smallworld

This is nattou, an extremely stinky and slimy form of fermented beans. It is usually sold in plastic styrofoam cups but I choose these paper cups so I'll make less garbage. It always comes with a tiny pack of karashi (Japanese mustard) which goes straight into the trash, and a tiny pack of soy sauce based seasoning. That goes in the cup and the beans get stirred like made until nice and stringy. I like nattou a lot and always mean to eat more of it because it's healthy, but it is so sticky that I find it hard to eat. One solution is to put it on bread with cheese and throw it under the broiler. The cheese keeps the stringiness in place and the quick heating tames the slime. This is a favourite breakfast, lunch or snack, especially when my husband is not around. He actually likes nattou (although many Kansai people do not) but can't stand to see me eat this dish. Nattou cheese toast, tomato, leftover tonjiru. Alex the parrot joined me for lunch today.

It wasn't so much a lack of pigmentation that I was worried about as it was a lack of cuteness! It is. People here also go nuts for autumn leaves, but only cherry blossoms get their own forecast on the daily news! And thanks to Therese and Kouign Aman for suggesting an over the sink dish rack. They do have them here but I've yet to find one that fits as the the light is right where the support poles would go. There are also racks and boards that fit over the sink to increase workspace. Both are on my list of stuff to get but stainless steel ones are a bit expensive, and I know better than to not get stainless steel!

Just wondering where you let the salted collar sit for those two to three hours. I usually let mine sit for half an hour on the counter, but any longer than that and I'd want to put it in the fridge. Would refrigeration affect the salting process?

My old way of doing shopping lists was writing down what I needed to buy on a scrap piece of paper, and then leaving the paper on the table when I went shopping. Now that I use the little notebook, I almost never forget it: it's substantial enough that I notice if it's not in my bag and comes in so handy for other uses that it's just become a habit to carry it around. I keep the pages in place, for no particular reason other than if the book gets too thin I'll probably start forgetting it again. I carry it around with a pen and cross off items as they go in my shopping basket. Looking through it, I see that other than shopping lists I have to-do lists, Christmas lists, menus, and other random lists (I start listing when I'm caught on a train with nothing to read-- I hate having nothing to read, and writing is the next best thing). I also have a few pages of lists and plans for last year's Halloween costume: My husband and his sister's family and I were all planning to be different characters from Pirates of the Caribbean but that fell apart when we realized there was no way I could pull off Tia Dalma and that nobody wanted to be Elizabeth or Will. So we all decided to go as Jack Sparrow, which is I think what everyone really wanted anyway. It also has several bus schedules which are useful at night or on weekends when the buses don't come so often. They are far more likely to be on time than the buses back home and the drivers are generally much nicer (same goes for the train and subway). This is the wine vintage guide that I mentioned. I know that buying wine by the year based on some wine critic's opinion does not guarantee shopping success, but so far this has been very useful and has always led me to good wine. I don't know much about wine at all and I've bought a few terrible wines in the past, and only after doing a bit of online research did I realize they were from bad years. There are a few different guides out there and this is kind of a mix of them: in years where the guides disagree I average out the score if there's just a few point's difference, and when the difference is bigger I include both numbers. I am the only wine drinker I know so when I open a bottle I am stuck with it for several days. I want to make sure it's a good one! I'd really like to learn more about wine and have taken a course, but it's very slow going.

The English muffins are expensive (I guess especially compared to homemade bread) but we never seem to be able to finish a whole loaf of bread and end up wasting quite a bit, so the muffins make sense as it's easy to finish a pack of four. Have you ever tried making English muffins yourself? The Nishi Funabashi Ikea can't be too far from you, so we don't have to wait until autumn. Anyway, Prasantrin is coming to Tokyo next month I think, so we'll have to round up the Kanto eGullet people then. I did indeed put drainage holes in the lids and neck of the bottles. Bought a soldering iron just for that purpose! Your kitchen is smaller than mine, and you have to feed three males and yourself with two burners? How? Where do you do all your pickling? (I suppose you'll say the sink, to which I ask: where do you put your dirty dishes?)

I get them from Kaldi, and if you don't know about Kaldi I highly recommend a visit! If you can read Japanese or can find someone to help you, use this mapto find a store near you. They also do online shopping, with the oats listed here for 903 yen for a 793g can. I don't know how that compares to FBC.

It's hard to say if people are eating differently at home because I've so seldom eaten regular home-cooked meals (other than my own and my MIL's). I think that food fads (which are nothing new) are always introducing new foods or ways of cooking, and sometimes they involve non-Japanese food. So with each fad people are getting more and more used to eating "exotic" foods. For example, I seem to remember that mangoes were pretty exotic when I first came here but are now popular enough to be found in nearly any grocery store. Kimchi nabe, which is a Korean style hotpot (also called kankoku nabe, or chige nabe, I don't know if this is based on an actual Korean dish) is now one of the most popular types of hotpots. As for shopping, it's become much, much easier to buy non-Japanese food. The internet has helped a lot, and so has Costco. Import food chains like Kaldi and Seijo Ishii, although they were around long before I came, have popped up all over the place in the past decade. And the high-end depachika (department store food floor, always in the basement) has become the norm, which I have mixed feelings about. Food floors once tended to be noisy, cluttered and friendly, with lots of free samples and interaction between customers and shopkeepers. It wasn't always fun as sometimes the more boisterous vendors, fishmongers especially, delighted in tormenting foreigners. They'd loudly try out whatever English they knew ("Oh my god!" and "I love you" were favourites) or wave some sort of food that they assumed would disgust me in my face and say "Let's try!" But other than that it was always a neat experience, and in comparison today's depachika seem so, I don't know, antiseptic. And expensive.

Same in Japan, but they come in flat plastic packages. Some are marked as safe for eating raw, others are for cooking; the cooking ones are cheaper and more plentiful. A friend of mine got sick from eating oysters in Korea. I think she was just unlucky, but how common that is there?

