helenjp

...I agree, and was too grumpy to finish my sentence in my first post - braising yes, stews no. I suspect slow cookers just don't deliver enough heat. Perhaps the "bed of sauteed vegetables" approach works because the meat juices permeate the vegetables directly and undiluted, or perhaps it's just easier for the slow cooker to reach a decent heat for a longer period? What about the opposite approach, freshening up a slow-cooked dish with a quickly fried mix of flavorful vegetables/herbs, or fresh herbs/lemon juice/ tomatoes/spices etc just before serving? Slow cookers are just too convenient to give up on! Slow cookers make wonderful "simmered" fish dishes - creamy texture without the fish breaking up. Could be just a case of rose-tinted spectacles, but I actually look forward to getting back to NZ and hauling out the slow cooker! I think of them more as slow-steamers than slow-stew machines.

Using the oven is an expensive business in Japan, and I believe that's been so for most of humanity for most of history (so Tokyo Electric Power Company is just keeping us true to our roots with their punitive charges!). Nuthin wrong with stove-top/slow-cooking methods, unless you think that the characteristics of oven-baked food are the *only* ones admissible. Slow-cooked or stewed foods, in all their glories, have different textures...if you can't make a tasty meal using these techniques, get out your slates and start studying, don't blame the problem on the tools! (Boy am I in a bad mood today!) When in New Zealand, I use an oval slow-cooker with a heavy ceramic insert. In Although it cooks whole chickens without water in a very tasty way, it's pointless to think of it as a variation on roast chicken. Chicken pieces with frozen veges, a pack of soup, and water isn't going to take you far either - toss out those slow-cooker manufacturer publications, and look at middle eastern and north african cooking methods, for a start... In Japan, I use my rice-cooker to cook rice-stuffed squid and a few other dishes - it cooks a bit hotter than a slow-cooker. However, clay-pot cooking has a lot going for it too. It must be into it's nth fad in 2-3 decades by now, which ought to tell us something. (exits, stomping moodily, to left...)

Wow, elder flowers and elder berries! Ever since I read that Hans Christian Andersen story about the little boy listening to a story about the spirit of an elder tree while drinking elder tea, I've wondered what the tree and blossoms looked like. Thank you!

Heh heh, loved the "stop the car and harvest the ditch" story! The problem with building a mental vegetation map of your neighborhood is that it becomes very hard to drive in the dark, when your usual landmarks are not visible! I'm surprised you're having such a fruitful time in such a built-up area - my neighborhood has undergone a lot of development, and many of my favorite free food spots have disappeared . My usual dilemma is that I can still find the plant I want, but it's only in exposed and accessible areas which are probably very popular with passing dogs ...ever have that worry?

Magazines like "Croissant" quite often have issues devoted to restaurants, and often have a lot of traditional Japanese restaurants (since the readership is elderly and well off). At the other end of the scale, magazines like Tokyo Walker, Hanako etc. cover smaller and more accessible eateries, usually aimed at young singles. Kris, how's that foot? Not ready to hit the restaurant trail yet?

I have had that, I remember that it was especially smooth and nice in hot weather. Kiem Hwa, I think you might be able to get away with cooking some stuff in a slow cooker, but in most cases with Japanese cooking, the end result is something stiff enough to hold its shape...and that is almost impossible to do without stirring. If you cook it for a long time, you get a very mild sweetness, and lose any raw taste. ...I guess how much trouble you go to will depend on how strong the flavors you serve with it are going to be

I'm really enjoying these posts of local shops and suppliers - I know I should be ogling the food, but I'm really just floored by the FLOORSPACE! I keep calculating how many steps I could boogie from shelf to shelf, and just about short-circuiting my tiny, Japan-imprinted brain. I am jealous of all those grains and flours though, I admit it.

Turtlemeng, my kids kindergarten used to steam the bentos! I'd forgotten all about that...

