smallworld

The maker is 七尾 which I think is pronounced "Nanao". Apparently made in Fukuoka prefecture, these are fairly widely available; I've seen them in two or three of the several supermarkets in my area. As Helen says, check the "fuddy duddy" aisle. Oh, and there's a package included in the snack picture near the bottom of page 5 (it's in the top row, second to right). As for other types of senbei, you can never go wrong with age-sen (deep-fried senbei). They come in several types but the kind in that same snack picture (to the right of the peanut senbei) are a favourite. Oh, here's an idea: the snacks available at Muji (Mujirushi Ryouhin) are pretty good and well priced, and some of the packages are smaller than usual to allow for easy sampling. Happy snacking! Nice to hear from you again! And that reminds me, time to get our lunch photos up in the Japan forum...

Well, I think that's about it for this foodblog. I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to comment, your kind words were very encouraging. I'm sorry I couldn't reply to every comment and hope I didn't forget to answer any questions. If you do have questions that didn't get answers, or have an interest in Japanese food, get yourself over to the Japan forum, which is populated by people who know far more about Japanese food than I do. There is so much I didn't get around to and I think I'll have to do this again sometime. I won't post as intensively next time though, because skimming through this past week's post I'm noticing a lot of typos, awkward language, photos out of sequence, and random commas all over the place. Since it seems like only brand-new posts can be edited, all I can do is promise to proof-read next time! I now have a huge appreciation for all you other foodbloggers. Even with a home-based job, a very light workweek, and no kids I found this to be a lot of work, so I can't imagine how people with hungry kids and busy jobs find time to foodblog! Thanks to all of you who have done this before. And thanks to all of you for reading this!

Hmmm, I thought the word "snap" was a Canadian thing since I heard it a lot when I first moved here. Its like when two people say(or do) the same thing at the same time. I guess in Helen's case, its because she's eating the same breakfast as you. ← Thanks for the explanation! It very well might be a Canadian thing, but that wouldn't matter because I've lost so much of my vocabulary over the years. Especially slang and fun stuff like that (although I'm ashamed to say that I still say"doh!" and have even got my husband doing it). Nothing! Sorry to confuse you - Snap is a very simple card game - you just put cards down, and if two cards of the same value are laid down consecutively, the first person to say "Snap!" scoops the pile. So the "snap" breakfasts were the ones that resembled ours, but your weekend one went way above and beyond our breakfast! Kakeibo - I don't keep one at the moment, but after keeping one for a while, I kind of know that I can afford to spend x amount on meat/fish per week, x amount on vegetables, etc. There's a freebie Japanese software program called Gamaguchi too. I had one from an Eiyou to Ryouri magazine that had columns for "staples" (starches), "dairy and other proteins" and "vegetables", "condiments (from oil and salt to sauces and herbs)" "pleasure eating" (! beer and snacks??) and "eating out". They had some great chart in the back indicating the average spending for each category, Engels index, etc etc. I could never do that longterm, but tracking snack foods and drinks and eating out as separate categories was useful. Maybe that's why people don't buy fruit much here - because they want to keep their "snack" category spending down? I observe one or two receipts from GEO in there, so extravagant! ← So did hanami originate in China just like the ume did? The brown stuff is just potato skin. These were called new potatoes but were the biggest new potatoes I've ever seen, and maybe the biggest any kind of potatoes I've seen in Japan. They were similar to russet or yukon gold but the package simply said "shin jaga" and I haven't seen them since so I have no idea what variety they were. Sad because they were good. OK, I get the snap thing now! So I guess you don't eat Japanese for breakfast either? Coincidentally, my student this morning showed me here kakeibo that has the same detailed categories that you mentioned. I couldn't imagine picking apart all my receipts and trying to determine what item belonged to what category. I do hope that after a few years of doing this it will start to come naturally, and I'll be able to budget in my head like you do. And yes, we rent a few DVDs a week but it's hardly extravagant compared to the cost of going to the movies or getting cable TV. Unfortunately we've gone through all of the English movies at the local rental places and now have to watch TV series; fortunately there are some pretty good shows. Is it just me or has American TV gotten way better in the past decade? Well that proves it, great minds think alike. Okonomiyaki is a great throw-together meal, isn't it-- what kitchen doesn't have cabbage and flour? 12 years of kakeiboing! Here I was thinking 2 months was something to be proud of. I changed my kakeibo categories around each week for the first month or so and think I finally have ones that make sense. Without a car and kids I really don't need many, and I also ignore big chunks of the book, so I may just go ahead and make my own next year.

Can you describe how you make this? It sounds like something my husband would love. ← Yes, I love love the short winters here, and really really love how flowers bloom all year long. Buta no negimaki is the simplest form of nikumaki (meat rolls). Just lay out thin slices of pork (or beef), sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay hoso-negi (thin negi), which have been cut to size, on the slices (the leanest end is best). The roll the meat tightly around the negi and add to a hot, oiled pan with the end of the roll down (to seal it shut). Brown, splash with mirin and soy sauce, cook until liquid is absorbed and meat is cooked (you may have to cut one open to check). There are endless variations. You can add more liquid, like dashi and sake, and give it a longer braise. You can use any long thin vegetable, or any vegetable that can be cut long and thin. Asparagus, green beans, enoki mushrooms, sliced carrots or nagaimo are all good, and it's also nice to roll up a shiso leaf with each roll. Not a weird question at all, people here ask that all the time. We use Japanese for really easy stuff and aisatsu (greetings) and other set phrases that don't have real equivalents in English (like sayint "itadakimasu" before eating). For regular conversations we do a mish-mash of both languages, and often I will speak Japanese and he will reply in English. But serious conversations are English only, as his English is far better than my Japanese. Thank you for all of your lovely comments! And for the Shogun reference, as I haven't it in ages. Now that I think about it, my interest in Japan probably started when I saw the miniseries as a kid.