Not a big cooking day today. Lunch was tonjiru, hourensou to abura-age no nibitashi, and rice leftover from last night. After my telephone lessons I had an evening group class near my old apartment. It's about 30 minutes by bike or 45 minutes by bus (with a bit of a walk at both ends of the trip) and tonight I went by bus. The lesson is held in a private home, and after we're done we usually have "tea time". The hostess provides tea and snacks and the students often bring snacks as well, usually souvenirs from a trip. Tonight we had two kinds of senbei, karintou (a very crunchy sweet snack made of deep-fried batter), chocolate-covered rice puffs, and takuan (pickled daikon). Believe it or not, Japanese pickles go deliciously with green tea, so are often taken as a tea snack. These flowers are momo no hana (peach blossoms) and are leftover from Hina Matsuri. Probably because of their colour they are associated with Girl's Day, and it must be a very old custom because peach blossoms don't naturally bloom for another month or so (a lot of the traditional holidays follow the old lunar calendar, which is a month off from the Gregorian calender now in use. I used my cellphone to sneakily take a few more pictures at Life, a large supermarket. The place is a bit pricy so I only shop here because it's on my way home. These are Kameido daikon, which are much smaller than regular daikon. Beside them are pineapples for 98 yen and I'm really regretting not buying one. Furtive photography makes fuzzy photos, so you can't see the marbling on the steaks on the right. They are priced at about 2000 yen each. The long steaks at bottom are rather lean and probably from Australia; the sliced beef at top left is for yakiniku (Korean style bbq). Boiled octopus tentacles, whole and chopped. At top left is a boiled and sliced squid. Bus stops carry a lot of information. This one has a digital screen that tells you which two buses are coming next and when they'll arrive, thanks to a GPS system. You can get the same information online which is pretty convenient. Even this minor suburban station has plenty of food options, but most of them are either fast food or drinking establishments. Matsuya, a gyudon (beef bowl) chain, is on the left, next is the ubiquitous Family Mart and above that is an izakaya (bar with small dishes of food, sometimes described as "Japanese tapas"). On the left is a jumble of several more izakayas, bars and restaurants. Surprisingly all the drinking places cause little public rowdiness, but just in case there's a koban, or "police box" (like a mini police station, but the cops are mostly there to give directions) to the right, identifiable by its red light. Here is a pachinko parlour next to an intriguing restaurant: it serves udon, soba and ramen. Most restaurants in Japan are extremely specialized: a sushi bar sells only sushi, a ramen joint only makes ramen, and so on. This place is pretty rare for selling three kinds of noodles, and it makes me not want to eat there. How could they be good at all three? It also has a huge menu of other stuff and seems really cheap, so I guess it attracts hungry students salarymen whose wives are stingy with their allowances (the lady of the house usually has complete control over the finances). My dinner was a few of the snacks from my evening lesson (we often get to take home what we don't eat) and age-mochi (fried rice cake flavoured with soy sauce and sugar-- it's better than it sounds), shared with my husband (he had leftover tonjiru and rice while I was out). My goodness, it's after midnight. It's long past my bedtime, so goodnight folks!

At the risk of getting off-topic I'm going to show you a bit more of my apartment. This first picture actually is food related though, because this is where it all ends up: Our toilet. Specifically, the tank, which is the smartest design ever. When flushing the toilet the water first passes through a tap on the top before falling down into the tank, allowing you to wash your hands without using extra water. This makes extra sense in Japan, where the toilet has its own room, separate from the bath and sink. But I'd want this even if I lived in Canada, because you don't have to touch a tap or anything (except for the flush handle but you'd have to touch that anyway) to wash your hands. Our kitchen table, foolishly bought online without checking the height. It was on sale and we were without a table and I like solid pine (not as easy to find here as back home). The problems: not only is it ridiculously short (67.5cm), it has a storage unit in the centre that juts down onto where your lap should be. So as soon as I can find someone to take this table off of my hands we're renting a car and heading to Ikea (which has been in Japan less than two years). Because the table is so uncomfortable we usually eat at this low table. It's pretty normal to sit on the floor to eat in Japan but I'm getting tired of it. I don't mind once in a while but when my back is already sore from cooking it's really not fun to sit sideways (the table is too small and low to kneel or sit cross-legged). The heated carpet below is very nice though: central heating is yet another thing that's rare here, and our apartment can get pretty cold in the winter. Note the poinsettia in glorious full bloom. I don't know what happened, but it's thriving. I'm terrible with plants and few last longer than a few months under my care (I've had poinsettias die before Christmas). But this one is doing great and is happily producing a bunch of new leaves and petals. This inspired me last month to do this: This is mitsuba, a herb called trefoil in English, in planters made from plastic drink bottles. Behind it is an ugly unpaved parking lot that is mostly home to trucks, and beyond that is a very nice park. Not the greatest view right now but is quite pretty when there are leaves on the trees. Back to the mitsuba: it is often sold at the supermarket complete with the roots, and I used to try to regrow it, without success. But this time all three attempts worked. Maybe the poinsettia is sending them good vibes. And that in turn inspired this afternoon's project: My most ambitious gardening attempt in years: 6 types of herbs (basil, shiso, parsley, rosemary, peppermint and lemon balm). Herbs always die on me and the past several years I've just made a few half-arsed attempts at basil, which always expires by midsummer. But maybe this year will be different. If everything works out well the herbs will be transplanted to larger containers and put out on the balcony when the weather warms up a bit more. Again, the view is better in the summer. And we get a few critters in the trees and on the vacant lot there, like pretty birds and stray cats. I know I shouldn't but I throw them (the cats) bits of saki-ika (dried squid). I just want them to like me! That's a bus parking lot there, and we're really lucky to live right at a major bus hub. We're far from any train or subway station (the closest two are a 45 and 55 minute walk) but with the buses we have access to a dozen or so stations on 6 train lines, all within 10 to 40 minutes. There are also direct buses to Haneda and Narita, the domestic and international airports, and the return trip stops directly in front of our building, which is super. The balcony is used by me for hanging laundry (but not right now as it's hayfever season and we're both allergic-- all laundry is hung indoors) and by my husband for smoking. I also dry stuff out here, like those yuzu peels. Citrus peels of any type help my broiler self-clean: when grilling oily fish or other greasy stuff I pour a little water in the tray along with a handful of peels (they don't have to be dry, it's just easier to store them that way). Somehow the oil from the peels prevents the tray from getting dirty and instead of scrubbing the tray with soap after each use it just gets a rinse of water.

