

You can buy various meibutsu from the Hakone area at Yunessan Spa. While at the spa you can enjoy dips in pools filled with coffee, green tea or red wine. The Yunessan thread

Wonderful report, I am glad you enjoyed your trip!!

My old oven was 30L and I never had a problem perfectly roasting the 2kg+ (about 5lbs) chicken from Costco. I will have to try a turkey this year!

2/20: 寒鱈　　寒だら kan-dara This is the fatty winter tara that is only available for a short period. Some other kan ("cold") fish we discussed were kan-saba (mackeral) and kan-buri (yellowtail). Kan-dara is very popular on the Sea of Japan coast in Yamagata Prefecture, where most of it is caught. They even have kan-dara matsuri (festival) every January.

2/19: There are two other types of tara you may run across in Japan: スケソウダラ/スケトウダラ sukesou-dara/suketou-dara In English this is often referred to as Alaska pollock, Pacific pollock and a couple other names. コマイ komai This is called saffron cod in English. pictures comparing all 3 of the cods

The oven will be here tomorrow morning I can't wait to try it out! The hand mixer really bummed me out, one of the sides stopped spinning about 3 weeks ago and yesterday he other side went, It was one of those cheap 1,000 yen ones (Eupa, I think). I only had it like 2 years though, the cheap one I had before it lasted for almost 8. I REALLY want a stand mixer, but after just purchasing an oven it isn't an option. Maybe next year.... I looked at a couple hand mixers in the store and they were either 1,000 yen or 5,000 yen, nothing inbetween. Time to start researching handmixers.

Well my oven officially died and on the same day as my hand mixer.... I had been researching them a bit for the past couple weeks and decided to go with Mitsubishi RO-VF1. It has everything I am looking for 2 large-ish trays and 3 levels to place them at, it is a convection oven that goes up to 300C and it comes with a t-fal frypan (with a clip on handle). I can finally cook things on the stove and finish them in the oven. Here is a picture and information (RO-VF1) I ordered it online (as I do with almost everything now), the list price is 94,000yen and the cheapest I found in the electronic stores around my house was 62,000, online it only cost me 48,000 (shipping included). My favorite resource for buying goods online is kakaku.com (this link takes you to their page on ovens)

Last month when I was at Costco, they were passing out samples of both it plain and heated in the toaster oven. I actually preferred the heated version but admit to never doing it at home...

2/18: たら tara Pacific cod, the most common one in Japan is actually the madara ("true" cod) but you often see lables note it simply as tara. Information on the Pacific cod

one of my favorite sweet potato products hoshi-imo semi dried sweet potatoes I have been snacking on these all winter long...

I guess sometimes I forget just how big Kanagawa is... One of my favorite areas is Odawara, quite a few cultural areas, a very nice museum and lots of good food. The two biggest specialities are himono (semi dried fish) and kamaboko (fish past products). We stopped in Odawara today and pickedup some himono: kinmedai and aji Here is a nice page in English about Odawara and at the bottom you will find links to many food related museums and factories.

On our way home from Hakone we stopped in Odawara and picked up some semi dried fish. Kinmedai and aji Odawara is very famous for their himono (semi-dried) fish and I don't think I have ever been ablr to resist stopping in at least one (of the hundreds) of the shops lining the main road. I also picked up some hoshi-imo (semi dried sweet potato) which is a favorite snack of my children.

Two new noodles I picked up today in the Hakone area: Sakura (cherry blossom) soba and Ume (pickled plum) udon

I picked this up today in Hakone Sakura soba!!

I don't do really heavy workouts and if I eat anything before it is usually a banana, not for any particular reason though. After workouts I actually get cravings for certain foods, after a pilates workout I seem to crave cheddar cheese and after basketball practice I can't go to sleep until I have eaten a hard boiled egg.

I like the name caulifower fungus better than the second name they gave at that site, "brain fungus". I does look like a fresh version of shiro kikurage, does it have that same kind of bit that kikurage does or is it softer like a regular mushroom?

butter, I am about to walk out the door, but take a look at this thread. I wrote quite a bit about some of the things you are asking.

Yes, some of these choclates are expensive!! About 2 years ago a chocolaterie opened up down the street from me and I went to check it out. When I saw the prices on most were about 1,000 yen ($10) I just assumed this was for 100 g (3 1/2 ozs) as everything is sold by 100g. I picked out a couple things (some of the cheapest things) and was shocke to discover that the 1,000 yen price was per 10 g!! (that is less than 1/2oz).... I have never been back.

That is really weird, I bought my bottle a couple months ago and only have 1/4 left... I looked at about 10 websites that sell it and they have it marked as sold out. One site did say that they were expecting a new shipment at the end of March. I did a quick internet search (of English and Japanese sources) and couldn't find any reason for its disappearance. There was a red dye scare (Sudan 1) about 1 year ago that caused many products to be recalled including some worcestershire sauces but Lea & Perrins was not affected. an article about Sudan 1

Do you call them stuff? I'm going to make my versions for lunch, with other stuff. ← I guess it depends on how we are defining "stuff" I am planning something else for Saturday.....

I have been on a wakame kick lately.... wakame and alfalfa sprout salad with sesame dressing (sorry for the blurry picture)