helenjp

Yes, I've been seeing packs of NZ rolled lamb (looks more like hogget to me though) sliced thinly for about 148 yen/100g at Itoyokado and Daiei here in Matsudo all year. This is nothing fancy, aimed at the "genghis kahn" restaurant market. Slightly better thin-sliced lamb for 158yen/100g, lamb chops available at silly prices. Also spotted NZ manuka honey at very high prices in another supermarket, maybe Seiyu?

bakerestates, what you are describing sounds similar to the leg of wild boar that I received once - it still had hair on it here and there when I got it! The flavor was very full, and the meat remarkably dark. Venison would be a good guess if tasting blind. Since I was in Japan, I simmered it in dark miso and sansho berries in the recommended way, and essentially, no seasoning is likely to overpower it. Not that the meat was rank, just that it was very lean and ...mmm...not rank, but definitely not chicken, either!

I have used various solutions, but the one I like best is a white board made specifically for over sinks. One edge is bevelled, so I can sweep garbage straight into the sink (as opposed to having it fall on the floor, which happens too easily when sink-cover boards extend the full depth of the counter). You may not want a full-size cover if you have a large sink - mine is rather heavy, so I don't always use it, even when I know it would be the best working surface.

Can't help, but I DID spot an up-to-date restaurant guide that looked good while in NZ recently. I think it was in the airport bookshop too, so take a peek on your way in.

I used to work as an interpreter, and have seen my share of name-value restaurants and fodder barns both All Steve's pointers ring true for me, but what I really admire is his flexible attitude (which is not the same thing as being passive) -- as far as I'm concerned, that's the secret ingredient to enjoying spending your money. One question, though - sometimes meals just have to be scheduled at rush-hour times. Do you have any advice on finding the right balance between getting what you want and having things run smoothly in busy restaurants? In particular, I remember interpreting for a business dinner involving household-name businessmen in a restaurant which was also hosting a prominent national politician and guests that night - it was a trendy but small retaurant, and the staff were experienced but very, very busy. Individual diners no doubt got less waiting attention, but in these small restaurants, they also have to put up with an amazing amount of traffic cantering back and forth in front of their tables. I had to wonder if the couples dining there that night got what they paid for. Assuming that people book without knowing that they are about to be steamrollered by Money and Power, how could couples or solo diners minimize their pain when they find themselves pushed to the wall? In smaller towns, there isn't such a division between business dining and "recreational dining", so I'm guessing that it's not an unusual experience.

Sorry, just leaving for the airport so can't give exact measurements, but this kind of salad dressing is just a variation on an ordinary vinaigrette (which you will find plenty of on the internet). For salt, substitute soy sauce to taste For vinegar, use a mild rice vinegar For oil, use a little toasted sesame seed oil and top up with a mild salad oil. Sprinkle a few sesame seeds in. You can add a little wasabi or mustard. You can also use chopped or sieved umeboshi instead of soy sauce (add a drop or two of soy sauce).

I keep meaning to post a photo of pork belly cube skewers with sage...I keep making them, but we keep eating them instead of photographing them. I drop the cubes into a little vinegar and oil for a few hours, then rub in some salt and add crumbled dried sage, but in summer I alternate the pork cubes with fresh sage leaves. Grill. Eat.

tantan, can you tell us more about the sauce - is it clear and dark (soy sauce vinaigrette), or smooth and light brown and creamy (miso and/or sesame), does it have clear pulp (grated daikon) in it?? Hiroyuki, you should try this combination, though I'm sure there are more inspired salads to try it on (how about shredded steamed chicken?). The lactic-acid pickles and the mildly sour yogurt blend seamlessly - you wouldn't think "yogurt" at all. And if cucumber pickles go with cheese, why shouldn't kimchi go with yogurt? My family ate it all up. I thought the pork was over the top, but they were enthusiastic...men!

Another kabocha salad...this one from an izakaya recipe off the internet, adapted just a titch. Steam equal quantities of peeled satsuma-imo (sweet potato), kabocha (squash), and broccoli. Dress with chopped kimchi, plain yogurt with a tiny bit of sugar added, and toasted sesame seeds. Cut some finely-sliced pork or beef into smaller pieces, drop one by one into simmering water, removing as soon as they change color, and add to salad. As you can see, this "salad" is a meal in itself. The kimchi and yogurt work well together.

We do get Australian cheeses in NZ, though I feel that it's more the Italian cheeses that have been made in Australia for a long time, rather than the soft cheeses which follow similar trends in NZ and Australia as far as I can tell.

Stone fruits typically need a certain period of cold in the winter, and perhaps more importantly, a period of sharp contrast between day and night temperatures. Doesn't mean you can't grow them, but peaches and raspberries in a warmish coastal climate may be prone to various types of bacterial and fungal diseases. If you are particular about cleaning up dead leaves/twigs/fruits, especially infected material, and spraying from blossom to pre-harvest, you can surely grow them, as your neighbor's bounty shows. I come from a climate with similar problems - the solution for the lazy but successful home gardener is to pick fruits native to areas with similar climates. Try GardenWeb Carolina forum P.S. Figs - especially smaller types

Dead easy non-miso soup...pork with takana-zuke pickles. Simmer a hunk of pork belly in water or dashi till tender, leave till cool, remove meat, slice off the thickest layer of fat and then slice remaining meat thinly and reserve. Soak 1 pickled takana leaf in water for about 30 minutes (1 big leaf will do 4-6 bowls of soup). Squeeze, chop finely, add to broth and return meat. Reheat, season lightly with salt and shoyu, and there you go. Pork stirfried with pickled takana leaves is good too.