My stove and work area. With the dish rack in place there is just enough counter space for a cutting board. Built-in dishwashers barely exist here, those who do have a dishwasher (many do without) use a counter-top model. Dishes are my least favourite chore in the world but even if I could afford a dishwasher I wouldn't know where to put it. I keep my most-often used herbs, spices and seasonings by the stove, which is probably the worst place to put them. But there's nowhere else so there you go. The condiments are oils (sesame, olive, good vegetable oil, used frying oil), soy sauce, sake and mirin. They all have bigger bottles that live in the fridge or cupboard, and I refill these handy little pour bottles as needed. The little tubs under the condiments are full of sugar, salt, instant dashi powder, and instant bouillon. When I need extra counterspace I put the dishrack up on top of the cupboard. It's crazy up there and I hope I'm not in the kitchen when the big one hits (they say Tokyo is overdue for a major earthquake). Check out all the counter space I have now, people! Enough for TWO cutting boards!! Here's my sink area. Note the gas control panel on the wall: it needs to be turned on for hot water, and I can adjust the temperature (I think it goes up to 75C). I can also remotely fill up the bathtub, adjusting its temperature (usually 42C) and volume. (This system is not as cool as our old apartment as we now just have the one control panel. The old place had another panel in the bath where you could reheat the bathwater and also make the other panel beep to notify others in the house if there is a bathtime emergency.) The checked cloth hanging up is for drying dishes, the green cloth is for wiping the table, and the blue cloth is for the sink and counter. The blue cloth gets disinfected in the microwave a few times a week, as does the dish sponge. Dish soap and bleach are in glass bottles-- for some reason I hate to see the plastic bottles that stuff comes in. I use the bleach to clean surfaces about once a week. The little triangular box thingy is lined with a very thin cloth net and usually sits in the corner of the sink to collect kitchen waste. There is another little net in the drain. The waste goes in the burnable garbage, but I really want to start composting soon. We used to compost everything in Canada (and now Brampton collects kitchen scraps for compost, which I think is really cool) and I think it's just such a good thing to do. But I don't like the idea of a regular compost or worm compost on my balcony (it would be sure to attract a certain creature to which I have such a phobia that I can't even print its name), so my only option is an electric composter. Right now I'm trying to decide whether to buy a slick Japanese model or import the cheaper Nature Mill from the US. I'd love to hear from any apartment-dwelling composters out there. My utensil drawer is a mess. Lots of gadgets, some of which I use and some of which I don't. My mother and her sister used to exchange useless gadgets as gag gifts. My aunt passed away a few years ago (she was my Vancouver mother and took care of me when I lived there, and I miss her so much) and now I am on the receiving end of the gadgets (wonder if my sister is too). The second most recent one, a microplaner, is excellent. The most recent one, a strawberry huller, is useless for its intended purpose but rather handy for removing fish bones. It certainly looks nicer than the pliers I used to use. Creeping out of the kitchen is this cupboard for regular dishes. Japanese meals require lots of dishes, something I learned very quickly. Just after getting married I tried serving Japanese food on western plates and it just didn't look right. So I did some shopping and solved the problem. Stocking up didn't cost much: almost everything here was either a gift or from the 100 Yen Shop. The other side. Now fully into the living room, this cabinet has classes and cups; larger dishes; drawers with napkins (hardly use them), oshibori (wet hand towels), aprons, coasters and the like; lesser-used kitchen equipment, and booze. I have a drink of something nearly every day, usually wine. My husband and I both like making and drinking cocktails, but as I mentioned upthread he doesn't drink much. And I feel kind of sad drinking cocktails alone so these bottles rarely get touched. There are several home-made liqueurs in there, including ume, grape, strawberry and wild cherry made by me, and ume of several vintages (including one older than I am) made by my MIL, students and a the mother of a friend of my husband. Please, somebody come visit me so I can use up all of this stuff!

