helenjp

Brent, I think it has changed - from memory, lagers were "new" down under in the '80s, and represented a turn away from the heavier British-influenced traditional preferences. Microbreweries apart, the smaller breweries now typically offer a ranger from light lagers through to dark strong beers, and sometimes herbed or spiced beers, not to mention whitbiers as well.

I had the same reaction as I mooched along the lamb section at the supermarket - I've been looking forward to lamb shank for 2 years, but I just COULDN'T take the price. I can't believe that New Zealand is suffering from a shortage of lamb shanks, unless GE has taken off unbeknownst to me, and all our sheep are born on rollers so one good shove will take them from mountaintop pasture to the container ship waiting at the harbour...

Well, on the other side of the world, I'm just back from the fish-shop too! Thanks for the wonderful picture(s) of your world, and if the only thing I learned was to eat plum icecream with red wine, it would have been well worth it, but in fact, there's been so much more...thank you!

lperry, the "mouth-puckering" I'm thinking of isn't from sharp or bitter flavors, but some reaction that dries saliva up...chewing a mouthful of greens in a suddenly dry mouth is definitely something I want to avoid. Japanese cooking boils where Chinese cooks often steam. Even my Chinese friends nowadays are skeptical of the Japanese reliance on boiling. On the other hand, traditional Japanese food does involve a lot of bitter leaf/stem vegetables... I wonder why some cultures find bitterness appealing, while others don't?

Steinlager is indeed a Kiwi beer, and has been husband's favourite for a quarter-century. We just thought we'd experiment a bit!

Blimey, the jodo shinshu temple where my mother in law is buried would never serve food to parishioners under any pretext - they need every yen themselves to pay for the imported luxury cars and their private houses which tower over the actual temple!!! This is the temple that forbids people from making food offerings because they can't be bothered cleaning it up, though they charge a good hefty maintenance fee for graves! When I die, I think I'll specifiy in my will that my family should leave a whole ungutted squid on my grave every week... I admit that not every temple is like that one, though!

Sakura cha, definitely! Nothing like it when you're tired out!

spoilage...not just foods, but preparation. I like methods that subject the outside to high temperatures, like grilling things then dropping them in a marinade, or deep-frying. High water content encourages spoilage - draining/squeezing ingredients before dressing them helps a lot! I also like seed or nut creams/pastes rather than dairy creams because they keep better. Unpeeled hard-boiled eggs are unlikely to spoil.

Ah well, in the case of my first wedding, the cake turned out to be more robust than my spouse, who died of a heart attack...sorry, that's in really poor taste, what I meant to say was that the marriage is the thing, not the bouquet or the cake, when it comes down to it! Properly made and stored fruit cake IS a preserve. I've made, stored, and eaten many. Bake, dress with alcohol over a period of time, and store well wrapped, and it will keep indefinitely. However, the icing is not so robust, so an iced cake will not keep as well. If you plan ahead to store the top tier, keep it plain and use a removable topper or fresh flowers etc. I believe that using almond paste under the royal icing will stop the icing from discoloring for a good long while, and also keep the cake moist. As somebody said, it's not necessary to keep it for ever - the tradition in NZ is to serve the top tier of the wedding cake as the baptismal cake for the firstborn child...and for these purposes, the original icing and almond paste are removed and applied fresh. To store an uniced fruit cake, my mother and grandmother would wrap the cake in stout foil (so that it will stand up to being unwrapped, doused in brandy, and wrapped again many times), often two layers, then in several layers of newspaper and finally a plastic bag. In other words, closely wrapped and protected against sudden changes in temperature and humidity. They kept cakes under the bed in the spare room...for similar reasons, I imagine.

I steam root vegetables not only in my steamer but in the slow cooker and the rice cooker. In the latter cases, they don't need any water at all, they will steam in their own water content, and I rub a little salt into them before they start cooking. As for leafy vegetables, I was warned that certain vegetables have a high enough mineral content to be a risk to people prone to kidney-stones. That suggests to me boiling was the tastiest and safest method of cooking in times when people gathered slow-growing wild vegetables with their more nutrient-laden foliage, rather than quickly-grown vegetables grown with superadequate water supplies - boiling not only tenderizes tough fibers with higher temperatures, but leaches out and breaks down bitter or toxic substances. If I steam spinach, I sometimes notice a faint mouth-puckering astringency which I assume comes from residual oxalic acid???

Hmm...lemons grow easily in NZ, but I won't be here long enough to try pickling. I'd noticed that they don't get soft in Japan, which was why I was so interested in the pulpiness, but never thought about waxing. Most lemons there are imported from the US, with huge signs on them saying "this has been absolutely drenched in the most amazingly toxic antifungal agents, another example of crass western disregard for life on this planet, put it back immediately and go buy an overpriced domestically grown lemon". A Japanese nabe has glaze on the inside too, and is not very thick, designed for simmering in water rather than slow braising. Another bird question...I suddenly realized that the main thing is letting the birds know the food is there - how do you pick a good spot? Will they still come to feed in a shady area?

picklemania alert sounded when I read about the preserved lemon pulp...did you buy it like this, or are those home-pickled lemons, pureed? Are Moroccan preserved lemons preserved in oil and salt, or just salt? It does look awfully good though. Hmm, wonder if my Japanese earthenware nabe would like to become a part-time tagine!

Saffron??? Surely not! Thanks for the bird feeder tips. I think the part my son2 will like best is obtaining and emptying the juice bottle!

Thanks for those pix - son2 was fascinated at the different feeders for wild birds - he was disappointed when I vetoed hanging a seed bell outdoors in our rainy climate, but now has the idea of wrapping it in mesh.

