cherrypi

I haven't been to Japan in six years so I wasn't aware of this recent tabehoudai rage. Are these places different than the baikingus ("vikings", or buffet restaurants)? Has there even been a nomihoudai (all you can drink) fad in Japan as well?

The Skylon Tower at Niagara Falls. Always amuses my Japanese relatives. The Revolving Dining Room at Skylon Tower!

Lots and lots of edamame!

I enjoy "niku-jaga" (beef and potatoes). Simple, but so perfect...

At home I may have a glass of kir before dinner, but with the actual meal I prefer just water. Occasionally I'll have a beer if I've ordered take-out food like ribs, wings or pizza. At restaurants I'll have wine because someone has ordered it for the whole table, but I'm more interested in the food than the wine.

Smallworld, your recipe produced a great curry - thanks! Ground meat and tomato juice...who wudda thunk it? I also dumped in a fistful of caramelized onions (Jaymes's no-fail recipe from one of the crockpot threads). I can't believe it took me so many years to even think about tampering with orthodox Japanese curry...

If I don't have something (anything) Japanese at least once every three days, I start going batty. Senbei, Melty Kiss, a bowl of soba - anything will do. And when I cook non-Japanese meals, I often find myself preparing a pot of Japanese rice on the side.

Boss Coffee Calpis Ramune Ume-shu

Ojiya!

Saba is heavenly. Saba is sexy. Saba is luscious. Saba rocks.

I love any Japanese preparation of renkon (lotus root) or gobo (burdock). I also enjoy hakusai (Chinese cabbage) in miso soup.

Marmite/Vegemite. Chocolate-covered cherries.

From today's Los Angeles Times, a recipe using matcha... Black bass with green tea tempura

There's a popular Toronto pub that used to be called the Betty Ford, until legal threats resulted in a name change to Betty's. I no longer take out-of-town visitors there.....

In no particular order: Paula Wolfert – Couscous and Other Good Foods from Morocco [no, I haven’t tried the recipe for majoun (hash candy)!] Madhur Jaffrey - World Vegetarian Claudia Roden – New Book of Middle Eastern Food Najmieh Batmanglij - New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies Anya Von Bremzen/John Welchman - Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook Shizuo Tsjuji - Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art Hiroko Shimbo-Beitchman - The Japanese Kitchen Patricia Wells – Bistro Cooking Andre Soltner – The Lutece Cookbook Maurice & Jean-Jacques Bernachon/Rose Levy Beranbaum – A Passion for Chocolate Some of my "fun" books: Anya Von Bremzen/John Welchman: Terrific Pacific Cookbook Bradley Ogden – Bradley Ogden’s Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

When I was a kid, I used to eat this for breakfast every weekend (I don't know what the official name is; my family called it "tama-tama gohan" or "otamachan-gohan"). As I got older, I started finding the slimy, mushy egg-rice mixture really gross, not to mention I developed a paranoia about the raw egg (because it doesn't quite "cook" as it would in a carbonara). But now you've got me feeling all nostalgic - I must eat it this weekend. Matsutake-gohan is divine! Once every several years, my parents and their friends take a road trip to northern Ontario during autumn to look for matsutake in the forests. (Otherwise, my parents buy their annual stash of matsutake from a "friend of a friend in B.C.") I always wait for that phone call once a year: "You're coming over for some matsutake-gohan and pan-fried matsutake." The fragrance of the rice cooked with the matsutake is positively intoxicating.

I like just about any Japanese pickle: takuan, hakusai, umeboshi, even this packaged pickled cucumber that my mother used to buy, called "Kyuuri no Q-chan" (is it still around?). Just give me some nori and some rice to go with the pickles, and I'm a happy camper.

I find Regan Daley's In The Sweet Kitchen a valuable reference guide, as well as a source for lovely (and some unusual) recipes for desserts including cakes/pastries. The first 350 or so pages of the book are dedicated to info, info, info: explanations of baking ingredients, a chart of ingredient substitutions, a list of ingredients and compatible flavours, etc. She's thorough, but doesn't come across as anal as Rose Levy Beranbaum (whom I also like, by the way).

See Nigel Slater's article on Thai Food in the Guardian: Nigel Slater's cookbook of the month

When Hostess started producing new chip flavours like dill pickle and ketchup in the late 1970s, it was an exciting time for young'uns like me weaned on barbecue, s & v, sour cream & onion, and "regular." But Hostess lost it when they came out with their orange and grape flavours. Disgusting. It came and went so fast, I don't know if anybody remembers.

I agree! Sencha imparts a mellower flavour to desserts. I've made the green tea creme brulee from Vongerichten/Bittman's Simple to Spectacular with good results using sencha powder. (It's a good recipe, but I recommend straining out the lime zest and green tea powder.)

That reminds me of one of my first food-related memories. I was about three years old, and I had a bowl of rice and a bowl of miso soup in front of me. I thought, "I like them both, so if I combine them it would be awesome!" I dumped the rice into the miso soup, and it indeed was awesome. Emboldened, several days later I poured orange soda into my bowl of rice. Gack. Maybe that's the culinary logic that your two-year-old was following???

Unagi donburi or kaki-fry!

Kitsune and tanuki are lovely. Zaru soba rocks during the summer. I must admit that on a bitterly cold day like today (it's -18C outside!), I enjoy tossing anything into the broth: jumbo shrimp, spinach, eggs, surimi, slices of leftover roast pork. Yes, it's mongrel soba, but it gives me stamina. Occasionally, soba salad.

I have ancient stuff in my freezer that probably won't get thrown out until I move out of this house, just because they've become such an integral part of the freezer decor. I seem to have inherited my mother's "some day you will need it" sensibility. For me, throwing stuff into the freezer is like throwing stuff into the vault. There are a bunch of parmesan rinds for throwing into my next pot of minestrone (I don't particularly like minestrone, but some day I may make a batch for someone who does). About six jars of "local jams" from my parents' travels (I don't particularly like jam, but some day I may use it in a dessert...). Several end-slices of bread (you never know when you'll need to make breadcrumbs...).