Sarensho asked a while back about food-related changes in the past decade here, and I forgot to mention one of the biggest changes of all: coffee. Starbucks wasn't here when I first came and I had a terrible time trying to find espresso-based coffees. I once ordered a "cappuccino" at a kissaten and was served a tiny little cafe au lait and charged 1600 yen for it. The situation was so bad that my mother actually shipped me a cappuccino maker. I was thrilled when Starbucks came, not because I was a Starbucks fan but because it meant I could finally find Italian style coffees. Starbucks' popularity was partially responsible for coffee war among the major cafe and fast food chains, and the price of coffee all over Japan went down and in many cases the quality went up. Kissaten, which were already dying out, started closing down at a faster rate. I admit I'm not very sad to see them go. "Kissaten", for those outside of Japan, means "coffee shop" but especially refers to independantly owned places that specialize in producing a fine cup of coffee. Usually the coffee is served in fine china or quirky cups and there is often a them to the place, like the "antique kissa" decorated with, or selling, antiques, or the "jazz kissa" that plays old jazz records. The trouble is that the coffee was always expensive and not always great, and the staff were often not very hospitable to non-regulars. Now coffee shops have less personality but (arguably) better coffee, cheaper prices, and friendlier staff. There are also more non-smoking coffee shops, or at least coffee shops with non-smoking floors, and this is mostly due to Starbucks' no smoking policy. Starbucks is now present in 45 prefectures (only Aomori is without one) and city centres are just as saturated with their outlets as North American cities are. I believe for several years their busiest and most profitable stores have been in Japan, first the Shinjuku South Terrace outlet and now the Shibuya Crossing store.

Helen, I just have to ask: what does "snap" mean (I actually looked it up the first time you used it but it seems to be one of those words that can mean anything)? And what was wrong with my other breakfasts? My husband also makes oshiruko. He has a much bigger sweet tooth than I do! Yes, the fuddy-duddy section! Excellent description of the aisle that sells the boring or weird old-fashioned stuff that I never ever buy. Except for these. That's funny about the kakeibo. I admit I'm finding it a big drag but I'm not giving up, as I really do need to get a handle on our finances. We spend way to much money on food, as you can see, and any extra money we save is spent on visits back home. We realized that's not a good way to live when my husband found himself unemployed for three months last year, right after I'd spent all my savings on a trip home. So a kakeibo is totally necessary and I'll do it for as long as I have to. No shame in not grinding your own beans. I gave it up after buying a bur grinder and realizing it was no better than a blade grinder. Now I buy my coffee a few times a month and the place I buy it from grinds it there. And that's good enough for me! And nothing wrong with drinking Folgers! My family used to, and the empty can was always put to use gathering bacon fat. My father and brother have since switched to fancier stuff (I wonder what they do with bacon fat?) and my mother now drinks instant only. She says she prefers the taste and will actually refuse a cup of better coffee, but I think it's also, like you and your Folgers, a nostalgia thing. I like the way you put that. Have you never done hanami for ume? Highly recommended if the weather is right, since the crowds are much better than for sakura. I think our rice cooker came with a plastic shamoji (my husband bought this a few years before we married so I'm not sure) but I never use it. The bamboo one just looks so much nicer! There was a time when I tried to use traditional wooden tools for everything, but I had to give some up when I realized how hard to clean they were. Now my otoshibuta (drop lid) is metal and our oke (bath bucket) is plastic. The fuki was seasoned with dashi and a touch of soy sauce and sake. Absolutely no mayo on the broccoli! We both hate the stuff. Actually I no longer hate it but will only tolerate a little bit of it mixed up into something. I could never eat it alone as a condiment.

For our last foodblog dinner my husband cooked his specialty, okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is a savoury pancake originating in Osaka, where he is from. Okonomiyaki has a Hiroshima version but of course my husband stays true to his roots and cooks it Osaka-style. Ingredients are flour, instant dashi powder and baking soda; chopped cabbage; benishouga (pickled ginger); tenkasu (fried tempura batter); eggs; Chinese noodles; and grated yama-imo (mountain yam). They are all mixed together to make the batter. In our house okonomiyaki at the table on our teppan (table-top grill), and we usually start with a bit of teppanyaki. Here we have oysters (sold shucked) and jagaimo mochi (potato mashed with starch to make a chewy patty). Condiments are chuuno sauce (similar to Worcestershire), soy sauce, aonori seaweed flakes, katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and butter. The oysters are sauteed in butter and finished with soy sauce. Behind them is the jagaimo mochi. Regular okonomiyaki. This has slices of pork on the bottom, and is about to be drizzled with the chuunou sauce and sprinkled with the aonori and katsuobushi. The jagaimo mochi in front is nearly done: it should be golden brown and crisp on the outside, soft and chewy inside. Next up is modan-yaki, which is okonomiyaki with noodles that have been fried in the sauce with a little salt and pepper. The noodles are placed on top of the okonomiyaki, more okonomiyaki batter is poured over the noodles, then pork is placed on top. Then it is all flipped over so the other side can cook. He can flip this triple-decker without a single strand of noodle falling out of place, which is a pretty amazing skill in my opinion. When the pork is cooked it is all flipped again, and drizzled with the same sauce and toppings as before. The finished modan-yaki is cut into halves or quarters and served, and it's very hard to wait until it cools down before digging in-- I sometimes end up burning my tongue. It is totally worth it. And now I'm off to bed. There are still some questions I haven't answered, and I need to give a proper thanks for all the wonderfull comments, but those pre-dawn earthquakes can really tire a girl out. I hope it's not cheating if I finish this up tomorrow morning-- it will still be Sunday for most of you anyway, right? Good night!