Wrap 'em in pairs back to back. I then stack the pairs into columns, and wrap each column in newspaper and/or bubblewrap. What you do after that, I think I'll leave up to you...

travel blog from 2001 which covers a similar route. Although I used to be an inbound travel agent setting up itineraries for the wackier end of the client range, I'm so out of date that I hesitate to comment on food. The only thing I would suggest is...especially close to Whakatane and south, don't pass up places to eat in the hope of something better further on - the chances are that there won't be anything for a looooong way - same goes for toilet and gasoline stops If you are lucky, this can be a very pleasant time to travel - schools are not on holiday, ski season has not yet begun in the North Island, and occasionally we have idyllic autumn weather in May (then again, sometimes we have storms...). The coastal route you are traveling will likely be windy, so bring warmer clothes than you think you will need! The biggest city you will probably hit on the way south from Auckland is Tauranga, which is developing into quite a comfortable small city, but it's a pain to drive in and out of because of its location. Further south, the Whakatane/East Coast leg will take you through one of the more isolated areas in New Zealand, still heavily dependent on forestry (and so the land is too hilly for really rich farmland). You might be tempted to cut across the centre of the East Cape, but I'm not sure I recommend it - unless the road has changed, that's mostly old forest access roads and you will be more comfortable on the longer (and very beautiful) route round the coast - but ask locals for up to date info, please! There'll be plenty to see, and good seafood, but the food will likely be more rough and ready. Round the cape and south to Hawkes Bay, once you are south of Gisborne and in the Hastings/Napier area, you are starting to get into the territory of some of the wealthiest and longest established farming districts in NZ. There is plenty of wine and good food in this area, you won't have to wait till you get to Martinborough. However, I can't give you specific recommendations, sorry. Wellington, so my sister who spent her university years there tells me, is much more sophisticated in Auckland, there's not a thing to do in Auckland that isn't much more fun in Wellington, etc etc - so go and prove her right or wrong for once and for all please!!! I haven't been there in nearly 20 years, but back then, Asian cuisine in Wellington was booooring - there were plenty of other restaurants that sounded excellent, but as an interpreter for tours of the nation's abattoirs, sister city exchanges and what not, I never got to see them .

You might want to think about taking your lunch/dinner too and sharing the mealtime, even if you are not eating exactly the same menu. Eating alone, or worse, being fed alone, is not an appetizing way to eat.

Hmm, something like the task of teaching the alphabet to a new bunch of tots every year! I find festival food very interesting, because the food concepts may be very old, but the foods themselves change infitisemally over time. There are always people learning about these traditions, unlikely as that may seem. It's not my Japanese husband who keeps the traditional Japanese festivals in our home, it's me. All over Japan, the same thing happens on a smaller or a larger scale - people learn the unfamiliar traditions of the communities they now live in, or adapt their own, familiar traditions to different circumstances. However, I guess my interest in festival food is voluntary - I'm not quite so enthusiastic about adding yet another year to the 15 years that I've churned out the same advice for pilots with the first typhoon and the first snowfall of every year!

I like to deepfry food that I know will be sitting out for a while - the fact that every bit of the food's surface is going to come in contact with very hot oil is extremely reassuring to me! The food also remains flavorful. Apart from things like chicken, these two recipes are favorite "cook and leave" items of mine - however, I imagine that some recipients are used to eating a very narrow range of foods, and won't enjoy or feel safe with anything unfamiliar. In that case, the old standards with toppings that add to visual appeal might be the safest route. Citrus salad with crispy pork (Other meats would work fine). Pull out the flesh of a grapefruit or two, add a little grated or shredded mild onion, sharpen the flavor with a little vinegar, season to taste, and set aside in a good-sized bowl. Now take finely cut pieces of meat and shake them in cornstarch or even plain flour, seasoned if you prefer. Deep fry the pieces, and as soon as they are done, drop them sizzling into the grapefruit "dressing". Allow to come to room temperature and add salad vegetables such as cucumber or shredded cabbage or bell peppers etc. Salmon or other fish "southern barbarian" style: Lightly dust pieces of fresh salmon or other fish with cornstarch or flour. Deep fry, and drop into a "dressing" of 3 tab soy sauce, 2 tab mild vinegar, 1 tab sugar. Add grated fresh ginger or shreds of mild raw onion or chopped scallions or red pepper or toasted sesame seeds/tsp sesame oil or slices of lemon/orange....as you like. This can be used for pork slices too. Meats cooked "adobo" style: Check collections of Filipino recipes online - basically meats are simmered in soy sauce and vinegar. This method is not greasy and the food keeps well. Croquettes (deepfried or ovenfried) : This might be one of the easiest ways to present vegetables - since they can be prepared without an oven and taste good cold, they have been one of the most popular western foods in Japan for nearly a century! The standard version here is to boil and mash potatoes, and add half the weight of the potatoes (before you cooked them) in stir-fried ground beef or pork, with a little onion and seasoning added. These are shaped into little bars, floured, dipped in egg-and-milk, crumbed, and deepfried (would also work as oven-fries). The trick is not to allow the "additions" to be too greasy, or the croquettes won't hold their shape. To make vegetable croquettes, replace all or some of the potato with pumpkin or sweet potato, and/or replace all or some of the meat with finely chopped stirfried cabbage, chopped boiled spinach, stirfried onion and tomato (fry till dry), green beans, corn, etc. Curry seasonings go particularly well with sweet potato croquettes. I often replace half the breadcrumbs in the coating with sesame seeds for a crunchy, tasty coating. Serve with mayonnaise or ketchup or worcester sauce. Samosas are also good transportable vegetable food, and taste great cold. I think that anything crumbed and fried should be presented with one piece cut open diagonally, so that the recipient can see what's inside! Quiche doesn't keep so well, but a straight-up bacon and egg pie does!

