sartoric

Hot sandwich with roast chicken and gravy in the panini press.

All this talk of turkey got me hankering. Thanksgiving is not a thing in Australia, and sourcing a turkey would be difficult this time of year. Come Christmas, there’ll be plenty. I didn’t make stuffing because I didn’t have enough sourdough crumbs in the freezer, but I did make a herb butter to smoosh under the skin. Served with potatoes, carrots, fennel, red onions and peas. Plus gravy, lots of gravy, and leftovers, lots of them too.

It was interesting in that half of the mustard seeds were crushed to reveal the yellow inner seed. I used lots of garlic finely chopped, a bit of chilli powder, turmeric, curry leaves, juice of half a lemon, fresh chilli and spring onions to garnish. Some of her recipes are available on line. This one is called “King Prawns with Garlic and Mustard seeds”. I hope you can find it, it’s very quick to make and delicious.

I love Meera Sodha’s book Made in India, this is her mustard seed and garlic prawns. So quick, easy and tasty. Served with planned overs of cumin rice, smashed cucumber salad and sesame green beans (also Meera Sodha). Almost a no cook night after a 37°C and plaster dust everywhere day.

Our local pub has recently changed hands, also menu, staff and furniture. Pretty decent Caesar salad and an acceptable brisket sandwich. We will continue to frequent every week or so.

I just see more rabbit holes here 🤣

On other days we had a considerably lighter lunch and pigged out at dinner. You will see from the furniture, this was not a high end establishment. Soup and smashed cucumber salad to start. Horse sashimi was surprisingly delicious, and it looks like some salad with egg. And I really didn’t need these, but who could resist grilled boneless chicken tails ? I could feel my arteries hardening. Classy place, you could tell by the furniture.

I think we had around 5 days in Tokyo, some were spent just wandering around - 20,000 steps without even noticing. We popped into many eateries and often had two small lunches. Lunch one, gyoza and chicken karaage. Lunch two, a snack of edamame, fish cakes, soup and pork. We didn’t buy a single Kit Kat, despite the unusual choices.

Dinner last night was spicy baked chicken wings, using a Nagi Maehashi recipe. I bolstered the chilli and reduced the sugar, as I usually do. Served with leftover rice, sesame green beans and her smashed cucumber salad (with the addition of chilli flakes).

What is this miracle box ? It’s not the cardboard kind carrying sheets of A4 paper, that’s for sure 🤣

What does one make for dinner on a 35°C day after listening to duelling power tools for 6 hours ? Ricotta and spinach lasagna is not the most obvious choice.

Outside our hotel every night, the baked sweet potato man turned up. We were usually coming home after dinner and didn’t get to try one. He had a wood fired oven on the back of that truck. This is our hotel from the TMGB Here’s a view of Fujisan from the observation deck. Not a bad view given it’s 100 kms away. Tokyo stretches on forever. There are huge speakers up high on the building, we think they are earthquake warning systems. One cool thing we did in Tokyo is take a class in kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending something with gold to make it beautiful. The principal of wabi sabi is appreciation of beauty that is imperfect is at play here. Also, fun fact, I chose this pattern which is one of the classic Japanese styles. It was originally made to represent the waves on the Sea of Japan, but is now more famously known as the wifi symbol. Every time we passed this tiny sashimi restaurant, there was a queue. One day we joined the line and had delicious sashimi in this 7 seat restaurant with two chefs.

We availed of one of the free Japan guides via the tourist agency and visited Meiji Jingu Shrine with her as well as Shibuya crossing. There’s about 70 ha of garden surrounding the shrine and later we would see the garden from the 45th floor observation deck of TMGB. She also helped us to navigate Shinjuku Station which worked well the one time we were with her. Later, not so much. Shinjuku Station is the busiest in Japan with a daily passenger throughput of 2.7M it was also undergoing renovations when we were there. Guide lady left us at Shibuya where we had a yummy lunch at a hole in the wall. There was a wedding ceremony soon to happen at Meiji Shingu, yes ordinary people can apply to hold their matrimonials there. These sake barrels are donated to make merit I think. These were the first of many gyoza. This looks like more chicken stir fry. There was a short queue to get into this place, so we didn’t feel we could linger.

Quite possibly, or was it potato salad ?

It was May 2024 when we took our second trip to Japan. Note, I had a break from the EG community due to slow internet and low patience at our previous house. We’ve moved, I’m back. The trip was 18 months ago, so my memory may be hazy, chime in and correct me if you know better. The occasion was our 30 year anniversary and I made the decision to go about 3 weeks prior to the date. Because of this I engaged a travel agent friend to organise the trip, giving her broad parameters and a budget. She spent a lot of the budget on high end hotels which I wouldn’t normally choose, and a 5 day JR pass for our various Shinkansen rides. The trip started in Tokyo, then to Hakone for a stay in a traditional ryokan (the anniversary), then on to Kyoto and a night in Hiroshima. All in it was 11 days and we saw two new places and revisited two, being Tokyo and Kyoto. We stayed in luxury in Tokyo, the Keiko Plaza Hotel. It is close to the ginormous Shinjuku Station, wherein we got lost numerous times, and directly opposite the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. This building has a nightly light show and we had prime viewing from our spacious 27th floor room. It also has a free observation deck with views over Tokyo all the way to Mt Fuji. We had a daytime flight from the east coast of Australia, arriving at Narita late afternoon. There’s only a 2 hour time difference, so we hit the ground running and went out to snack our way around the area. It was a bustling and packed with dining choices. This is basically step out of the hotel and here you are. I can’t remember what this is. Guesses welcome. This looks to me like a stir fry of some kind.

Our new place has a really old electric stove which is slow to adjust temperature, I end up having one hot plate on simmer, one on high heat and one medium. It’s painful. Recently we bought an induction single burner and I love it. These type of noodle bowls are in regular rotation. I can boil two eggs and while they cool, cook noodles in the same pan. Separately on the induction burner I make the vegetables and broth. This one had Napa cabbage, mushrooms, baby bok choy, tomato and leftover cooked chicken. Chilli crisp and spring onions on top.

I’ve been absent from this community for several years, a combination of slow internet speeds and low patience levels. But, we’ve moved and I’m back ! I’m still cooking Indian food. Last nights dinner was vegetarian - cumin rice, sesame beans, potatoes with black pepper and peanuts plus dal with spinach. A blob of South Indian tomato chutney added colour and considerable heat.

I’ve spent a few hours going back to catch up on where you’re at. I’m so very sorry for your loss, but I admire your courage in embracing the solo journey. Am I right in thinking you’ll be off again soon ?

I’ve been absent for a while, but I’m still kicking and cooking. I bought the Meera Sodha book “Made in India:Cooked in Britain” and I absolutely love it. Here’s her Jaipur Slaw, and her mums chicken curry with garlic beans, rice, tomato chutney and dal.

Kinda herby, citrusy, sweet and juicy. I’ve only plucked them off the tree and popped in the mouth straight up. I have one growing quite close to the house, and one along the driveway.

The berries of the curry tree are really delicious.

Northern Thailand also has hot springs where you can cook eggs !

Without the Arctic char and Langoustines though. I have been to NZ, but not the far south where glaciers lie. It is on the fridge list.

Maybe you misunderstood, it’s KennethT going to Penang at Christmas. Unfortunately I have no travel plans on the horizon.

Thanks from me too @KennethT. I’m unlikely to get to Iceland in this current life, so I appreciate seeing it through your eyes. Looking forward to Penang at Christmas.