For lunch I made a hanami bento (flower viewing lunch box) to bring to the local park: Bottom left compartment: fuki (butterbur) simmered with carrots; cherry tomatoes; teriyaki scallops; takuan (daikon piclkles); buta no negimaki (long onion wrapped with pork); brocolli; soramame (fresh fava beans). The next compartment has some of the same things plus udo (leftover from two nights ago) and tsukune yaki (sauteed chicken patties wrapped in nori and shiso). Above that is dessert: strawberries, apples (including my first ever "usagi ringo", or apple slices cut to look like rabbits) and segments of dekopon, a tangerine-like citrus. The bento boxes must be about a decade old and were free from Mr Donuts. I badly need cuter ones but I don't make bento often enough to justify the expense. These are onigiri (rice balls), one type made of rice mixed type with salmon flakes and the other with plain rice stuffed with mentaiko (spicy cod roe). We found a good spot near a small grove of ume (Japanese apricot) trees and this was our view. Hanami (flower viewing) is more strongly associted with sakura (cherry blossoms), and sakura are far more popular than ume. It's true ume don't look as impressive from a distance as sakura, but the individual flowers are just as pretty and also have a soft sweet fragrance, which sakura don't have. Sakura also bloom when the weather is a bit warmer which is more condusive to hanami picnics, but if the weather is nice enough there's no reason not to celebrate ume as well. Luckily today was a lovely warm, sunny day. To drink with our bento there was amazake in the thermos, sake in the bottle and water in the portable coffee mug (there must be a name for those that I'm forgetting). We took our time eating and drinking, taking breaks to people-watch or take pictures of the flowers. The park was crowded with families who were picnicking and enjoying one of the first really nice spring-like days of the year. Everybody came to see the ume trees and snapped pictures, held fat-cheeked babies up to see the blossoms, and let their dogs pee on the trunks (not so nice while we were eating). And although my husband didn't consent to having another picture taken, he did take one of me: Kampai!

Thanks Peter Green and Domestic Goddess. The katakana actually says "cho unma" (the small "tsu" at the end is silent) and is very similar to the Japanese "chou umma" or "chou umai". On the back it does say that's the original pronunciation and meaning of the Korean but I was a bit suspicious because it's quite a coincidence. But the languages do have some similarities so I guess it shouldn't be such a surprise. Since Domestic Goddess hasn't seen them is it correct to assume that "anju" are mostly consumed by men?

For breakfast, french toast, butter maple bananas, yogurt with strawberries. After breakfast my husband helped with the dishes and then took a turn in front of the stove. Both activities are fairly rare but he used to help out more when he worked at home. Here he is making amazake, a hot drink made of sake lees and flavoured with sugar and ginger. He wears a cap while cooking as a sort of hairnet and will probably kill me when he finds out I've uploaded this picture. Send help if you don't hear from me within three hours. While he made the amazake I gathered up the receipts for the week and updated my kakeibo (household budget book). This is the first year I'm doing this and I have no idea if I'm doing it right, as I can't really understand the instructions. So I'm just using it in a basic way to get a sense of how much we spend on stuff. Neither of us are very good with money and if you asked me how much, say, our monthly food bill or average electricity bill is I would have no idea. So hopefully this will help me understand our spending patterns and eventually point us to where we should start cutting back.

Jelly rolls? Ever since I've been here Japan has been enamored by high end pastries. I don't know how it compares to those of Europe but the stuff here is a million times better than back home in Canada. They look good, taste good, have a good (low) level of sweetness, and often reflect the seasons. The two we bought were actually among the plainest in the shop-- there were exotic flavours like yuzu and some very fanciful constructions. I don't know much about the history and am not hugely into cakes and desserts, but this thread in the Japan forum might be of interest to you.

Oh yeah, I remember that thread. I was just so shocked to hear that sushi wasn't just about super-fresh raw fish slapped onto rice, and had trouble understanding the meaning of "Edomae zushi". The chef didn't actually talk about hirame yesterday, that was just my own observation. I do know that when I've tried the very fresh, chewy type of hirame I've wished it was less chewy but liked it nonetheless. But trying hirame yesterday I thought that I never want to eat the fresh kind again. Maybe it's better to think of them as separate foods and enjoy them in them both in different ways. That's a great idea and I'd love a proper end-grain cutting board (didn't know you could get rubber legs for them). The problem is that they are not easy to find here, too heavy to bring from home, and storage could be a problem. Or do people just leave them on the counter all the time? That's what my mother does, but I worry about keeping it clean that way. I really do think certain foods are way better at home. It doesn't exactly make me reluctant to eat out, but it does mean that I tend to choose things that I can't/don't make at home. And I do like to splurge more on good ingredients than expensive restaurant meals. The fuki will show up later today and I did like the France-pan koubou. I'd never seen it before and thought it was brand-new. Has it already showed up in your house? I had to laugh at this: "do you just toss the little bag in the laundry when you come home?". If I did that I wouldn't see the bag again for weeks! Not having kids, and with a husband who wears a suit most of the week, laundry is not a daily thing for me. I just let it pile enough until there's enough for each type of load, and towels/linens (the category that the chopstick wrap belongs to) is the most infrequently washed. So I only wash my chopstick wrap about once a month, at which time the chopsticks get a proper washing as well. I should probably do it more often but I only actually use them about once a week and at that time I'll wash them with water and a napkin or with an oshibori. Maybe not the most thorough cleaning, but hey- they're my own germs anyway! So you use "my hashi" as well? Do you ever get strange looks or comments? I've had restaurant workers who just didn't get it, and one even brought out a fancier pair of disposable chopsticks for me, thinking I was snubbing the cheap kind that were at the table. Oh god, don't get me going about American commercial strawberries. Surreally large lumps of vaguely berry-flavored cellulose. Even when I've bought them at a farmer's market or a U-pick farm, all I get is slighly fresher, slightly more flavorful lumps of cellulose. And the goofiest thing of all is that I keep buying 'em. ← So even actual Americans think their strawberries suck? I had kind of assumed that the imports we get from you had simply lost something on the journey and that they'd be good when they were fresh. Or that the tasteless ones are for export and you keep the good ones for yourselves. Are there no good, locally grown berries in America at all? Folgers comes in plastic?? Putting pieces of broken glass and ceramics into a sturdy container is actually what you're supposed to do here too. And then clearly mark the package with "kiken" (dangerous). As a world-class klutz, I'm kind of an expert in that department.

