Anna N

Thank you. The recipe does look delicious. But the thing I noticed most about it was the notation that much of it could be made ahead of time. Not sure what it is with me these days but I do like to get well ahead of my shortened battery life. 😂

I actually love Congee. I’m not knocking it but anytime I have had it in a restaurant or have made it, it has been quite bland. Not tasteless by any means but not aggressively flavoured.

“The world's largest fish market, which has been in operation for 83 years, is being moved as part of the redevelopment for the 2020 Olympic Games. The famed tuna auctions are a popular tourist attraction in the Japanese capital.” Here.

No worries. I find your style boosts my confidence and my willingness to step out of my comfort zone.

😂”Don't let inflexible ideas of authenticity get in the way of deliciousness.” Nick Kindelsperger (Chicago Tribune). I just couldn’t resist. Nice tamagoyaki!

Wow. I’ve always understood congee to be a deliberately bland food meant to comfort and/or cure those feeling somewhat under the weather. I thought it was a food suitable for the very young and very old and for those just looking for comfort. I stand corrected.

This is close to my memory of a curry my dad made.

I am reminded of a quote but I cannot find whom to credit: ”Steak so rare a good vet could bring back to life.” And my late husband’s description of how his beef should be cooked. Again I cannot find the source: ”Wipe its ass and hooves and run it through the kitchen.”

Beef short ribs, onion salsa and sweet potatoes baked with miso and maple syrup.

Not quite sure what you are saying. So far my reading suggests it is a dessert. So I can’t quite make the connection with a meatless meal. Is there a savoury version?

And that’s a bad thing? I can’t think of anything that might limit consumption better than that for children or adults.

Had to look it up. Looks intriguing.

Eggs with wasabi and soy sauce. Yep, I know those eggs are overcooked but who else makes three attempts at perfecting breakfast?😱

I should hope so. What were they thinking?

Scattered sushi based on a recipe from Japanese Homestyle Cooking. Seasoned vegetables, shredded omelet and shrimp.

I shall feel perfectly comfortable from now on referring to grapes as fresh raisins. It will not be true of course because not all grapes make raisins. But all raisins are grapes. Similarly all prunes are plums but not all plums make prunes. That’s my last word.

A simple salad of romaine, cucumber and tomato with a miso dressing and beef tataki done in the style of my favourite author, Tokiko Suzuki, who wrote Japanese Homestyle Cooking. The beef is seared and then briefly cooked, covered, in a mixture of sake and soy sauce before being cubed and served with grated fresh ginger and garlic. I gilded the lily somewhat with a smidgen of wasabi paste.

If you have experienced fresh prunes then your experience is quite obviously much, much wider than mine. Hard to argue with that. There is a move afoot by marketeers to remove prunes from the market and replace them with dried plums. Of course that is a change in name only. Should I ever run across a fresh prune I shall be delighted to taste it.

Uh? What is the botanical name of fresh prunes? They are certainly nothing I’ve ever heard of. But there are stranger things in this universe than I have imagined.

When dried they become prunes.

Plums?

Now that was just plain mean. 😂😂😂

Dieting or starving? That’s some will power or is it won’t power?

Congee with eggs and spinach. Made as part of a project I am working on.

A traditional household in Japan would have four sets of dishes one for each season of the year. These dishes are usually small and organic in either shape, colour or material. The typical Japanese meal consists of soup and three dishes along with rice. As you can see this requires five different pieces of dinnerware for each person x 4 seasons. That is a lot of dishes to store! That’s for a single person. In a formal setting the food is arranged on the selected piece of dinnerware to represent something in nature. Check this for a brief discussion: “Each food is served in a separate dish. Japanese dinner presentation can be very pretty with many dishes having different sizes, shapes, and materials (ceramics, wood, bamboo, iron, etc). A drawback is, however, you end up with a lot of small dishes to wash after dinner. You’d better have a nice American size dishwasher or husband to put to work.”