helenjp

Are you sure that it's slugs and not woodlice? (Except that these are not exactly dango-mushi, which don't really cause much damage - these blighters are bigger and they don't roll into a ball when you poke them. My "garden" is very shady, and I lose almost all the strawberries to either slugs or woodlice. At least I can use the leaves to make strawberry-leaf tea! Have you considered getting chickens? They may damage the vegetables too, but they are very fond of a nice slug or other bug! I harvested our first TWO eggplants today! They grow on our upstairs balcony, the only place that gets any sun until midsummer. Nothing else except greens and sprouting broccoli are ready to eat yet, but the kabocha that sprouted out of the compost is flowering, and the unbelievably healthy and disease-resistant "shima kabocha" (Okinawan squash) looks to be close to flowering.

Gosh, aren't you a little old for teenage fads! I thought salted caramel was strictly for teenagers. The rice-flour rolls are a favorite of my son2, but I find they turn to paste as soon as you take a bite. Since I bought a rice-polisher, I've been considering incorporating rice bran into some breads.

Cumin is very good in small quantities - it warms the whole mix and ties everything together. Also good in small quantities is white pepper - it seems to emphasize the brighter, more flowery notes of a spice mix. I like cardamon either alone or in simple blends - it seems to get lost and over-simplified in bigger mixes. Allspice AND cloves sometimes seems like overkill to me - and in Japan, where people are not used to cloves in food, I more often use allspice. Nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger...a more British blend with less emphasis on cinnamon, as in this Elizabeth David spice blend Dutch speculaas mix is pretty much the same, with pepper. You can add anise powder too.

Thanks for the ideas! I agree that tomato juice cut with stock is good. Especially freshly juiced tomato. I tried it with Shalmanese's idea of miso soup, half and half, and it was tasty...but either too hot or too salty for comfort. Miso if fine, but I'm officially (though arboring some doubts) allergic to soy and rice, and soy milk and tofu are not regular items on my menu. Vichyssoise is definitely on my fantasy list, now that I feel more like cooking. Yes, heat and cold are difficult. And so is very salty, sweet, or sour food. To be honest, caffeine withdrawal is probably a problem with a sudden change of diet too - I've gone from 6 or more cups of strong coffee a day to one small cup of cold coffee every few days. Soft-boiled egg is an inspiration, thanks! Easy, good at room temp, and more approachable than scrambled egg. I might make a chawan-mushi (savory Japanese steamed custard) for my family, with a custard-only one for me. It's really isolating to have totally different food from my family. Funnily enough, it's not just me who feels left out, my family are noticeably more relaxed if I'm suckin' up my juice from the same bowls that they are using. I wish I'd had a bit more insight when I was looking for things for my FIL when his pancreatic cancer was advanced - although his problem was nausea, not being able to chew food means that the appeal comes almost entirely from aroma and colour. Pain and lack of sleep kill the appetite too. Even mixed with soup or yogurt, freshly juiced fruits and vegetables smell good, taste good at room temperature, and are not sweet or salty enough to trigger pain. How big is the straw? Since the bubble tea boom died out in Japan, I can't find big fat straws . Spoons are getting more negotiable, but until now I didn't realize how different sipping and sucking are.

Well, it's been liquids only for me for the past fortnight (neuralgia in face/tongue/throat), and mostly liquids for the past month. I don't care about steak, but I whimper when I see somebody bite into something crunchy in a movie! I started out with raw juice, and then started blending that with yogurt or clear soup (as long as it will go through a straw it's fine). A non-alcoholic eggnog is an occasional treat too, flavored with a little rosewater or mace, and sometimes with the juice of half an orange mixed in at the end. Hunger is not a problem - I get enough to keep going on. The problem is ease of preparation (since I have family meals to prepare too), affordability, and sheer boredom! I'm starting to panic, though, as the early summer rolls around - late spring citrus and the last of the apples are disappearing, cabbage and turnip are getting less palatable, and it's too early for cheap summer fruits and vegetables. Favorites so far: tomato and carrot juice with yogurt purple cabbage with lemon and apple the eggnog mentioned above clear soup flavored with lots of celery tops Daikon and daikon leaf juice (just a little, it is so fibrous it practically murders the juicer) with clear soup Looking forward to hearing good tips and a twenty-first century approach to stop myself feeling as if I've been locked up in an Edwardian sanatorium.