This is just the same old, same old hasami-age...but using fine panko made it perfect for summer! 1 breast of chicken, skinned, cut into squares, each opened out "book" style Half a shiso leaf laid on each "book" 1 dab miso in the middle of each piece of shiso (mixed ume and miso is even better) Shut the books, dip in flour, beaten egg with milk, fine breadcrumbs, and deep fry.

A nice kabocha salad (or maybe aemono) for summer. Slice about 150g (very roughly 5oz) of kabocha (pumpkin) and shred into matchsticks. Blanch briefly and drain, spreading so they cool as fast as possible. Cut 1 Japanese cucumber into matchsticks. Shred 4 sticks or pieces of fake crab surimi. Make a simple dressing: grind 2 tab toasted sesame seeds with 2 tsp sugar and 1/2 tsp salt, plus 1 bouillon cube if you wish (I used an instant konbu-dashi sachet, amd preferred the lighter taste). Add 4 tab rice vinegar or other light vinegar. Dress salad ingredients, place in a serving bowl, pour just a little toasted sesame oil over, cover, and refrigerate until needed.

Definitely weird, but if it tastes good . Now I'm imagining what a marmalade-filled onigiri would be like rolled in crushed cornflakes...

Shungiku - it's fine in hitashi. Mizuna - not bitter when very young, good in salads. Bitterness: grow plants fast in soft soil with plenty of nutrients, and above all lots of water, and harvest young. Most greens will get bitter or acidic as they mature - it's their way of protecting themselves as they flower and reproduce.

I was gunna post a photo, but my original idea morphed so fast and so far, that I couldn't possibly call it a composed salad any longer. But in this weather, other people might also want to make a salpicon of chicken or beef. Hope somebody does, and posts a photo!

MINT: I pulled a stem of mint out of the horticulture department garden on my way home the other week ("garden" is really overstating it, there are tangles of plants in various places, that's about all!). I'll post a photo shortly, looks a bit sad as the plant came home in my handbag on a hot day and has since been busy growing new roots at the expense of the leaves it came home with. However, it's quite different from the mint that Hiroyuki has. The leaves are hairy, they look almost grey in sunlight. They've been indoors quite a while now, so the leaves are greener, but they feel quite velvety. The leaves are heavily serrated, and there is no sign of red on the stems. The plant tastes strongly of menthol - more like mothballs than toothpaste, even! It might be m. arvensis, but I haven't seen it flower yet...

Are we talking "mild climate, tenderly cared for", or "mild climate, take-that-if-you-can standards of care"? In the first case, komatsuna is a good choice because you can eat it at various stages from seedling up to flowering shoots (nothing special, but edible). GardenWeb Vegetables forum under Asian Vegetables may be more useful to you. Shungiku (edible chrysanthemum is easy to grow - strong smell keeps many pests away), but it does tend to bolt easily, and the flavor is coarser once it flowers. I can tell you from experience that it can grow shoulder-high!). Mizuna is another relative of komatsuna, with very small leaves, slightly bitter, good in salads, soups, or "nabe" dishes Mitsuba （Cryptotaenia japonica） and Seri (Oenanthe javanica) are stronger-tasting herbs a little reminiscent of parsley - they will grow in damp conditions. Not prolific, but reassuringly persistent! Okinawan greens such as: Suizenji-na (Gynura bicolor) If you want things that are next door to weeds, try tsuruna (New Zealand spinach/warrigal greens, tetragonia tetragonioides), tsuru-murasaki, or shiro-za (lambs' quarters, chenopodium album - there is also a red variety, and this wild plant is used throughout Europe and Asia).

1) Squeeze firmly 2) Use nori We ran out of white rice, and I wanted to use up all our left over rice before the hottest part of summer comes. Brown rice is especially nice with strong flavors like sansho or miso.

Time to dry your umeboshi if you pickled them this year! Not the best weather for it, unfortunately. I'm making some honey umeboshi too...some people pickle them in honey and salt, but I've soaked some old umeboshi for a couple of days, and am drying them for a day or two before packing them in honey for a few weeks.

Today's lunch: yesterday's brown rice (about 3 cups cooked rice) mixed with 1 tsp or so of pickled sansho berries, and 1 tab of homemade pickled "gari" ginger, chopped finely and squeezed. Onigiri were filled with homemade sake-soboro (soak salt salmon slices a little to remove salt, then simmer in water and sake, remove flesh, and cook with a dash of shoyu and some mirin until flakey), and wrapped in nori. Nara-zuke pickles on the side (gourd pickled in sake lees).

For that price, you might also like the delonghi compact and compact convection ovens - type in "delonghi" at the amazon.co.jp site. My sister has used a delonghi countertop oven for years, and uses it even when she has a conventional oven in the kitchen.

OJ might make for a very sweet cake. For simpler fruit cakes, my mother and grandmother used to soak fruit in black tea, with some added citrus juice.

I'll be in South Auckland...our local supermarket is in one of the roughest suburbs in New Zealand, so the cheese selection is a bit narrower than in other areas , but I will get a bit further afield. I won't have the produce of every continent at my fingertips, but I'm sure I'll have more than I can munch through in a scant fortnight, without a focused approach!