Same fish, yes (roughly - there are many varieties of sardines, and even more fish which are used at fingerling size for canning), but canned ones are usually smaller then fresh ones. Fresh sardines in Japan are sold at around a hand's length, and from the recipes I have seen, I think that's roughly the same size as in western or mediterranean countries. Same taste? Hmmm...something like the relationship between fresh peaches and canned ones, I think! Although maligned, canned peaches (and canned sardines) have an attraction of their own, people buy them for a reason, after all. Canned sardines have a firmer texture (usually) and more "umami" or roundness of flavor than fresh ones (fish really do develop flavor when salted and allowed to stand for a while, and the oil helps bring out a fuller flavor too). Fresh sardines...the texture is soft, and the flavor is....darn it, it's indescribable! More savory than canned sardines? More "ocean" and less "bacon"??

Kris, you're way ahead of me. I ordered some extremely cheap sardines to tide us through a tough patch, and absentmindedly ordered waterpacked sardines. I'm almost resigned to them now, but there's over a half-dozen cans left... We mostly have them for breakfast, grilled on toast "pizza" style in our trusty oven-toaster. They're pretty good in a sandwich with home-made pickled onions too! I make sardine pizza regularly with fresh sardines (canned are OK, but fresh have a better texture). I've been thinking that sardine-filled roast potatoes could be good, too...

So how did it go??? The worst of hot days and school outings is that you get your lunch all shook up, in addition to being half melted! I have a "school outing" lunch to prepare for Friday. So far, I'm planning to make inari-zushi (rice balls in fried tofu pockets) but if it turns hot, the rice will be cooked with shreds of ginger, and mixed with fine shreds of shiso leaf before I make the riceballs. Shiso is incredibly refreshing in the heat. Son asked for omelet rolls with salt cod roe in the middle...and that reminded me how GOOOOD smoked fish is in summer! I like to put things on small skewers in sumer too - they look more appetizing than a heap of stuff which has amalgamated itself into one lump in a corner of the lunchbox!

I think I shop better when hungry, as long as I've told myself that I'm *making* dinner when I get home, not *buying* to eat when I get home ...after all, I may overestimate how much I want to eat when tired and hungry, but I'll never overestimate how much kitchen time I want to put in when I'm tired and hungry! Just got back from a race round the supermarket after a hasty one-pot 5-minute dinner consumed between one son's music lessons and the other's cram school lesson...and instead of a tempting array of goodies for the next 3 days' dinners and a slap-up brown-bag lunch for a school outing, I have a very sad looking line-up indeed I think I wasn't visualizing the completed dishes the way I would if I were hungry...so there was salted cod roe, but no mild green chilis to garnish it with, and so on.

Nice to "meet" you, CaliPoutine, after seeing your name here and there on other forums. A pullet is a very young hen, mature enough to lay eggs, but not fully-grown...if you're interested, that is!

Not so!!! Just find yourself a little old lady raised in one of the old-established Sakai families, and get her to teach you tea or some ridiculously old-fashioned style of singing or something - you'll soon find there's a gentle Osaka dialect, though maybe it's all but disappeared! I think what happened was that the rich and educated took to the standard dialect as "NHK" Japanese became the standard, so only the "poor people's" Osaka-ben has survived. I still love to hear that questioning upward lilt that Osaka, Kobe, and Okayama ladies give every statement! (Thinks desperately how to make this sound food related, gives up...)