Nattou, or natto, tastes a taste that's hard to describe, but I think it's beany, nutty and cheesy. It also has a strong smell that is cheese-like in its stinkiness. I'm a bit fuzzy on what exactly is healthy about it, but I think you're right that it's largely the fermentation, which apparently creates good-for-you enzymes and stuff. It's also because they are beans, especially soybeans, which are already healthy. And the slime is good too as sticky foods have something in them that's good for the blood. Sorry I can't be more specific, but I'll direct you to the natto thread for more info. Good question! This was a long time ago, before I knew anything about Japanese food, but I think Hiroyuki is right in that it was tempura: dipped in batter and deep-fried. Still no idea how the little nattou bundles were kept together while dipping and frying. The bundles did have a band of nori seaweed around them which might have helped a bit, but still. Can't be an easy food to deep-fry! I didn't even know what a meoto jawan was until now! I bought this very early in my stay here, at the Tokyo station Daimaru. I remember going on a mad spree there, buying dishes and kitchen implements at random without really knowing what they were or that there were far cheaper place to buy them. So this is a female? I usually give this to my husband to drink from, and apparently he doesn't know any better than I do! I think I'll keep my eyes open for a male partner so I can finally complete the set.

A minor earthquake woke me up at 6:15 this morning. Luckily it was small enough that it had stopped by the time I was fully awake, because I've become quite frightened of tremors and usually take a long time to calm down after one hits. Last night we skipped dinner and went straight to the snack fest. We started with the Sakura-shio (cherry blossom salt) flavoured potato chips, which are a kigen gentei (seasonal, limited time only) product. They tasted of salt with only a slight whiff of sakura fragrance-- not bad, but if we'd wanted plain chips we would have bought them. The Ume-katsuo flavoured chips (forgot to take a picture but I posted a photo of the package yesterday) were way better and had great ume (pickled plum) and katsuobushi (bonito flakes): smoky, salty and sour. We will try to grab these again before they disappear. On the right is Fransu-pan Koubou (baguette workshop?), which is a chip-like snack made of very thinly sliced french bread baked until crispy. This one is caramel flavoured and was good with an excellent texture but just a bit blah-- not sweet enough to be a sweet, not salty enough to be a chip. I'd like to try the other flavours: sugar, butter, and garlic butter. These are deep-fried chili peppers with peanuts. Pretty damn hot, though my tolerance for spice has gone way down since coming to Japan. The name of the product is "Cho unma", which is supposedly what the Hangul characters mean, but this product is made in China and the name sounds suspiciously close to the Japanese expression for "crazy delicious". Do these actually exist in Korea or elsewhere? I don't really care, because they are indeed crazy delicious. Beside it are peanut senbei. Senbei, or sembei, are often translated as "rice crackers" and indeed they are often just that, but can really be any kind of crisp Japanese style wafer/cracker/cookie type thing. These ones have cookkie-like ingredients and are light (as in lots of air bubbles) and very crisp, almot hard. There are many types of peanut senbei ranging from rock-hard to cookie-like but this brand is our favourite and we always have a package in the house. Now it's time to get to work on today's lunch. Two bento (lunch box) cookbooks, and a regular cookbook written by a student of mine (it's actually out to plan meals for next week, not today). I made bento for my husband's lunch for a brief period after we got married, but they generated so much interest among his coworkers that he eventually asked me to stop. They would all hover around him when he opened his lunch and inspect my handiwork, amazed that his new foreign bride could actually cook. My husband just couldn't take the scrutiny. Making his lunch had been a real money saver and was great for helping me learn Japanese cooking but I was relieved to quit doing it because it was a lot of work. So it's been years and years since I regularly made bento and I am way out of practice.