My kitchen. And let me get this out of the way: I hate my kitchen! My old kitchen was so much better, it was a corner kitchen that opened onto the first floor of our little townhouse and was bright and sunny and had remarkably large and high counters that were supplemented with free-standing counters that eventually took over the entire floor. This new kitchen is a separate room, closed off from the rest of the house. It has regular low counters (and at 178cm/5'10" even regular counters in Canada are too low for me) and a range hood at forehead level (meaning it's high enough that I don't actually see it while I'm bending over to cook, but low enough that I constantly bump into it). The total usable counterspace is 49cm X 58cm. It does have a nice big sink and a gas range with three burners. This was a huge plus, because although more and more apartments in Tokyo come equipped with a stove (traditionally apartments have nothing in them at all, not even light fixtures), it almost always has just two burners. How do people live with just two burners? Anyway, the three burners are great but I've been cooking way less since I moved here 2 1/2 years ago. It took a while to figure out why and for a long time I just assumed I was in a rut, but now I'm sure it's the kitchen. My back gets so sore when I cook, and I often burn things: I can't be expected to stand around in the tiny kitchen waiting for stuff to boil or simmer or whatever, but in the rest of the house since I can't hear or smell what's going on in the kitchen I sometimes forget what I'm doing. OK, that has more to do with me being absent minded, but I never used to forget stuff in my old kitchen because I was always right there in the same room. On the screen of the tiny window (which only opens a crack) I dry used ziplocks after washing them, along with any plastic shopping bags that I'm forced to accept. You've already seen the fridge, and beside that is a cupboard/counter thingy that I bought by catalogue. At the top of this section is a bag dispenser for regular plastic shopping bags. Below that are flours, starches and table condiments (s&p, sugar, honey and gomashio). In the drawer are new ziplocks in two sizes, metal clips (there's no better way to reseal a plastic package than a simple metal clip) and twist-ties, and elastics. In the drawer below (no picture) are oversized plastic bags folded into triangles (the same way Americans fold their flag) and tiny clear plastic shopping bags, in a big drawer below that is rice, potatoes, onions and garlic. Here is my microwave, which doubles as a convection oven. It will bake 9 cookies at a time, or a whole chicken (which will be lily-white everywhere except for the blackened breast). The cutting boards beside it are marked for specific use: fruit (and neutral vegetables) on one side of the smaller board and onions and other strongly flavoured vegetables on the other; the other board is for raw meat and fish on one side, cooked on the other. Below that, on a pull-out shelf, is the coffee maker, cordless Magic Bullet, and rice cooker. And below that: bento/picnic accessories; rice additives like kombu, barley, brown rice and grain mixes; coffee filters and stuff; bentos (rarely used and badly in need of replacing); furikake, ochazuke mixes, instant soups; hand mixer and Magic Bullet accessories. Above the microwave are teas and random dried and packaged stuff (no idea what's really in there) and to the right of that sugars, salts, baking stuff and spices. Beside the cupboard is another catalogue bought storage unit. It is supposed to be a counter but the space is too narrow to use as a workspace so it's just a place to put stuff. Cutting boards (you can never have too many), trays, trivets, knives, and fruits and veggies that don't fit in the fridge. Hanging on one side is plastic wrap, tinfoil, parchment paper and paper towel, above that are utensils, and to the left are aprons, plastic garbage and a curtain to close the entrance of the kitchen when company comes. The plastic garbage really should have its own can, but there isn't enough room so this is a kind of temporary solution. In my area plastic is now being collected separately from non-burnable garbage. I don't know if it is being recycled (only recyclable types are allowed) or incinerated, but I do know that the brand-new incinerators popping up all over the city are capable of burning plastic at a high enough temperature to not release dioxins or particulates. Or so they say. The top drawer of the counter unit is where I keep my cutlery. Plain chopsticks, fancy chopsticks, hashioki (chopstick rests), baby cutlery, full-sized cutlery, renge (Chinese soup spoons), booze accessories, random stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere. For the longest time I didn't know that most Japanese have their own personal chopsticks, so I bought all these chopsticks and enjoyed using a different pair every day. I still do, because I can't decide which pair I want to be mine. I absolutely must have matching cutlery when I eat western food, and it has to be set on the table correctly. It drives me bonkers when my husband sets the table and the cutlery is just placed at random, and doesn't even match. I guess that's my husband's revenge for the way I do everything wrong when I serve Japanese food. But and at least he sets the table (sometimes), which is more than Japanese men do. Well, I think that is quite enough for now, will do the rest of the kitchen later.

Great! I hope you show us your knives, too. I think I have seen only one knife so far here in your blog. ← That's the only knife you'll see! I do have a serrated knife and a paring knife that I use occasionally, but it's mostly just this regular santoku. I've long wanted a collection of good knives but I'm incredibly clumsy and already manage to cut myself quite often, and I can only imagine the carnage that would result from me using a super-sharp sashimi knife. But this year I've made a new year's resolution to improve my knife skills, and have made a deal with myself: when I am able peel an apple in one long peel, without breaking it, I will buy myself a good knife. Until recently I used a peeler for everything but have trained myself to peel fruit and most vegetables (still use a peeler for carrots and potatoes). Which doesn't sound like much to the average Japanese person but is a huge achievement for me. For those outside of Japan, let me tell you that the knife skills of the typical home cook here rivals those of a typical chef in North America. It's just amazing watching people cook here. And the pros are even better. If you ever come to Japan, get yourself to a "fruit bar" or "fruit parlour" and sit at the counter where you can watch the chef (fruit cutter?) do his stuff.

This is one of the free-range eggs. It has a nice, fat, bright orange yolk, typical of good Japanese eggs. This is about the be sprinkled with salt and pepper and microwaved for one minute. English muffins toasting, one with cheese. This stuff is called "Natural Pizza Cheese" and is anything but natural. I've given up on using real cheese for daily use, as it is expensive and hard to find in reasonable amounts. But every supermarket is full of this fake shredded stuff, and hey- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I kind of like the stuff now. Most Japanese kitchens do not have an oven, but every gas range comes with this little broiler toaster thing. It is quite useful for toast and fish (last night's fish was grilled here), not much use for anything else. Egg and cheese on a whole wheat English muffin. This will be my husband's breakfast, along with strawberries, kiwi and tea (it's Red Zinger today). He gets the egg muffin almost every weekday, except when I can't find English muffins or when I know we'll be having eggs for dinner. On weekends there might be bacon added. He watches the news on NHK (the national broadcaster) while eating, and meanwhile records another channel's business news on his cellphone. His phone comes with a TV but since he takes the subway to work he doesn't get reception during his commute. Taping the news beforehand solves the problem nicely. As you can see, it's pretty cloudy up in Northern Japan. They were just showing the Cherry Blossom Front before this, and I'm killing myself for not taking a picture for you. The Cherry Blossom Front is a special kind of weather report that shows a map of Japan with different areas marked in varying shades of pink, representing where the sakura are in bloom, and at what percentage they are blooming. It's the first blossom report I've seen this year and I didn't see the screen long enough to see where the cherry blossoms are, but I imagine it's down in Okinawa or maybe Kyushu. We won't be seeing sakura in Tokyo for another three weeks or so. At the top of the picture you can see the filter and grinds from yesterday's coffee. In the winter I dry them in the living room, where the air is so dry it just takes a few hours (the rest of the year they are dried outside, and during the rainy season I don't bother because the get moldy before they dry). Dried coffee grounds are great as a deodorizer, and the filter is good at sopping up liquids. So it all gets thrown into the garbage to reduce odours and leaking. First breakfast is strawberries, kiwis and yogurt. Second breakfast will be the same egg muffin my husband had, with some chopped tomato on the side.

