helenjp

Yep, that was a good introduction to gumbo. I'm always amazed that my Japan-raised family eat it up without question - maybe they think that any soup the color of miso is going to be good eating. Strawberry icecream after all night work - that sounds good. Now that I'm in my 40s, working all night is not only harder, it leaves me with no appetite for a couple of days thereafter. Home-made icecream...mmmm. When we went to buy our new fridge, husband was adamant that no fridge was coming home with us unless the freezer drawer was deep enough to take the icecream maker...but I quite like the granular type that you mush up with a fork from time to time as it freezes.

Make a new dish three times over a short period. That way, it will be locked in your memory, you will be familiar enough with it to make variations or use the same techniques for some other dish, and the flavors will also be familiar to you. Knowing the flavor/texture of a dish very well is essential to planning a menu. Start thinking about why your favorite dishes taste/look good. Start a diary, make notes in your cookbooks about the abstract things as well as the practical ones -- the texture you think would be best, the main flavor and what complemented it, etc. A diary is also handy for seeing what tasted great at the same season last year. As for cooking every night - that means, ironically, putting away the cookbooks! Plan first (I plan about 3 menus for each week, though they may not get made on the day I originally intended to serve them) and then just do it. Most people have time to look at recipes and ponder, or time to cook, but not both. Have fun though...it's only dinner!

Long day, perhaps? 'Nother thanks for the Clapton CD "review". I've been wondering what I'd be letting myself in for if I bought it. The pre-teen has another Clapton, and I noticed that I can stand several hundred repetitions more of Clapton than of his other favorite - Cat Stevens. They've both had a rest recently, though I've heard enough back-to-back playings of the 3 Lord of the Rings soundtrack disks to last me a little while. At least NOBODY ever complains about "All That Meat And No Potatoes" off the Satch Plays Fats album! Dinner from scratch in 90 minutes? Sounds good to me. My clients tend to ring me around 5pm, and with every call, another item drops off the dinner menu. Looking forward to the gumbo show and tell. My gumbo-making began after reading Alice Walker's desciption in one of her novels, but as I've never had the opportunity to eat a gumbo made by anybody but myself, I've lots to learn.

Groan! I remembered that I had a bunch of rice coupons, so I used it to buy a 10kg bag of Niigata Koshi-ibuki yesterday. The labeling seemed a big ambiguous about the actual date of the rice crop, and it's not the most popular variety, but even so, the coupons weren't quite enough. 5,800 yen for 10kg...

Herbs...sigh...I never thought twice about growing them in NZ, everything that I wanted to grow, just grew. but I'm having trouble adjusting to the northern hemisphere...every year, winter catches me on the hop! If not the cold, then the unfamiliar dryness does my babies in. Any hints for a very dry corner overhung by the roof, flanked by two concrete walls, with a gas-pipe underneath it, which is therefore unsuited to anything deep-rooted, but does get good sun. It's about the only herbalizable spot I have. Also lost my rosemary last year, thanks to overenthusiastic burial of neighborhood hamsters and goldfish at its roots! We don't abduct pets, we just happen to be one of the few families with a garden. I have trouble with leafy herbs like rocket, as too many slugs and other bugs come romping out from under the trees at night, and the garden does not get enough sun or air during the day, but do well with the toughies like lemon balm and pineapple sage (have lost my ordinary sage), and an extra-tough Japanese soup herb. I also have a Szechuan pepper tree (very small) used for the tender green leaves at this time of year. Many people grow these in pots trimmed back to nothing more than a stick with tufts of leaves. Left alone, they will grow into very thorny small trees. In the 9-inch gap between house and concrete retaining wall, I grow mints and thymes. Silver thyme and pineapple mint have proved the toughest, and they survive having bicycles parked on top of them - garden space in Japan is all about multi-tasking! Parsleys will survive here, but do not propagate. Aphids in windowsill herbs? I've always found that plants allowed to dry out will attract aphids. And while excessive wind will damage soft-leaved herbs, a bit of a breeze annoys the aphids too. Wishlist? Wish I could find a spot where basil would grow well -- in the ground, bugs eat it; in pots, husband forgets to water it when I'm not in Japan. Wish my shiso (perilla) would self-seed itself -- I think it should be happy in dappled shade under the plum trees, but it certainly is not. Wish my Chinese chives tolerated dry soil better. Wish I could find a spot where lavender would grow happily in the ground (narrows eyes at altogether too huge daphne which occupies the only really suitable spot in my garden). Wish, in fact, that I didn't have a work deadline this morning, but was out in the garden!

This happens to most of my corkscrews. First the screw straightens out over a few months, and then the whole thing snaps off at the shank. I think it's due to iggerance rather than superior muscle-power, but it's an embarrassing problem for a woman to have to admit to. Then a friend recommended an Adler corkscrew with the dreaded "drillbit" type of screw. You mount the housing over the neck of the bottle, screw the "bit" down and then just keep up the good work, and the screw and cork magically ascend out of the bottle. I've had it for nearly 2 years now, and have utterly failed to break it. Haven't shattered any corks with it yet, either.

Geoduck = mirugai, yep, that's correct. ...but, geoduck song??? What have I been missing?