That's very interesting...seems that they are mostly Kansai based, but there is one in Tokyo near the Toranomon station. Hope you are feeling better...April seems to have been "international medical bills month" or something!

For me, that's a good enough reason to find another vendor. It could be worth ordering through a Japanese company (for example through Rakuten) if your Japanese is up to it, as some companies serving the expat community in Japan are a bit lackadaisical about shipping. I've taken to ordering rice in 30 kg lots and flour in 10-15 kg lots. More than one company meets my criteria (mostly price!) but the companies that get my business are the ones that tell me within 24 hours of ordering if there is going to be any kind of delay, and the ones that have various options for processing and packaging of bulk orders right on the main order page (e.g. do I want all my rice polished or only some, do I want my bulk order in one package or in several small packages, etc.).

Sorry to kick off with a non-Japanese restaurant. Son2 and I ate lunch at "Mugi to Budou" (Wheat and Grapes), near Chiba Station east exit. You turn sharp right from the east exit, walk just a few minutes along the tracks, until you see a road leading off to the left - the building is about on that corner, but you should see the entrance to the restaurant on your left as you enter the street. Here's a Gyao entry on the place. It does a busy lunchtime trade, and I expect is popular after work as well, featuring handmade pasta, Belgian beer, and a small menu of other items. They had several wines on display that looked interesting, though I didn't check the list. The seating is divided into several sections, which added some privacy. Our pasta was extremely good, and the sauces, while a little rich, would be very good with beer. The servings are known to be on the small side, and son2 felt the need to order bread as well as dessert, but for most women, the serving would be just right. Pasta prices were mostly in the 850-1500 yen range. We were glad we'd walked past several other places, as we enjoyed the lunch and also the venue.

Coming to the end of the Japanese citrus season...the tastiest around right now might be haruka and dekopon. However, I am not sure that they have the "bite" to survive the transition to baked goods. Dekopon has a deep orange skin with a pronounced nipple and tastes more tangor-like and fragrant; haruka has a lemony color with no more than a slight ring round the base, and has a lighter, milder, sweet taste. They are related, though they look quite different, but I won't go into the convoluted details! Amanatsu, one of the latest of the citrus, is often nicer in baked goods than in person. Small sponge cakes incorporating finely grated rind and soaked after baking in the juice are fragrant and tangy.

Falooda and kulfi falooda?

Sounds like damping off to me. Good hints here. Try a less nutritious seedling mix such as peat moss and sand/perlite, or a commercial seedling mix - texture is more important than nutrition at this point. Yuzu should be perfectly OK with minimum temperatures where you are. Good luck - sorry not to be more useful, as I'm very far from an expert. P.S. What season was it when you put the seedlings outside? It may have been too cold...seedlings are more likely to drop their leaves in a cold wind than mature trees...but "browning" rather than yellowing still makes me think of some kind of microbial rot.

Clay soil with hardpan...hmmm... I don't have enough space to try it where I live, and totally different conditions, but in Japan people often　resort to dark cunning to grow gobo. The photos show a "bottomless" bag approach that I think would avoid any worries about poor drainage (gobo likes well-drained soil, despite being a greedy guts). The poster warns that bags need to be tall or the root will divide when it hits the ground. He suggests 90 cm (about 40 inches) tall) Here's another approach designed to deal with the wet feet problem - the inside of the bed has mountain yam (yama-imo) being trained along drainpipes, while gobo is planted along the outside where the soil is naturally drier. I love this idea - to harvest, you just pull out the stakes and remove the corrugated plastic, your soil collapses, you yank out your vegetables and walk away whistling. Temperatures: Gobo is tough. It's unlikely to be too hot or cold for gobo. A little dry weather won't hurt it either, though I assume that any root vegetable will do best with consistent if not ample watering. You could try harvesting the young gobo (salad gobo) at just over the 3 -month mark, when the skins are still young and the flesh tender, or you could wait till it looks gnarlier (like me), after 4-5 months.