I didn't know there were different styles with different names! I call it dashimaki tamago because that's what my husband calls it. And I guess I make it Kansai style because it's lightly seasoned with dashi and soy sauce, no sugar. I just naturally chose that recipe because neither my husband and I don't like our food too sweet. My husband was born in Osaka but spent time in Tokyo and Sapporo while he was growing up, and then America from his late teens. He can speak perfect Tokyo Japanese but reverts to Osaka-ben when we go back to visit, and he does prefer Kansai style seasoning. He makes a mean okonomiyaki and takoyaki too, but that happens rarely now that he's working out of the home. Helen, your husband sounds just like my sister-in-law's husband, from Chiba. When he's visiting the in-laws in Osaka he douses everything he eats in soy sauce. Admittidly we all feel the food is underseasoned at times because my father-in-law, who lost most of his stomach to cancer and is on dialysis, has so many dietary restrictions. You can use it in any place you'd normally be using salty and sour flavours. Salad dressing is a great use for ponzu: just mix with your choice of oil (it goes very nicely with good olive oil and sesame oil) and season it with black pepper, chili sauce, herbs or whatever else you like. It's wonderful with seafood (especially with butter) and good with chicken and pork too. And there's no better way to flavour vegetables like brocolli and asparagus. My recipe is similar: juice the citrus (yuzu, sudachi and kabosu are best, and one type is fine but two or more types blended is better) and add it to a pan with soy sauce, sake, a little mirin, kombu sliced into small pieces and katsuobushi. Bring to a simmer and cook for a few minutes, then turn off the heat and let it sit for a few hours (you can also let it all sit in a jar in the fridge for a week or so without simmering it, but I like to do it the fast way). Then strain and pour into a bottle, keep in the fridge. The simmering/steeping adds extra depth of flavour that you don't get from just mixing everything together and using right away. And I understand that yuzu and the like are not easy to find overseas, but do try to use something other than just lemon: a blend of lemon and lime maybe? Bottled yuzu juice is fine too, if you can find it. Well SuzySushi, I think John has just answered your question! The loaners probably disappeared when those cheap clear umbrellas started to be sold everywhere for 100 to 500 yen. I imagine a lot has changed since 1991 (I've only been here since 96). You're long overdue for a visit! John, the only staple I can think of is pasta with tomato sauce. In winter I use a sauce is like Amatriciana but when I learned it (working in an Italian deli in Vancouver) it was just called "tomato sauce". In summer I'll use a lighter sauce with fresh tomatoes. NOT because the tomatoes are any better in the summer though. I mean, do hothouse tomatoes have a season? I guess noodles, either soba or udon, are another staple meal. We eat them about once a week when we're both too tired to cook but don't want to go out, as they're fast and simple to prepare. We don't live in a great restaurant area so eating out is more about what's available than what we really want. We often eat Chinese, sushi (kaitenzushi of course) and soba, and sometimes "fast food" like oyakodon (at Naka-u), ramen and tempura (at Tenya). Oh, and we hit Mr. Donuts about twice a month! Which Inageya? I lived in Nishitokyo for 6 wonderful years and much preferred the shopping there. Inageya doesn't even carry whole-wheat English muffins, which are the ones I buy. I go to Summit or Life for those. Freezing is a great idea, and as soon as there's room in my freezer I'll start stocking up. I use chopsticks for Japanese, Chinese and other Asian food, and a fork and knife for western meals. Hopefully I'll be showing my cutlery drawer today, so more on that later.

Ingredients for tonjiru (pork soup): Thinly sliced pork, negi (long onion), carrot, daikon, kabocha, gobou (burdock). They are sauteed in sesame oil then simmered until tender, then miso is added. Clockwise from bottom left: shin-gobou to renkon no kimpira, leftover from Monday night; cherry tomatoes, cabbage and wakame seaweed dressed with sesame oil, ponzu, pepper and crushed sesame seeds; tara no kasuzuke (cod marinated in sake lees and miso); hourensou to abura-age no nibitashi (spinach simmered and fried tofu simmered with soy sauce); tonjiru; steamed white rice topped with mentaiko (spicy cod roe). In the back is shirasu (baby sardines) with umeboshi (pickled plum) and mentaiko, to eat with rice.

Lunch today was kaki furai (deep-fried oysters) and leftovers. I meant to eat rice too but lost track of time and had to get back to work. The kaki furai was bought at the supermarket this morning. Once or twice a week I'll get a small take-out treat for lunch, usually a few pieces of battera-zushi (pressed mackerel sushi) or inari-zushi (sushi rice wrapped in deep-fried tofu). And when oysters are in season I'll pick up kaki furai occasionally. Supermarket take-out food is pretty good here (but it really depends on the store). The label includes the time an item was made so you can be sure it's fairly fresh. Of course, much of the take-out food is made of items from the meat, seafood and produce sections that are nearing their expiry dates, and these oysters are no exception. A certain amount of trust is certainly involved, but people take food poisoning very seriously here so I doubt any supermarket would take a chance by using truly expired food. Normally I don't like fried food that isn't freshly fried, but somehow these oysters always manage to retain their crispness. I heat them up first in the microwave and then in the broiler, so they're moist inside, crunchy outside. Almost as good as freshly made. I usually don't like tartar sauce but for some reason I like it, just a tiny little dip, with fried oysters. It may surprise oyster lovers in other parts of the world, but in Japan it's more common to cook oysters than to eat them raw. Oysters are acknowledged to be one of the most dangerous seafoods (well, there's fugu, but fugu poisoning will get you whether you eat it raw or cooked) and people tend to be careful with them. Other than kaki furai oysters are cooked with rice and with okonomiyaki (especially in Hiroshima) and stir-fried (often Chinese style).