Some ingredients for tomorrow's lunch: Strawberries. I eat them as much as I can when they're in season (which is winter and spring since most of them are from greenhouses) even though I don't think they are nearly as good as the strawberries from back home. They are plenty sweet, at least the good ones, but I find that the sweetness comes at the expense of actual strawberry flavour and fragrance. They are also hard, sometimes almost crunchy, which is good in that they don't bruise easily and keep very well, but bad in that STRAWBERRIES AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE CRUNCHY! Sorry for all-caps but this is something I feel strongly about. I realize that not everyone agrees and Japanese strawberries have plenty of fans, and I could be guilty of looking back at Canadian strawberries with rose-tinted glasses. I do admit that the strawberries I had on a visit home last summer weren't as good as I remembered, but then again it was late July and the very tail end of the season. I could go on and on about the strawberries but this blog is plenty long as it is so I'll spare you the rant. I will admit that when strawberries here are good they are really, really good. It's just a bit different from how I think a strawberry should be. These cost 298 yen which is quite cheap (400 or 500 yen is the norm, and I've seen a box of half a dozen or so very large perfect strawberries sold for 5000 yen). Soramame (fresh fava beans). These are sold in the pod, which is lined with a soft and cushiony fuzz that I'd love to make a mattress out of. Soramame are a spring vegetable, and this is the first time I've seen them. The pods are a little small-- at their peak there will be three or four beans in each one. Fuki (butterbur), another spring vegetable. These came cut up but I was hoping to find these whole, as they come as a long stock with a lily-pad like leaf. It looks pretty and also the leaves are edible. They are similar in looks to rubarb or celery, but have are hollow at the centre like a straw. They are extremely stringy and like many spring vegetables have aku (bitterness) that needs to be removed. To do that you rub them well with salt (in the process giving your hands a nice exfoliation), boil them briefly, then shock them in ice water. After that the remaining strings are peeled off. I just put the cutting board up on top of an old drying rack, as suggested by you lovely readers. My back is singing with joy and I feel like such an idiot for not trying this earlier. Thank you! I think all the preparation involved in fuki and other sansai (mountain vegetables) is the main reason why many western cuisines have largely stopped using wild vegetables. They are a lot more work than yasai (cultivated vegetables) but have such fresh, delicate flavours and give such a sense of season that it's very that nobody knows what they are anymore. I actually found fuki growing wild when I went home a few years ago, but no amount of salt-rubbing and boiling could make them edible. Probably far too late in the season (June) but maybe the type was a little different. Time for cake, which we eat cake every few months or so. Any more often and we'd get too used to it, and cake is not a habit we need. The cakes and pastries here are just so amazingly good compared to those in North America. I didn't even like cake before I came here. I'm still really picky but have, for good or bad, found plenty to like here. These ones are from Planetes, which sells its wares in top-class depachika (department store food basements) but makes it all right here in my neighborhood. I normally avoid any kind of sweet gooey stuff like custard and whipped cream, but everything I've had here is amazing and has just the right level of sweetness and goo. My cake has strawberries, whipped cream, flaky pastry, strawberry jelly, custard cream and more pastry. His is some kind of chocolate mousse stuff filled with cream, with chestnut glace and walnuts. He reports his cake was excellent, as was mine. Our basic weekend snacks are popcorn, popped on my whirly-pop thingie which at first I thought was the silliest thing in the world but is totally worth the cupboard space it takes up, and pretzels, from a giant Costco bag which will apparently last us the rest of our lives. Those staples are supplemented with the occasional package of sembei (rice crackers), potato chips and the like. I'd love to describe them all but it's 9:15 for god's sake, and I need to get off the computer. Will take pictures of anything we open, and try to get them posted tomorrow. Can't believe there's just one day left of this!

The first jinchouge (sweet daphne) blossoms popped open this week in front of our building. I smelled them before I could see them and just the fragrance brought happiness and relief: spring is really here. There are a few early spring flowers that bloom before this but only jinchouge truly indicates that winter is finally over. On the way to lunch we saw this old man walking his cat. Certainly not something you see every day around here! We ate at Kantarou-zushi, our favourite sushi restaurant. We're not exactly regulars (the last time we were there was for my birthday a year and a half ago) but have been going occasionally for years. It is quite near our current apartment but before we moved we would happily come by bike, the 40 minute ride being well worth it. I showed a picture of the exterior yesterday and wanted to get a some shots of the interior and the chef, but today when I asked he declined to give permission. He has very strong opinions on every subject (and is not afraid to air them-- he even dissed Jiro and Kyube, two of the most famous sushi restaurants in Tokyo) and went on a bit of a tirade about how the food was the main event and he as the chef is not important at all. He is very friendly and extremely good at what he does, but man he does he ever like to talk. That's the only thing wrong with this place though so we don't mind very much. We were also quite please that the chef and his wife (who works just as hard as her husband, doing all the non sushi making work) remembered us. There are only two places, including this one, where we are greeted with "Maido!" which literally means "every time" and is a welcome for regulars only. It feels nice. My husband threw all caution to the wind and decided to drink, so we started with a large bottle of Kirin Ichiban shibori-- I prefer Ebisu but am not picky about beer at all. The chopsticks are my own, and they are resting on their chopstick wrap. "My hashi" ("my chopsticks", or portable, reusable chopsticks) are used by a very small but growing number of people who have realized how wasteful disposable chopsticks are. I'd like to see "my hashi" used by everyone but I don't think they will truly take off until Louis Vuitton comes out with a designer chopstick holder. This is our otoshi, an appetizer that is automatically served when you order alcohol. Sometimes it is free but at this place and most others you have to pay for it, despite not asking for it. I don't like the custom but when I tried this maguro (tuna) and toro (tuna belly) lightly marinated in soy sauce, I had no complaints at all. Perfect fish, perfectly seasoned. A better look at the toro. Normally I can't eat it by itself, preferring it as sushi since the the seasonings in the sushi rice seem to help cut the grease. But this wasn't overly greasy at all, just sweet and rich and delicious. This plate of sushi was omakase (chef's choice) and cost 2000 yen (there are cheaper options including a 1200 yen lunch on weekdays). From back left: ikura (salmon roe), tobiko (flying fish roe, not really visible), tamagoyaki (thick omelete), tekkamaki (cucumber and tuna roll). Front: o-toro (the fattiest and best grade of toro), hirame (flounder), ama-ebi (sweet shrimp, raw), chuu-toro (medium grade toro), unagi no shirayaki (salt-grilled eel), kani (crab, cooked). Ama-ebi is another thing I can't normally eat as it is too sweet and rich and can leave an unpleasant aftertaste. This was totally delicious though. The unagi was a nice treat too, as it is usually grilled with a thick sweet sauce which I don't really think matches sushi well. This sauce-free version really let the flavour of the unagi come through, and it was surprisingly nice with the sushi rice. The hirame was amazingly soft, the result of the chef's "shigoto". Literally "work", shigoto refers to the preparation of the fish, and there's more of it than you'd think. He dismisses most sushi today, saying "it's just raw fish on rice!", and is very proud that he takes the time to do things like marinate the fish with kombu (kelp) and other seasonings, or cook it, or even age it when necessary. The hirame is a great example, because I've had sushi elsewhere made of extremely fresh hirame-- the fish was plucked from a tank and butchered right before my eyes-- and although it tasted fresh it was unpleasantly firm and chewy. At Kantarou-zushi mere freshness isn't enough, and the hirame had a wonderfully subtle yet deep flavour that the fresh version lacks, and was so soft it almost melted on my tongue. The toro, both types, were also really good, but that's kind of a given. I think these also had some kind of "shigoto" done to them, but am not sure what. I actually eat tuna of any form very rarely, at first because of overfishing but now the apparently high mercury levels recently discovered in some tuna is a big concern. I know eating it in small amounts once in a while won't hurt me, but as a food that is already expensive and close to being fished out of existence it's an easy choice to avoid it. However, an occasional indulgence is quite nice. We were given this o-suimono (clear soup) free. It is ara-jiru (soup made of fish scraps), maybe made with buri (yellowtail) or a similar fish. It was full-flavoured but in an amazinly refined and elegant way for something made of scraps (does that even make sense? some of this stuff is just so hard to describe properly). I like ara-jiru and often make it at home, but I can only dream of cooking something like this myself. We were happy with what sushi the chef had served but really wanted two of our favourites from this place: tako no yawaraka-ni (soft-braised octopus) and kohada (gizzard shad). The octopus is so amazingly soft I can't even believe it's octopus, but the flavour confirms that it is (and that's a good thing if you are a cephalopod lover). The kohada is one of the things that my husband can only eat here, as the amount of vinegar used to marinade it is much less than usual. Everything was excellent but if forced to choose favourites I'd say the hirame, o-toro and kohada were best, with the unagi and tako no yawaraki-ni coming close. The total bill was 6410 yen, a little more than I'd wanted to pay but very good value nonetheless.