Just back from NZ, didn't have a lot of time to try wine, continue to think that Sileni are good value for money. On the way out of the country I raced through the airport duty free and grabbed 2 bottles each of Schubert B Block Pinot Noir 2007 and Puriri Hills 2004 Estate blend (not the reserve). I need help with a decision...3 of these bottles are gifts, and I get to keep one. Which should it be, the Schubert or the Puriri Hills?! I wanted to try some of the Italian-style wines that are being made, and finally grabbed one Clevedon Hills Chiara (Chardonnay/Arneis blend), not realizing that it was in fact wine made by Vin Alto, the very maker I was trying to find. It was just what I was expecting, flowery and fresh and light, and I wish I had another bottle to give away! One last bottle to try...Craggy Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2008 Yacht Club Vineyard...but no rush with that one, I think.

Hah! Auckland airport is undergoing renovations to the eating area, which have succeeded mostly in driving everybody to Macdonald's to avoid a stunning view of the back of the porta-bank money exchange shack slapped in the middle of the departure gate concourse. However, the better choice seems to be the Downunder Cafe - again, they had a better thought-out range of items for tired and jetlagged travelers. I often hear that the Aoyama sushi and noodle bar is one of the better options, but haven't tried it.

Drive to Kaikoura...depends on the direction! Are you thinking of driving south from Nelson or north from Christchurch or east over the Southern Alps? Mussels are probably better in Nelson or even Picton, but Kaikoura is the place for NZ crayfish (koura). Catching rather than eating is the main local activity,it's a one-horse town, but there are eateries. The trip south from Picton/Blenheim would take you past the Saltmaking at Lake Grassmere. Blenheim of course has plenty of wineries, and I am sure the area is very different from when I went through it with a Japanese TV crew, but the landscape is breathtaking, if monotonous. The land gets drier as you head out of the hills and through the plains to Christchurch, so you have the strangely opaque and chilly turquoise sea, and then the harsh grays and golds of the land leading through a haze to the purple of the mountains. The west coast can be forbidding too, but it's wet and louring rather than austere and dry. Dunedin - the best thing I ate there was wild game, especially venison (before it was farmed much), but of course, it's also a place to eat lamb cooked with due respect. If it's cold enough, you might want to ask about outdoor curling and ice-skating in inland towns such as Alexandra and Balclutha. Although Queenstown is more fashionable, skiing may be better elsewhere, and small towns like Te Anau are good bases for fishing. The Red Cliff cafe in Te Anau has a good reputation. This site gives a fair idea of the type of produce to look out for in the southern South Island.

As for fush and chups, we stick to places we know are good - there can be huge differences!!! Traveling via Waihi down to Tauranga (east side of North Is) we only stopped in Waihi for a jelly-tip, but there are several restaurants I know nothing about, including one called The Porch out on the coast. Where I like to stop is Katikati, a bit further down the coast. It's been nicely plumped out by kiwifruit and other orcharding money, and has several restaurants that I've never tried. One reason is because the Busy Baker is so good! They have things like filled paninis which make a welcome change from endless meat pies, and the lemon and passionfruit tarts must NOT be left on the shelf - really tart and flavorsome, and far above the average smalltown bar cookie fare. The pastry was tasty if a tiny bit hard, but for picnicking, anything shorter or crumblier would have been a nuisance. The only downside is the fact that the bakery lives up to its name - it is really busy, to the point where we had finished our lunch before the staff got away from the cash register long enough to make my coffee! The "cafe" is really just a seating area at present, they don't seem to have enough time or staff to develop the cafe side as a business...but the quality of the baked goods makes up for it. Back in Auckland, if you go horseriding or winery-hopping in South Auckland, or head out to any of the beaches via Clevedon, the Woolshed has now become a sit-down cafe/restaurant, but the With Relish deli stocked us up nicely for an afternoon's riding. Enjoyed the range of fruit juices in particular. If you picnic often, you might like to stop at a Warehouse (cheapest general goods dealers) and get a few plastic containers and a "chilly bin" (polystyrene container) and one or two cooling pads. That way, you can carry sandwich/wrap makings with you for times when you can't face another meat pie. Apart from cheese etc., I really recommend smoked fish or even smoked roe. I usually stock up at the fish shop in Manukau city, as it's not far from Auckland airport and handy as I drive south, but if you are heading into town, there is now a 24-hr supermarket along the main drag from the airport (George Bolt Drive).