I shop most often at Summit, introduced a few posts back, but there are a good half a dozen supermarkets I'll visit depending on where I am at the time. Add in another dozen or so markets, specialty shops (like the tofu shop and the chicken butcher shop) and import shops, and I have a lot of choices! I really wish I could take more pictures but most stores have no-camera policies and I'm already really shy about taking pictures... That's so sad about your friend. Pregnant women in Japan have so many dietary restrictions already, she was probably indulging in one of the few "safe" treats. Well, now I know that salmonella is rare rather than non-existent. Luckily I don't really like chicken sashimi, but I don't know if I can give up raw eggs. Maybe I should stick to the expensive kinds. Loaner umbrellas? Neat idea, but I've never heard of them! But then I don't take the subway very often. Anyone else in Japan seen them? and I just had a *doh* moment......as a bumbling Cantonese speaker I have just realised that 'shin' = 'sun' (new) and 'sai' = 'sai' (west) and 'to'= 'tung'.(east).... only took me about 21 years to notice, til now just thought certain characters were the same....hmmm, not exactly Sherlock Holmes... enjoying your daily life very much ps. how safe is it to cycle? I wouldn't fancy it in HK.. ← Yes, lots of the characters are either the same or just slightly different. It's possible for a Japanese person to understand much of a Chinese menu, as well as some Chinese place names or personal names. Do the Chinese love to slap 新 (sun/shin) onto words as much as the Japanese do? I live in suburban Tokyo and it's fairly safe, but there are no bicycle lanes and the rules are confusing. Technically cyclers should stay on the road, but all the cars honk if you actually try riding on the street, so you have to stay on the sidewalk. Where telephone poles, fences, signs, and cellphone email-reading schoolgirls are major hazards. Nobody wears a helmet, and moms carry their babies on front and back seats. I've seen a woman with two children loaded onto her bike, plastic shopping bags dangling from each handle, and a cellphone at her ear while she was riding with one hand. I've had a few minor accidents myself, including a collision with a bus, but nothing major. I don't ride a bike because I'm a major bike person, I do it because it's healthier, cheaper and better for the environment than driving a car (we don't have one anyway) or taking the bus. Of course, I do take the bus when the weather is bad, and a few times a year we rent a car for a big shopping trip to Costco or Ikea. And your post reminded me, I forgot to answer Hiroyuki's question! I honestly don't know if I cook Kansai or Kanto style, because I haven't truly developed my own seasoning habits yet. I know that I'm gradually using lighter seasonings and I've learned to automatically tell when a new recipe needs to be modified (usually by using less sugar). I'll ask my husband tonight and see what he says. When I use too much soy sauce or salt my husband always comments "You must be tired". It seems to be a belief here that cooks unconsciously use a heavy hand with salt when they're tired. I'd never heard that before and wonder if it's a Japanese thing, or do people elsewhere share this belief?

Is it only me who want to shout, "Watch out! You may spill your drink (and ruin your PC)!"? I like the way you get get fruit into your daily diet. It's something that the Japanese can never be adept at. For many, including me, fruit is just an afterthought... ← I always have a drink handy when I'm on the computer, and eat half my meals in front of it. Never spilt an entire glassful, but the keyboard does get the odd splash or spill. Not a problem as I hate this keyboard and really need an excuse to buy a new one. I agree that Japanese people don't eat enough fruit. But believe it or not, I picked up the habit of having half an apple and a kiwi for breakfast from my mother-in-law, who does that every morning (along with English tea, yogurt, cheese and toast or a pastry). I do love fruit and eat a lot of it, but could never get my husband to eat it regularly until I started serving it for breakfast. I think the choice of apples and kiwis is sensible because both are grown domestically and can be found year-round (although the apples aren't very good by summer). Sometimes I'll substitute a banana or a seasonal fruit. I think one reason why people don't eat much fruit here is that it's expensive. The high prices used to really bug me but now I'm used to them, and I even kind of appreciate them. After all, fruit is only cheap in Canada because of exploited labour and environmentally damaging farming practices. I think that in Japan fruit prices are more "real" and reflect the fact that actual Japanese farmers are making a living wage. I wonder how long it will be before Japan catches up to the west and starts using cheap migrant labour for fruit picking and other farmwork?

Another bike picture, to show the lock I was talking about: it's the grey ring on the back wheel. It would be easy to break if you were determined, but bicycle theft is more of a crime of opportunity than the well-organized business it tends to be in North America, so these locks are always enough. People are so trusting here that twice when I've lost the keys to a bike lock I've dragged my bike to a local bike repair shop, where the lock was broken off and replaced-- no questions asked! In my basket is a bag of recycling, since most supermarkets have recycling bins. Behind my bike are three bikes that have been abandoned. They've been there for months and will probably turn into rust piles before they are removed. Bicycle abandonment (usually stolen bikes) is a huge problem in the cities. Across the street, the small shop with the yellow signs is a take-out takoyaki (octopus dumpling) stand. It is one of the few dining options nearby. There is a Hanaya Yohei (a Japanese-style "family restaurant") across the street from us but it's not very good so we've only been there a few times. The nearest Supermarket is Inageya, about a 10-minute walk away. I hardly ever go, unless I'm already at the 100 Yen Shop or the drugstore in the same building. For some reason the atmosphere there is completely different from my regular supermarket, although there's just a block between them. The staff aren't very knowledgeable and the customers are a bit rude and they stare a lot. Really rare as most Tokyoites are rather used to foreigners. I'd say it was because the place is right on the border of Saitama (the prefecture that neighbors Tokyo to the north) but then I'd be guilty of snobbery. This is my regular store: Summit. It's the only supermarket that I have a point card for. (Japanese people are crazy about point cards and nearly every store and service has them, but they drive me nuts.) It has only been open for 20 minutes and already there are this many bicycles. There are also a few floors of parking on top but I think they only fill up on the weekends. The shopping carts are tiny here and you don't put the groceries directly in them. You put in a basket first, and at checkout you give give the basket to the cashier. The pink card in my basket says "No regi-bukuro" (No shopping bags) and you put it in your basket at the register to let the cashier know you've brought your own bag. Most supermarkets do this now and some give a small discount for this (like 5 yen or so). Many cashiers will go ahead and wrap meat or seafood in small clear bags, which I hate. Summit's recycling station is at the front entrance and has a bin each for cans, milk cartons, styrofoam trays, plastic bottles and batteries. Everything must be cleaned, which I do anyway because I don't want dirty recyclables stinking up my apartment. Note the No Camera sign. All stores have this rule and they actually enforce it, so I'm afraid I can't take any shopping pictures. I took the previous two pictures with my cellphone while pretending to send an email. I felt like a spy! This Family Mart (one of the biggest convenience store chains in Japan) is just down the street from our building and represents my only other nearby dining option. I'm totally over convenience store take-out like bentos and onigiri (not very tasty and chock full of additives) but I lived on them when I first came to Japan. I do occasionally pick up some hot food there, like nikuman (Chinese pork bun) or oden (a kind of stew chock full of vegetables, tofu and fish paste products), or sometimes ice cream in the summer (all convenience stores sell Haagen Dazs and other high-end ice cream). But the main reasons for visiting a convenience store is to pay bills, use the bank machine or send a package (via takkyubin, Japan's cheap and super-efficient delivery system). I picked up this flyer at Summit. I love flyers but since we don't get a newspaper we don't get flyers. Whenever I go back home or to the in-laws I spend hours looking through all flyers! I see that oysters are on for 98 yen per 100 grams and Japanese beef (shoulder roast, I don't know what that would normally be called in English) is 40% off. Maybe you'll be seeing oysters or beef in the next few days!