From what I see, accommodation for special needs is a bit grudging. A friend has a child who is highly allergic and was in and out of hospital in her early school years. One teacher refused to cooperate, until finally the principal intervened and said that either she cooperated and made the child feel welcome to eat her packed lunch together with the class while they ate school lunch, or the child would be instructed to bring her lunch to the principal's office and they'd eat lunch together...

Hmm...kebabs look good! I'm surprised to see the venison looking so tender... Also pleased to hear about "ciscos" - I'd come across the word and never had a clue what it referred to - might have been a new type of donut for all I could tell. Smoked fish is a big favorite here too, and it's perfect for lunchbox meals. My son is 13, so we'll be on the ground with binoculars for a while yet.

Parking is a definite one...I know several great places I never visit, because they are on busy roads, but are set so close to the road that I can't even pull in for 5 minutes, let alone park for an hour. (We don't believe in things like sidewalks in Japan, life's a lottery, why try to disguise it...). Other things -- wrong side of a busy road, poor street lighting makes dinner customers feel unsafe...etc.

I find Indian grocers often have supplies for middle eastern food. Trouble is, they have way too many other fascinating things too...

Highchef, I agree about the big breakfasts! When in Japan, our kids have a hot school lunch, but here in NZ, they want to play at lunchtime, and my elementary school boy will only take a small lunch...but he will happily eat weetbix and banana with hot milk, plus scrambled eggs and tomato, AND a slice of toast for breakfast! Meanwhile, I'm amazed at the kids who are just plain not getting enough to eat. Sometimes I collar them as they are buying their tiny bag of crisps at the local store on their way (late) to school, and manage to give them a yogurt, but how many empty stomachs are heading off to school every morning, ready to be converted into empty brains? Off to buy some plastic spoons so I can have a ready supply in my pocket ...

Temps down to 39F??? Ho ho ho, here I am in "winter" in New Zealand, and it7s currently around 70F. To be honest, it's warm for the time of year, and there are colder regions, but roses are blooming in my garden! I'm amazed to see how many people really do cook middle eastern food at home - I mean, lots of people enjoy Chinese food, but far fewer cook genuinely Chinese dishes at home. Hope you do get to try a new recipe over the weekend...should we be praying for more fog??? A red herring query, if it's not too out of line...what do you think is a good minimum age to start flying lessons? I live not far from a well-equipped airfield. My elder son was bitten good and hard by the aviation bug several years back, and wants to be an aeronautical engineer. Serves me right for spending his lifetime translating aviation safety reports, with a houseful of books on airplanes...of course, he wants to learn to fly them too. Meanwhile, we know every picnic spot in the county which is near a runway, under a flight path, looks down over an airfield...

Hiroyuki, did your family get together for obon? Around Tokyo, I notice that people rarely leave food or drink at the graves any more, because it is such a long trip to the graveyard that it is difficult to come back 3 days later and clear it all up, so temples insist that people leave only flowers and tea. In the family, I was told that fresh water or tea is the very best thing to offer at a family altar, and that must be seen to before any other food or drink is offered. However, there is a very old graveyard near my home which has become associated with a local temple, and because it originally belonged to a local family as their private graveyard, I notice cans of beer or sake, and those wrapped trays of big, brightly-colored sweets that they sell in the supermarkets.

So far we haven't gone further than one South Auckland Thai Restaurant, "Thai Tradition", just off the motorway in northern Manurewa - it was good enough, reliable, pleasant, but the dishes somehow very similar. However, we've recently discovered Mangere Bridge - a little detour on the route from City to Airport. Not only a couple of happily different choices for take-outs, but an amazing range of nice places to eat them - on top of volcanic Mangere Mountain, beside the sheep at Ambury Farm Park, or gazing at the water anywhere along Kiwi Esplanade! Son2 is getting a few top-up lessons from a local classical guitar teacher, who recommended that we try the newly-opened Perla del Sur bakery/cafe/takeout for sticky treats and Argentinian sandwiches and empanadas - they not only gave son1 and I a great reviving cup of coffee while we waited, easily the best I've had in South Auckland, but the sandwiches we bought there were perfect for a mountaintop dinner afterward - tasty, warm, satisfying, and not heavy or greasy. Thumbs up from picky son2, hollow-legs son1, and just-getting-over-a-tummy-bug Mum! In future visits, I think we'll also try the kebab cafe next door (which looks as if it might be the former favorite haunt of recently deceased ex-PM David Lange).

We're back in New Zealand for a month...and my sons are taking packed lunches to school, a big change from hot school lunch in Japan! I'm amazed at the great variety of hummus from Lisa's Hummus, a NZ company which makes all kinds of bean or vege based spreads and dips. I use them daily instead of butter in sandwiches and roll-ups - moist not greasy, quick and easy...when I get frenetic, I wax poetic... Favorites in my boys' "trail mix" boxes contain things like chunks of mild salami, firm gruyere cheese, hazel nuts, chewy dried mango strips. So far, drinks are mostly water with a squeeze of lemon juice, because I can't find drink containers that are easily cleaned out after more exotic drinks!

It would be related, SuzySushi, because the obon festival used to be held in the 7th month, and is now in August because of the introduction of the western calendar. What surprised me was seeing meat dishes - in Japan, altar food at obon is strictly vegetarian. Is meat often served as altar food in other Chinese regions?

Husband has been looking at the lower-alcohol lagers...we tried DB Export Gold, which was his favorite - as he said, it is mild with no hint of bitterness. Also tried Mac's Gold, which is right down there at 4%, seemed much drier than I recall.