Did you just want Auckland restaurants? I just got back from Auckland, where I had 3 15-year-old boys in tow. I had planned to take them to a "good" restaurant while we were there, but a closer look at their wardrobes made me think again. Yes, we have the jeans, or the grubby jeans, or the cargo pants, or... Coming from Japan, the boys enjoyed Tony's in Wellesley St. It's a venerable steak house, has a branch in Lorne St. with a similar menu. They enjoyed a good meal in pleasant but not starched surroundings, and while service is generally not a strong point of NZ restaurants, I thought the service here was better than at some other restaurants we ate at. We've previously enjoyed the Japanese restaurant Rika in Newmarket. Another relaxed eating place we enjoyed was the Malaysian Nyonya Restaurant in Howick village (out of the way unless you have a reason to be in the eastern suburbs). The service was accurate and willing, but somewhat unskilled, but the three boys REALLY enjoyed their meal. They ordered so much that the waitress suggested they might like to reduce their order (!), but they polished off every bit of it, even though my son's two friends are mostly known as light eaters. In other words, it was very approachable. The steamed snapper was extremely good, though again, needed just another push on the last details - beautifully cooked, but one or two scales still in evidence. As far as "relaxed but good" goes, I would have liked to try a winery lunch or brunch, thinking that seeing a vineyard and/or winery as well as having lunch would be interesting for the boys. There are cheaper options, but I had my eye on the Sunday lunch at Vin Alto in Clevedon (South Auckland) -- just couldn't find time. Outside Auckland (and not even very far out of Auckland), you might consider a farmstay or homestay with somebody interested in cooking. Kids can do things like ride horses or bikes, or feed animals, while you talk food or cook with your hostess. I'll talk about picnics and bakeries in the other subforum!

I've had that Kaga shoyu - it was very mellow and pleasant. Brisket - if you are lucky, you might find "burisuke" or "kata-bara" (shoulder-belly) at a specialty butcher. "Kata-roosu" is from the back rather than the belly side of the shoulder area.

I was reading somewhere (that I now can't find) about the quality of food in airports in New Zealand, from the grab-a-sandwich food bar to the sit-down restaurant. Several people commented that regional airports did it better, but some of the examples were not the kind of thing I'd want before an early-morning check-in or after a flight before facing the phone and rental car counters. So do airports deserve a bad reputation, or is there just a mismatch between suppliers and consumers? When I think about the notorious sandwich pack, I realize that 1) I don't want to waste my limited time queueing up again at another place to get a drink, and 2) some people want a hearty meat pie, while others want something small, light, and interesting...but wherever the people are who want two gigantic limp sandwiches that look different but taste the same, they aren't at the airport! Any comments on regional domestic airports? Rotorua used to have exactly one small foodbar...don't remember any food or drink service at Bay of Islands (Kerikeri)? And any places at specific airports that travelers should make a beeline for? I'll be making several trips to and from Auckland airport later in the month, and my 3 year old memories are a bit hazy - I bet I'm not the only one who'd appreciate hearing more up to date opinions!

You are wasting ume-shu if you cook with it, except in rare cases! The cheapest substitute for sake would be Korean sake (I have bought it outside Japan and it's quite close, forget the name/brands sorry). The type of Chinese rice wine used for cooking vs. sake is a bit like sherry vs. a light white wine. Sake is much lighter in taste and clear in color.