Made mktye's recipe, with the addition of a 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour. It turned out beautifully crisp and crunchy, and when dry wasn't sticky. Chefcyn, I was planning on using a Japanese cereal syrup, sounds similar to barley malt syrup - hope it's as successful! Then I went back to the "crumble" type granolas I was experimenting with, and made pink and green granolas for the end of cherry-blossom season . Cherry-pink Granola Make a crumble of: 1/2c butter 1/2 white sugar 1 c ground almonds 1 c light whole wheat flour 1/2 tsp or so almond flavor oil. If using essence, probably best added later. Rub thoroughly into 4 cups of oats. Add 1 cup slivered almonds. Bake 150C/300F for approx 30 minutes (depends how fast your oven is to heat up), stirring once or twice, then pour over about 1/4 to 1/2 c grenadine syrup to achieve the color you want, bake another 7-10 minutes. Add 1 cup dried cherries or cranberries if you wish, and allow to cool. Green Matcha Mango Granola Make a crumble of: 1/2c butter 1/2 white sugar 1 c ground almonds or 1 c ground sesame seeds (note: this will mask the tea flavor) 1 c light whole wheat flour 1 tab powdered green tea. 1/4-1/2 c black sesame seeds if you plan to eat this granola by itself, and not with the pink granola. Rub thoroughly into 4 c rolled oats. Bake 150C/300F for approx 30 minutes (depends how fast your oven is to heat up), stirring once or twice. Remove from oven, toss an additional tsp of powdered green tea through the granola, and add 1 cup snipped up dried mango, and allow to cool. Don't try and store the two colored granolas together - but they do look pretty together in the bowl! Velvety Peanut Granola Make a crumble of: 1 c peanut butter (I used Laura Scudder's Old-Fashioned Nutty - roughly 1/2 a 1lb jar) 1/4-1/2c brown sugar 1 tab cinnamon 2 c fine steel-cut oats (Bob's Red Mill Irish - you can use regular steel-cut oats, but the texture will be coarse and grainy, not soft) 2 c oats Add 1 cup or so of peanuts (I like them pre-salted and dry roasted in the shell, but then I live in peanut-growing country!) Optional: zest of 1 orange added 10 minutes before end of cooking Bake 150C/300F for approx 30 minutes (depends how fast your oven is to heat up), stirring once or twice. Add 1 or 2 cups sultanas, and allow to cool. This granola has quite a sandy texture which I like as a change from crunchy granola - it's not dry because of the nut content. However, you can make it crunchy-style using the oil/syrup method too -- eliminate the brown sugar, and pour over about 1/3 c oil heated with honey or molasses etc before baking.

Tencha - there are two different characters used to write this. One is, yes, Camellia sinensis. The other is a thing used as an artificial sweetener, Rubus Suavissimus, known in English as Chinese blackberry. It's also reputed to be good for hayfever, and it's a popular herbal tea, especially in Spring.

prunus serrulata "kanzan" is probably the best-known double cherry blossom. "Single" cherry blossoms have just 5 petals. "Double" varieties have many petals, in several layers, and some varieties look almost like pom-poms.

YOu can buy them salted, in small jars, usually wherever Japanese tea is sold. You can salt your own - gather clean DOUBLE cherry blossoms, and pack them in coarse salt.

Oops, sorry! Certainly makes YOUR job a lot easier, anyway. The only island thing that I can think of that's become a rarity might be island-style cocoa, made by grating up solid hunks of gritty cocoa and heating it with milk and sugar....could be an acquired taste though!

Well...like most islands, Tonga is a long way from anywhere else. So people had to work with the ingredients around them, and nothing else, for a long time. And conversely, eastern Polynesia was about the most biologically isolated environment on earth until fairly recently (don't get me started...) so there are also lots of food-plants which are not available elsewhere. Consequently, expat Tongan cooking is going to be limited. And by the way, you're not a haole if you're a whitie, you're a papalagi, or more casually, palagi (with that soft 'ng' sound on the 'g'). If you are wearing formal dress, and you are your father's eldest son, you might want to check if there is a mat of his that you should or could wear...