I was just thinking about Japanese cooking mags... Not so fond of E. a table (just because it's so in step with trends elsewhere in the world, not because it isn't a good food mag), but love the photos! I learned to cook from Kyou no Ryouri too, but I guess that after a few years, when you're ready to move on from the basics, K no R is still rolling them out for a new generation of cooks! A lot of my favorites have come from stick-in-the-mud Eiyou to Ryouri and gourmet men's mag Dancyu Dancyu site - check recipe index at left!. (E to R site is not really helpful, Dancyu site contains a recipe index, a Good Thing, because the magazine itself only has a couple of recipes per issue. They are usually good, sometimes over the top, but the mag is mainly for reading). Another surprise is the tiny recipes in the newspaper. I don't know where the journalists dig them up from, I think they just ask the tobacconist's wife on their way to work the morning the copy is due, but every now and then there is some little everyday gem like a quick pickle recipe.

I'm sure you'd know by now if anything untoward had happened but... ...from one of my mother's gazillion pets and rescue operations, I caught toxoplasmois when I was a kid. No fun at all. Several months off school, heart murmur, practically chased out of blood clinic with broom when I enquired about donating blood. I think I'd prefer to let the cat finish its meal, and find fresh prey for my own family.

Chicken wings, soaked in milk, thyme, and mustard, lightly floured, twice fried, and served with lemon juice and red and black pepper Colcannon/Monjayaki Fusion...Colcannon made much sloppier than usual, using daikon greens and spring cabbage, and crisped on a table-top hotplate. Miso soup with shiitake and strips of fried tofu. Rice for those who couldn't be talked out of it.

I second that! Last time I made anko, I used a little good-quality mirin to replace some of the sugar, and yes, I agree that half the normal amount of sugar is plenty. Use up quickly, of course... You mean that pale yellow rock sugar?? Not like the crystal clear Japanese version? I haven't seen the Chinese type since I worked in a Chinese grocery...er....nearly 30 years ago!

...pineapple tea??? Tell me more!

Pork "kaku-ni" -- cubes of pork belly very gently preboiled in the piece yesterday and allowed to cool in the broth, then cut up today and simmered slowly in a sweet/soy soup with ginger. "Ton-jiru" soup -- pork scraps and winter vege miso soup, made with the broth from preboiling the pork. Salad of mizuna with hot sesame seed dressing Rice. Of course. Natto. Of course. Strawberries.

I look forward to what other people have to say on this, because it is a very complex topic. I'm in two minds... On the one hand, I grew up in NZ. There was a lot of pain, and probably many errors, in the dismantling of the subsidy system, but the agricultural sector is no longer the butt of everybody's jokes. The question is, does Japan's precarious agricultural sector need protection, or a kick in the ass? I don't see that the current forms and level of protection are helping matters, because the subsidies are not essentially aimed at grass-roots producers, nor at consumers, but at local business and local government, because the crop those subsidies are designed to produce is NOT a healthy ag sector, but solid political support for the LDP (Japan's electorates are weighted toward the rural areas, because representation is not fully proportional despite some tiny reforms). Government pays subsidies to rice farmers, then government buys most of the crop, stockpiles years of useless, tasteless rice that nobody wants...meanwhile, we average low-lifes can't afford to BUY this year's rice to put on tonight's dinner table. I'm not talking about paying a little more for superb quality, I'm talking about plenty bucks for dregs. Hey, where's that packet of spaghetti we bought half-price at the discount store the other day... The average urban Japanese guy's image of Japan's rice-growers is not pretty. I teach horticultural students English at a national university...that means the kids are not stupid. However, they normally tell me that they chose horticulture because their grades were not good enough for the more popular departments -- so they mostly didn't do more than basic biology in high school. The 1st year students think that horticulture is backward, corrupt, and that there are no chances for an interesting career. Of course, these are almost all city kids, with no actual experience of any part of the agricultural sector. Their interests in horticulture are usually either research/product development, or ecology/environment. Admirable, but they are still doing the old heigh-ho, heigh-ho march along paths 50 years out of date. What if the government (and the political candidates) stopped the handouts, and put that money towards encouraging basic education and research, new technology, market research? What a hope! Feh. Off to cool down and plan this year's classes!

I can't think of any reason why these things should work, except that some of them have quite a bit of alcohol, so they may have a "Hair of the Dog" effect. However, somebody once gave me a similar product when I got really sick when out, and it did get me home in one piece. Of course, since it worked so well, everybody figured that I *did* have a hangover after all, despite my protests!

I'm not a connoisseur, just an interested low-life, but my tastes in wine seem to have changed in two ways. A tolerance for tannin etc. probably comes from the general movement from sweet/light to sour/bitter that comes with age. I don't think there's anything juvenile about disliking "fierce" wines when you are younger, it's just the truth that my 40 year old sense of smell and taste is blunter than a younger drinker's. I don't know that my preferences have changed so much as broadened. I really don't want total consistency of quality in every bottle -- I really look forward to what each bottle will show me. I think that search has taken me away from blends, because blends are about drinkability and consistency. I still buy and serve blends, but when I'm just indulging myself, it's all about curiosity!