Hmmm son1's high school lunch break is from 12:30 to 13:15. A warning bell rings at 13:10, and classes start from 13:15. Morning classes start at 08:40 and run without a break until lunch...you have to be a fast operator to get a bite in between classes. The short lunch breaks in Japanese schools have a lot to do with the high percentage of lunches brought from home. The school store sells stationery supplies, and only very basic foods - instant cup noodles, and very basic onigiri and packs of 2 sandwiches...not really a lunch service. There is no cafeteria, and apparently most kids think that lunch break is not long enough to run to the nearest convenience store to buy a bento. But it is long enough to skip lunch and catch a train to Akihabara and back!

Very interesting reading the comments after 1 week of cooking, and also very interesting for me to see how the type of storage you have affects your "pantry" menus. My Japanese fridge capacity is about 279 liters (just under 10 cu. ft.) and the freezer is 96 liters (3.4 cu. ft.). I still manage to lose stuff in the freezer...but most of my stores are dried foods. The pressure cooker is my friend! I do this quite often, but usually prepare" my kitchen by stocking up on green vegetables that I know will keep well. If I join in from today with no preparation, my only garden produce at this time of year is some New Zealand spinach/warrigal greens/tsuru-na, and maybe some wild mugwort or garlic shoots. I'll start growing some carrot and turnip tops, and put the scallion roots in a pot... I don't know how other pantry shoppers operate, but I usually have certain things that are always in stock, and at the end of each month I check oil and condiments and replenish stocks. My challenges this week will be: Dealing with stocks of noodles and other non-wheat foods bought for a gluten-intolerant guest. Using up "rare" foods so that I can re-stock with easy to use foods that my elder son can cook for himself and my husband while I'm out of Japan for a fortnight. Caveats: I can't keep a week's supply of milk in my fridge, and we use 3-4 liters a week to make yogurt. I think my kids are old enough to go without milk to drink if need be though. May need to buy food for sons' projects - son2 wants to make white chocolate truffles or Maids of Honor cheesecake tarts as White Day gifts (Mar 14 is when boys return gifts to the girls who gave them Valentines a month back!). Have the makings of cheesecake, but not truffles. Son1's cooking practice enters the Intensive Phase for the next fortnight - may need to buy supplies for him to learn specific dishes!

Barberries - easy to find in Chinese/Korean and sometimes Japanese shops. Also known as wolfberry, goji.

I agree that it's more regional than you would expect - a good Christchurch restaurant won't be serving what a good Auckland restaurant serves. I was surprised at how conservative Queensland supermarkets were, considering the climate...at least 20 years ago, people in Brisbane seemed to be eating what people in Christchurch ate, but NOT what people in Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, or Wellington were eating! On the whole, I think that Australian families have gone much more to the "grilled meat and salad" pattern, where NZ (especially outside Auckland) is still much more "meat and hot vegetables". Travellers complain about boring (time-warp postwar British cooking) roadside food in rural NZ, and that is mostly due to lack of good supplies and lack of contact with different types of food, I think. Indian, Chinese, and Pacific vegetables are grown in NZ, but I don't see them in supermarkets serving the bleach community, any more than I saw tropical vegetables in Queensland (though tropical fruits were common)...pity, because they offer variety much more affordably than imported European condiments! I'm curious whether the Mediterranean community has as much impact in Sydney as in Melbourne? And whether Australians notice the slowly growing influence of and interest in Pacific (Samoan, Fijian etc) food that we see in Auckland? Fish - despite some common varieities, there is a surprisingly big difference in the fish available in the two countries! Currents are quite varied. P.S. Menus here from Lewinsky's in Darwin, and Flanagan's in Invercargill! Cuisine.com food/recipe site from Australia, vs. Foodlovers, a smaller-scale NZ site. Lots of similarities...

I have "A Taste of India", and I do appreciate the discussion of different regions, not just in tastes, but in eating styles too. My edition has a smallish but useful range of photos.