Breakfast: Green tea and wagashi (Japanese sweets). This was supposed to be dessert last night but we were too stuffed, and since wagashi doesn't keep long we had to finish it up quick. On the left is mame daifuku, which is anko (sweet azuki bean paste) wrapped with mochi (sticky rice cake) with whole beans (don't know what type). Beside it is kusamochi, which is the same bean paste wrapped in mochi flavoured with yomogi (mugwort, a springtime herb). On the other plate is kohaku doumyouji, a springtime wagashi similar to sakura mochi. It consists of two seperate pieces of anko-stuffed sticky rice, wrapped with a preserved cherry leave and garnished with a preserved cherry blossom. The contrasting textures (slightly chewy mochi, soft anko, firm beans) and flavours (sweet anko, slightly bitter yomogi, salty cherry leaf and blossom) are very nice.

No parrot, our building doesn't allow pets. I've always thought I'd get a cat if allowed, despite heavy allergies, but after playing with some parrots and other birds at a bird park last summer I want a bird! They're wonderful little creatures. No idea, I'm not a baker at all. But kare pan has always struck me as being very similar to piroshki (or at least Japan's version of piroshki). Maybe you could find a recipe for piroshki dough and stuff it with a thick mild curry? No, but concern for the environment is growing slowly. And the Japanese still have a big frugal streak, consuming far less waste and energy than North Americans. Despite my complaints about over packaging, the average family's garbage output is quite small. I remember feeling great shame at the huge bags of garbage I was lugging out while the neighborhood housewives were carrying these tiny little bags. Still don't know how they do it. People here are also in the habit of heating or cooling only the rooms being currently used (and even then not very much) and central heating is still rare. I hate being cold in the winter and am still trying to get used to it, but I have to admit it's admirable. Now, THAT I would LOVE! I occasionally go with Chris to his favorite sushi place, and love watching that ballet betwixt fish and knife and all the garnishes and fillings. I do not eat there, but with the fruit bar, it would be the entire experience. Is it possible to have pictures from one? ← I'm afraid not, and to get pictures I'd have to go into central Tokyo, which I didn't have time for this week. So do you not eat sushi? I've heard that soap can gunk up the innards of the toilet but I have seen soap used with this type, usually ancient toilets in old izakaya and restaurants. I'd rather wash right there with soap and cold water than just rinse in the water or go elsewhere to wash properly. The longer I live in Japan the more I want to move back to Canada. I really miss my family and the place itself. I do love Japan and still find the daily challenges of living here extremely stimulating but I also sometimes feel that I just want to, well, live. I no longer need constant adventure, and I certainly can't picture growing old here. My husband likes Canada in the summer but hates winter and also worries about finding a job. He really likes Southern California and would settle there in a second if work and visas weren't a problem. No matter where we live, one of us will be away from the family, friends and culture we grew up with. This is a dilemma faced by every international couple and I'm not sure how things will end up.

I thought you you were going to show us some junk food. Your shabushabu still looks healthy. I like udo, too, but I like real, wild ones much better. ← I was, but we were too full after dinner and ended up going to bed early. Happens often. Don't worry though, the weekend is just getting started! To answer and earlier question, I have no plans to make onsen tamago but who knows. I haven't fully mastered the technique and I never what I'm going to get when I crack open the egg. Sometimes it's a hard-boiled egg, sometimes raw, and occasionally it's an onsen tamago! The regular stove-top directions are not hard to follow but the problem is I'm trying to find a low energy way to do it, like in a rice cooker already on warm or in a thermos.