I made this for my husband this morning at 6:30: The usual kiwi, half apple and homemade yogurt. The yogurt is flavoured with honey from Canada, and I always try to buy honey from Canada. Japan does produce honey but it's not that easy to find, and I haven't liked the honey from China which is widely available. I love how it comes in a tube: most packaging here is really convenient. I don't love how the tube has a picture of Winnie the Pooh and the Disney logo. Winnie the Pooh, by the way, is called "Pooh-san" or just "Pooh" in Japan. He also had a special treat: pancakes! I never ever do this on weekdays but I haven't been able to find English muffins or decent bread this week, so I used these frozen leftover pancakes. I added butter and maple syrup, but by the time he sat down to eat it had all been absorbed and he didn't notice, so he doused the pancakes with the honey. He said they were the best frozen panackes he's ever had! He had breakfast with a mug of Celestial Seasoning's blueberry tea (which I also had). I used to hate herbal teas until I realized I just didn't like the grassy types like chamomile. I now like floral and fruity types, especially blends (probably thanks to the "natural" flavourings). I serve herbal tea in the morning because my husband gets enough caffeine at work. His office is in the Imperial Hotel building (which impresses the hell out of any Japanese who hears it but really means nothing-- any company can rent there) and they have a well-stocked drink bar. The building charges all companies renting there some ridiculous price for the service (I think about 3000 yen per employee) and so my husband drinks espresso, jasmine tea and the like all day long. He reports that nearly everyone uses a new disposable cup for each drink. I've convinced him to use the mugs, which are technically supposed to only be used for visitors and are washed every night by the cleaning staff. He reports feeling a bit guilty about this. A few hours after my husband ate I had coffee and oatmeal with apple, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and maple syrup. I don't like to eat the same breakfast everyday, but I'd probably never get tired of this.

The bikes were all actually locked. Most Japanese bikes have a built-in lock on the back wheel, I'll post a pic soon. Bicycle theft is one of the few common crimes here (along with umbrella theft!) and both my husband and I have had a bike stolen. Both times they were unlocked so it served us right. The thief usually just wants a joyride or a one-time ride somewhere to save busfare. Miraculously my husband's stolen bike was tracked down by the police, but it took months and he'd already bought a replacement. That's why he has two bikes: hey, anyone in Tokyo want a used mountain bike? Hiroyuki, thanks! You are the link master. My husband will almost certainly forbid me to post a picture of him. I'll see if he'll consent to taking one of me though.

Ponzu is my all-time favourite condiment and I use it almost every day. I'm not crazy about all the additives in cheaper ponzu, but I can't afford the good stuff. So I compromise: Ajipon or similar cheap brand for regular use and the expensive stuff for special dishes. And when I find cheap yuzu, sudachi or kabosu (or when a student gives me a bagfull from one of their trees) I make it myself to replace the expensive ponzu. Like I said before, there's a lot of stuff that doesn't come naturally. Miso soup is often just an afterthought, and I sometime skip it (or forget it) altogether. Not drinking alcohol with rice is one thing I have picked up here. I'm not strict or anything (thus the wine with last night's dinner) but have somehow gotten used to it enough that I do try to avoid mixing rice and alcohol. Back when my husband worked from home, we'd take longer to eat dinner. I'd drink alcohol with the okazu (side dishes) and when I finished drinking I'd serve rice. Now I just serve everything at once and usually drink my wine before or after dinner, but tonight I'd steamed the clams in the same wine I was drinking so I just had to have some with the meal. How interesting. Why is that? Let me guess: instead of filling up on rice, let's make more room for the alcohol? ← Hiroyuki can probably explain that one better than I can! Oh, completely the norm. This is a pretty basic type, most fridges have more compartments, all with different temperatures. Check out Hiroyuki's and Kristin's food blogs: they both have the same fridge, and it's a cool one! As far as I know, the first dish sampled should be the soup, and from there you take a little bit from each dish in no particular order until everything is done. It is considered bad manners to finish a whole dish at once, then finish another, then another: you have to eat everything bit by bit. There may be other rules but I don't know about them, so maybe someone else has more to say. Lior, thank you! I loved your blog and had the same reaction you did to mine: like another world! A delicious and beautiful other world. I've never made chawan mushi. I didn't even like it the first time I tried it (along with any other eggy dish) but I've since learned to love eggs and I aim to attempt chawan mushi sometime this year. I have to get dashimaki tamago, onsen tamago and poached eggs down first though. I too love all the hidden ingredients inside. what makes Japanese eggs safe to eat raw? I eat raw eggs (in mayonaise etc) but I always thought that no eggs are 100 % safe? ← I'm not sure why they're safe, but salmonella seems to be either rare or non-existant here. I'm guessing that the way the chickens are kept has something to do with it. But who knows: the cheap eggs are definitely from a factory farm so I don't know what they do differently. In any case it's completely normal to eat raw and undercooked eggs and we do a few times a week. The cabbage was chopped and mixed with a pinch of salt and left to sit for about an hour to "pickle" (Mark Bittman used a similar technique in a recent NYT column), then drained and mixed with the katsuobushi. I sometimes add a dash of ponzu too. The tamago yaki was overcooked. But yeah, it was my second time so no big deal. The simplest way to eat umeboshi is to plunk it as-is on a bowl of rice. Ume and shiso are a super combination, and ume alone or with shiso is nice with katsuobushi and soy sauce. I don't make as much use of ume as I'd like as my husband doesn't like it. I'm guessing Helen has some good ideas for ume. *Again with the quotes. Sorry about that.