Just for reference, something that at least claimed to be "Uonuma-san Koshihikari" was going for 4600/5kg at my local Mycal Saty. 9200yen per 10kg...That's at leasst $4.60 per pound...I'm scared to eat this stuff in case I break my teeth on all the gold nuggets it must contain! Cheapest rice spotted today, 3660 yen/10kg in a "automatic rice-polishing machine" place run by an agricultural co-op near the family graveyard. Average cheapo price at local supermarkets...4000 to 4500 yen per 10kg. Rice of reasonable quality, but not necessarily harvested within the past 12 months, up to 6000 yen/10kg.

Talking of Chinese azuki recipes, I recall that Chinese bean jam contains a little oil (was it sesame oil?). I made it once, and the resulting bean jam was more dry and chunky than Japanese bean jam...but maybe I didn't make it correctly.

That sure was an informative post! Pirate, Uonuma-san Koshihikari is not hard to find, just expensive for a staple food. Department store basements very often have a specialty rice store selling small quantities of rice. I sometimes wonder if it *is* all really from Uonuma, because it is so readily available, but that's just my suspcious mind working...

I had a similar experience in the 80s, when I used to be a tour guide. Groups (Japanese, of course) would roll up to the biggest Japanese restaurant in Auckland, NZ. They would cry with joy over the "real" Japanese rice. They would call out the cooks, who would tell them that they were eating Australian rice - but nobody ever believed them...after all, how could a Japanese not "know" when s/he was eating the real thing?! As for the price of locally grown rice, I think it's an outrage that I have to pay 4,500 yen or so ($50) for the very cheapest 10kg (22lb) bag of rice from the 2002 crop, stale rice with broken kernels. If I want 2003-harvested koshihikari, I'd better cash in my husband's life insurance... I feel really angry when I hear politicians going on about how decadent young Japanese won't eat rice -- who but they made rice so expensive that frugal housewives have raised the past generation or two of kids on bread for breakfast and noodles for lunch (made from cheap imported wheat, of course...)?

Well, now Google is here to make life boring...but when I was growing up, my friends and I spent plenty of time wondering what various picturesquely named US foods might be like. Speculation on "hoe cakes" took us through most of our 5 years of high school, I recall... I do have close friends who have encountered north american muffins at close quarters. My time will come... One of these days, I'm going to get off the plane, and yell "America, take me to the supermarket"! I'm going to collect detailed evidence on Twinkies, Pop Tarts, Cheese Wizz...will my life be long enough to see me to the checkout, I ask myself... ...and if buffalo don't have wings, I don't think I want to know.

Hiratake! My all out favorite! Nothing so good in a "ni-bitashi" dish (simmered in a soy-seasoned broth, then served doused with the cooled broth)! Shimeji are great for most purposes, but don't you agree that hiratake have the edge? Our local supermarket plays that tape on a near-dead tape recorder. Every few seconds, the tape jams, and then the song moans into life again. Mushrooms can revive anything?! Enoki fried in butter used to be a favorite cheap nomiya dish in my youth. Maitake...hmmm...matsutake...hmmm...nope, shimeji/hiratake and shiitake definitely win!

Fukinoto tempura...that takes me back 20 years or so, when my friends set up house and kiln on top of a mountain ridge in Wakayama, overlooking what remains of the old capital at Asuka. My friend was an enthusiastic researcher of the Kokinshu, who marveled at the flowers and plants that had sprung straight from classical poetry onto the muddy path that led from the road up to their isolated house. Her poetic meditations lasted till spring, when she discovered that most of this "poetry" was edible. After that, it was books away, pots and pans to the fore!

Spring mushrooms??? Not that I know of, but wild garlic, yes, yes, yes! It's called "hermit's garlic", and is ironically prolific even in quite built-up areas. Asparagus...not native to Japan, but many other kinds of shoots. Sadly, this is the first year that I have not been able to find wild yomogi (a kind of artemisia) shoots for making green dumplings filled with bean jam. Ever since my children were tiny, we have made them every spring, but year by year, the wild areas have decreased. The new pork-barrel provincial road that will fell a 400-year cherry blossom tree in a month or two, has encouraged housing on the last of the wild yomogi plots. But, even if you have to buy wild food in supermarkets nowadays, I fully appreciate the way Japan worships the vegetable world! You have a good itamae there!

Sorry not to have responded -- flu and exam marking hit, and then I forgot... My yogurt maker works on the same principle as Torakris' does, with a more solid box. It's National brand (Panasonic in the US???) but I couldn't find it in English under that name. Here's another very similar yogurt maker -- scroll well down for the "Miracle "In the Carton" Yogurt Maker Model ME72" ( "M" is often the first letter in National product codes, so maybe it is the same brand? Who knows?). http://www.fernsnutrition.com/hmyogurt.html I have used a thermos to make yogurt. This plug-in type is definitely more consistent, especially in winter. I recommend a Bulgarian culture such as the New England Cheesemaking place sells. I use a Bulgarian culture here, and it produces a thick yogurt that is tasty but not over sour. We did make Kefir for a couple of years. Now THAT is sour...