This morning I took out the moeru gomi (burnable garbage, meant for the incinerator). Garbage is collected five days a week in my area, in the mornings. Garbage is not put in front of every house but instead each block has a central collection area-- usually in front of someone's house. Some areas have a garbage committee of housewives who keep the area clean and make sure people throw away their garbage correctly, in other areas it's up to the family (or more correctly, the lady of the house: garbage disposal is usually the wife's job) who lives at the garbage collection site. Garbage should be disposed of in the morning before 8:30. Night time disposal is frowned upon or outright banned because cats and other night time creatures will get at it and cause a huge mess. Luckily my apartment building has a covered disposal area and nobody bothers us if we occasionally throw stuff away the night before, and the garbage trucks don't actually come until late morning, so I don't have to hurry out with the garbage every morning. At my last apartment the rules were strictly enforced and the garbage trucks came right at 8:30. The garbage schedule is as follows: Tuesday: paper recycling, plastics (only plastics stamped with the correct mark) Wednesday: burnable garbage (kitchen scraps, fabric, leather, rubber, and unidentifiable plastics) Thursday: non burnable garbage (metal, broken glass and ceramics, small electronics, light bulbs) Friday: plastic bottle, glass bottle and can recycling (each gets a separate bin) Saturday: burnable garbage. My area is became a test area for a new category of garbage, plastics. Apparently Tokyo's landfill will only last another 30 years so the government needs to divert some of the non burnable garbage elsewhere, and plastics were the sensible solution: fully recyclable and also burnable in modern incinerators. Above is the new guide to throwing away garbage. I have a few students in my area who are complaining loudly about the new rules, as before they just threw the plastic away in the burnable garbage (which was a mistake anyway, as plastic was supposed to go out with the non burnable garbage). I'm not crazy about having to find a place in the house to store a new category of garbage but I think the new rules are good, especially if the plastic actually does get recycled. Who knows though. On the back of the guide is a Q&A with one of the questions asking what the plastic will be recycled into (couldn't understand the answer). The next question asks if plastic is safe to incinerate (the answer is yes, of course). So I have a feeling that the latter will happen more often than the former. Here is a guide to properly disposing of instant ramen packaging and yogurt drinks. Complicated stuff. Hopefully complicated enough to discourage people from buying that crap. We haven't bought regular instant ramen in years, since discovering the "non cup noodle". It is the same as regular instant ramen except that it comes in a little pouch instead of a big styrofoam bowl. You just open the noodles and broth into your own bowl and pour in hot water as usual. It stuff is only available at the health food store, sadly. Regular supermarkets and convenience stores usually have an entire aisle dedicated to instant ramen in styrofoam bowls. We were excited last year to see this product: Cup Noodle Refill(Japanese link). Here is a short video showing how it works (it's in Japanese but the visuals are so thouroughly easy to understand that it's almost spoof-like). A local supermarket started selling the refill pouches of noodles and we bought a few, assuming the cups were just sold out and we could buy them afterward. When we still couldn't find them days later we asked a clerk and were informed that the store doesn't sell the cups! Unsuprisingly the refill pouches eventually disappeared from the shelves and I have never seen this product again. The website is still up though so it must be sold somewhere. I really hope it eventually catches on.

Beef was on sale today and I went a bit nuts. Here we have two kinds of Iwate-gyu, a "brand" of beef from Iwate in northern Japan: kata-rosu (shoulder roast?) and sankaku-bara (not sure what this cut is in English, but it's the coral coloured triangle in this diagram). The pork is kurobuta-bara (Berkshire pork belly), my favourite meat in the world. A closer at the sankaku-bara. I usually use pork for shabushabu because it's much cheaper than beef, which we only eat a few times a year. I also prefer the flavour of pork, but I certainly don't mind good wagyu once in a while, and this blog was a good excuse to buy it. This is udo, a kind of sansai (wild mountain vegetable) and a sign of spring. It is often described in English as similar to asparagus or fennel. I've never tried fennel and I don't think udo tastes like asparagus; to me udo is like very fresh celery dipped in honey. It is tender, crisp and quite nice looking. It is all edible but as the skin is course and strong and a bit bitter the skin is usually cooked separately. Here the inside and top has been parboiled and dressed with soy sauce and katsuobushi while the skin was made into kimpira (saute flavoured with soy sauce, sake and mirin). The table is set with a konro (tabletop gas grill) and condiments for shabushabu. Aside from the meat there are kuzukiri noodles, which are clear noodles traditionally made from kudzu starch (don't know if a different starch is used now or not), tofu (not shown), and vegetables: hakusai (napa or Chinese cabbage); shiitake; mizuna greens; negi (long onion); maitake mushrooms; enoki mushrooms. The traditional shabushabe pot is modeled on the Mongolian hotpot. It is beautiful to look at but not at all necessary, and I think most people just use a regular pot. The tofu, vegetables and kuzukiri are placed in kombu dashi (kelp stock) and left until cooked. The meat is held with chopsticks and swished around in the hot stock for a few seconds until done. The swishing sound is described as "shabu shabu" in Japanese, giving this dish its name. The beef is best a little undercooked. This piece of kata-rosu is dipped in gomadare (sesame sauce). Pork must be fully cooked of course. Tofu in gomadare topped with thinly sliced negi. This piece of sankaku-bara is dipped in ponzu oroshi, grated daikon mixed with ponzu. When the shabushabu ingredients are all used up the meal ends with udon noodles cooked in the remaining broth, but we were too stuffed to finish the shabushabu ingredients, so the udon will make a quick meal tomorrow. And now if you'll excuse me, I've got some serious digesting to do.