It took just under an hour of work (but that was spread out over two hours while I did other stuff). A little more if you count de-sanding the clams (I put them in salt water last night). Everything I made was fast and simple, and it helps that I used frozen rice. When I make rice I always cook more than I'll need and then freeze the rest. If it's used within a few weeks it doesn't taste much different from fresh rice and is a real time saver. And I forgot to answer your question about the previous dinner. That one took me about 2 hours, but it wasn't in the kitchen non-stop. I couldn't cook like this if I didn't work from home! I work for Aeon, a large language school, teaching English conversation by telephone. The students are mostly people who can't attend regular lessons (people who live in rural areas, very busy folks, pregnant ladies and new moms). Usually there is a textbook or newspaper article, of which we both have a copy, and the lessons are short (15 20 0r 30 minutes) and quite intense. The salary is quite low for an English teaching job, but working from home allows me to get a lot more cooking and housework done than if I was going out to work. Telephone lessons are three days a week, and I also have a few private students and two or three group classes a week. And I think here must be a dozen ways to say "bring water to a boil" in Japanese! "Drain" is another tough one. I sometimes make takikomi gohan (rice cooked with vegetables and other stuff) with an instant pack: just open, dump into the rice, add water and cook. They all have different instructions, with some needing to be drained and some that go in the rice liquid and all. I twice ruined takikomi gohan by failing to to understand instructions: once I didn't drain and ended up with soggy, bitter tasting rice, another I did drain and was left with flavourless rice. I don't buy instant takikomi gohan mixes anymore... When we were about about 9, some friends and I started the "Black and Burgundy Club". We never found a purpose for it other than to talk about how much we hated pink and how cool black and burgundy were. Japanese girls certainly do seem to love pink as much as girls anywhere else. "I often use What's your favourite colour" in kid's English lessons and the younger ones almost always say pink. You can tell they're growing up when they start saying other colours. Girl's Day does have official colours: pink, green and white. The food does reflect those colours, but my sister-in-law is a health nut (at least when it comes to feeding her daughter) and doesn't buy artificially coloured food or use colouring herself. The sakuramochi she made are far paler than the bright pink ones usually sold. ...or save for your next Bloody Mary!!Wonderful blog! Timely too - a bunch of us are getting together for a Japanese feast on Sunday. Your photos and menus are very inspiring. What's the availability/price of uni these days? ← Wouldn't that make it a Bloody Caesar? You've just reminded me of another thing I miss: Clamato juice. I've never thought of making it myself, but maybe it's worth a try. Please don't ask me about uni! It's one of the few things here that I can't eat. Helen, I'm in a learning phase right now, and when that happens I tend to cook to much stuff. You should have seen the meals I cooked just after I got married! So many dishes they couldn't fit on the table, with dashi from scratch and all the proper garnishes. It's no wonder we both gained weight after marriage. My goals right now are to master egg cookery and improve my knife skills. I haven't quite gotten the hang of onsen tamago, and I still can't peel a potato without a peeler, so I've got a while to go. My husband was drinking water. He has eczema which usually acts up if he drinks. He did have a sip of my wine though, and approved. We usually eat around 8, but last night he was late so it was closer to 9. He has been working outside of the home for less than six months, before that he worked at home. The meal schedule was drastically different then: we'd often have just two big meals a day, with a few snacks, and eat kind of whenever. It's a challenge to learn to cook on schedule, especially when my job finishes at 6 and I need to go shopping and get dinner ready by 8.

Dinner ingredients: No, I'm not cooking all these eggs! I'm just using four of the brown ones, but I wanted to show you the packages. On the left is a regular package of eggs: ten rather than the dozen we get in Canada, in a clear plastic container with a paper insert for the due date. This cost me 189 yen, which is a typical price. The average supermarket has a huge range of eggs, starting with cheap ones like these and going up to fancier eggs which go for triple the price. On the right are free-range eggs, which are not sold at must supermarkets despite their impressive egg ranges (I got these from a health food store). The package has an insert with a picture of the chickens and information on their diet and living conditions. 398 yen for the package. Eggs are often sold unrefrigerated, and as far as I know the use-by date only applies if you plan to eat them raw (eggs for cooking can be kept much longer). Japanese eggs are safe to eat raw, which took me a while to get used to. I will be making dashimaki tamago (thick omelette flavoured with soy sauce and dashi). This is only the second time I've made them and I'm still not super at it. I've only started liking eggs in the past few years, so egg cookery of all types is pretty new to me. Umeboshi is commonly translated as pickled plum, although the fruit ume is more properly called a Japanese apricot. It is wickedly salty and sour. Next to it is sliced shiso (called perilla and beefsteak in English, not that I've ever heard of either), and below is shirasu-boshi, which are lightly dried baby sardines. All three will be mixed together and used to top rice (which today is frozen rice heated up in the microwave). I don't know if shirasu-boshi are of a specific species or if any sardine-like fish will do, but they are always white and tiny, from 1 to 2 cm in length. And here's dinner: Clockwise from left: ume-shiso-shirasu gohan, with extra umeboshi on the side for me (my husband doesn't like umeboshi much so I only used a little); hamaguri clams steamed with Riesling, soy sauce and butter; dashimaki tamago with grated daikon; new potatoes and broccoli dressed with ponzu, olive oil and black pepper (the same one I used for lunch, this is my default dressing); haru kyabetsu (spring cabbage) with salt and katsuobushi. I'm drinking 2006 Ratzenberger Steeger St. Jost Riesling Kabinett Halbtrocken, which is quite a mouthful but the wine itself goes down nice and easy. The juice from the clams is always too good to just toss, but too salty to just drink down. There are two things to do: dilute it with boiling water to make a nice hot soup, or pour it over rice.