Can you offer any insight, please, into what makes nattou an attractive prospect, or even a plausible acquired taste? It always seems to be mentioned in the same breath as words like 'stinky' and 'slimy'. As a big cheese-fan I can relate to stinky, I suppose, but slimy isn't my favourite texture... ← Yes, it's just like strong smelling and tasting foods like blue cheese or anchovies. The smell and flavour is an acquired taste. As for the sliminess, the Japanese have a special affection for slimy foods like mountain yam and okra. It's just another texture here. Nattou is an attractive prospect because it's healthy, cheap and, if you can get over the smell and slime, tasty. If you can't it's no big deal, and plenty of Japanese don't like nattou. I didn't like nattou until I had it deep-fried. Now there's a cooking technique that will make anything taste good.

Here are today's groceries. I forgot to mention that last night's class was my last of the week, so my weekend is already underway. And when my husband gets home in a few hours the fun will begin. So far, some of you may be under the impression that we eat very healthily. Well, some of you are about to be proven wrong. The weekend is when we do our real eating.

Today I went shopping by bus, to Oizumigakuen station. No, this is not an attempt to be sexy. I literally can't fit in the seat, unless I splay my legs like this. It's not so bad while I'm sitting (unless I have a restless type sitting in front, and then it's no fun at all having by knees banged around) but getting in and out is a challenge. Speaking of sexy, here's a little treat for the fellas: This lovely young thing has no trouble fitting into her seat, because she is sitting in the courtesy seats (reserved for the elderly, pregnant and physically impaired). Luckily no elderly, pregnant or physically impaired riders boarded but if one did I can guarantee you she wouldn't have budged. She is applying her make-up, and when she got off the bus she marched straight into the middle of the sidewalk, almost knocking over an old man. She shot him a dirty look as she passed. Kids these days... I walked back from the station, hitting a few more shops on the way. It mostly a straight walk up a long shotengai (shopping street) which is lined its entire 4km length with cherry trees. It will be beautiful around the end of the month but is not much to look at right now. Above is a newly opened Okinawan restaurant that we've been meaning to go to. I love Okinawan food, and Okinawa itself, having been three times. This is Bikkuri Donkey, which serves hambaagu (Japanese style hamburg steaks). It is a chain, but all the shops have different exteriors, usually crazy like this one. The food is pretty good and the price is right, so we go occasionally. Bikkuri Donkey literally means Surprised Donkey. I'd rather not know why the donkey is surprised. The shop in the middle is called Kantarou and I'm hoping to show you a bit more of it on the weekend. It didn't used to have all the signs out front so I'm a bit worried that it's not doing well. I hope the food hasn't changed. This little side street is where the salarymen go on the way home from work. It is a collection of tiny restaurants and bars, including ramen, yakitori, various nomiya (drinking establishments) and snack. Snack are wee bars presided over by a Mama-san, usually middle-aged. Sometimes there is a younger hostess or two, sometimes it's just Mama-san. The customers are men only the entertainment consists of drinking, karaoke and banter. Umakamon is a takoyaki/monjayaki/okonomiyaki/teppanyaki restaurant. It's closed right now but we've been before and it's pretty good. I love the octopus on the shutter. Some cashiers are so fast that before I can smile and say "Fukuro wa iranai desu" (no bag, please) my purchases have been wrapped and double-bagged. It happened twice today. Each wagashi (Japanese sweet) on the left is individually wrapped in plastic, then taped up in a plastic tray, then taped up in a paper bag, then put in a plastic bag. The bread on the right was put in a paper bag, the pastry in a plastic bag, and they were put into a bigger paper bag along with another plastic bag and twist tie for to put the bread into later. This kare-pan (deep-fried curry bun) was my afternoon snack.

Oh drat, I forgot breakfast. My husband had half an apple with peanut butter and banana on a toasted English muffin. We both had tea (cinnamon apple spice today) and a bit later on I had a smoothie, same one as a few days ago. Here are my most commonly used seasonings. From left: -usukuchi shouyu: light soy sauce, the "light" refers to the colour not the flavour -koikuchi shouyu: regular soy sauce, this one is a bit more expensive than normal as both the soy beans and wheat are organic and non-GM -mentsuyu: concentrated seasoning for noodle soups and dips -dashi no moto: instant dashi powder -mirin: sweet cooking sake -sake: I buy the real stuff (in case I want to drink it too) but there is also "cooking sake" -goma abura: sesame oil -some kind of vegetable oil with improbable-sounding health claims (from my MIL) -olive oil for cooking -kurozu: Chinese black vinegar -komezu: rice vinegar, a good kind -komezu: the regular cheap kind (white vinegar isn't really used here-- I do buy it from Costco but only use it for laundry and cleaning) More seasonings: -torigara soup: instant Chinese style chicken soup broth -ponzu: soy sauce with sour citrus juice, this is the cheapest kind -organic olive oil -oyster sauce -Chuunou sauce: a thick Worcestershire type sauce -Worcestershire sauce, I honestly can't tell much difference between these two but apparently it's necessary to have both -ketchup, in a very convenient soft plastic squeeze bottle -hatchou miso: a dark and richly flavoured miso -mugi miso: miso with barley -saikyo miso: sweet white miso I keep as many as possible in the fridge which is something I never used to do back home. Here things go bad really quickly in the humid rainy season and summer, and since I only cook for two I tend to go through stuff slowly so in the fridge it all goes. I have noticed the refrigeration keeps flavours fresh, especially with soy sauce.