eG Foodblog: smallworld - Spring in Tokyo

[smallworld]

Your descriptions and photos are great & I've started perusing your Blue Lotus blog... Natsukashii desu (I haven't really lived in Japan, just visited for 5 or 6 weeks at a time, but my most recent visit was in 1991! Hard to believe it's been that long.)

Where do you do most of your food shopping?

A couple of stray thoughts...

About salmonella, although it's rare in Japan, a Japanese friend of mine contracted it there (most likely from raw eggs or chicken sashimi) and miscarried because of it.   That's sort of put me off raw eggs.

Re umbrella theft. Do the outlying subway stations still have "loaner" umbrellas? They did when I was visiting!

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I shop most often at Summit, introduced a few posts back, but there are a good half a dozen supermarkets I'll visit depending on where I am at the time. Add in another dozen or so markets, specialty shops (like the tofu shop and the chicken butcher shop) and import shops, and I have a lot of choices! I really wish I could take more pictures but most stores have no-camera policies and I'm already really shy about taking pictures...

That's so sad about your friend. Pregnant women in Japan have so many dietary restrictions already, she was probably indulging in one of the few "safe" treats. Well, now I know that salmonella is rare rather than non-existent. Luckily I don't really like chicken sashimi, but I don't know if I can give up raw eggs. Maybe I should stick to the expensive kinds.

Loaner umbrellas? Neat idea, but I've never heard of them! But then I don't take the subway very often. Anyone else in Japan seen them?

Shin" means new,

and

Is your seasoning more like Kansai (Western Japan) style than Kanto (Eastern Japan)?

I just had a *doh* moment......as a bumbling Cantonese speaker I have just realised that 'shin' = 'sun' (new) and 'sai' = 'sai' (west) and 'to'= 'tung'.(east)....

only took me about 21 years to notice, til now just thought certain characters were the same....hmmm, not exactly Sherlock Holmes...

enjoying your daily life very much

ps. how safe is it to cycle? I wouldn't fancy it in HK..

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Yes, lots of the characters are either the same or just slightly different. It's possible for a Japanese person to understand much of a Chinese menu, as well as some Chinese place names or personal names. Do the Chinese love to slap 新 (sun/shin) onto words as much as the Japanese do?

I live in suburban Tokyo and it's fairly safe, but there are no bicycle lanes and the rules are confusing. Technically cyclers should stay on the road, but all the cars honk if you actually try riding on the street, so you have to stay on the sidewalk. Where telephone poles, fences, signs, and cellphone email-reading schoolgirls are major hazards. Nobody wears a helmet, and moms carry their babies on front and back seats. I've seen a woman with two children loaded onto her bike, plastic shopping bags dangling from each handle, and a cellphone at her ear while she was riding with one hand. I've had a few minor accidents myself, including a collision with a bus, but nothing major.

I don't ride a bike because I'm a major bike person, I do it because it's healthier, cheaper and better for the environment than driving a car (we don't have one anyway) or taking the bus. Of course, I do take the bus when the weather is bad, and a few times a year we rent a car for a big shopping trip to Costco or Ikea.

And your post reminded me, I forgot to answer Hiroyuki's question! I honestly don't know if I cook Kansai or Kanto style, because I haven't truly developed my own seasoning habits yet. I know that I'm gradually using lighter seasonings and I've learned to automatically tell when a new recipe needs to be modified (usually by using less sugar). I'll ask my husband tonight and see what he says.

When I use too much soy sauce or salt my husband always comments "You must be tired". It seems to be a belief here that cooks unconsciously use a heavy hand with salt when they're tired. I'd never heard that before and wonder if it's a Japanese thing, or do people elsewhere share this belief?

[smallworld]

Lunch today was kaki furai (deep-fried oysters) and leftovers. I meant to eat rice too but lost track of time and had to get back to work.

The kaki furai was bought at the supermarket this morning. Once or twice a week I'll get a small take-out treat for lunch, usually a few pieces of battera-zushi (pressed mackerel sushi) or inari-zushi (sushi rice wrapped in deep-fried tofu). And when oysters are in season I'll pick up kaki furai occasionally.

Supermarket take-out food is pretty good here (but it really depends on the store). The label includes the time an item was made so you can be sure it's fairly fresh. Of course, much of the take-out food is made of items from the meat, seafood and produce sections that are nearing their expiry dates, and these oysters are no exception. A certain amount of trust is certainly involved, but people take food poisoning very seriously here so I doubt any supermarket would take a chance by using truly expired food.

Normally I don't like fried food that isn't freshly fried, but somehow these oysters always manage to retain their crispness. I heat them up first in the microwave and then in the broiler, so they're moist inside, crunchy outside. Almost as good as freshly made.

I usually don't like tartar sauce but for some reason I like it, just a tiny little dip, with fried oysters.

It may surprise oyster lovers in other parts of the world, but in Japan it's more common to cook oysters than to eat them raw. Oysters are acknowledged to be one of the most dangerous seafoods (well, there's fugu, but fugu poisoning will get you whether you eat it raw or cooked) and people tend to be careful with them. Other than kaki furai oysters are cooked with rice and with okonomiyaki (especially in Hiroshima) and stir-fried (often Chinese style).

[Hiroyuki]

And your post reminded me, I forgot to answer Hiroyuki's question! I honestly don't know if I cook Kansai or Kanto style, because I haven't truly developed my own seasoning habits yet. I know that I'm gradually using lighter seasonings and I've learned to automatically tell when a new recipe needs to be modified (usually by using less sugar). I'll ask my husband tonight and see what he says.

When I use too much soy sauce or salt my husband always comments "You must be tired". It seems to be a belief here that cooks unconsciously use a heavy hand with salt when they're tired. I'd never heard that before and wonder if it's a Japanese thing, or do people elsewhere share this belief?

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Thanks for your reply. I'm also interested in what you call dashimaki tamago (Kansai style). Is yours less sweet than atsuyaki tamago in Kanto?

My Osaka-born brother-in-law used to complain that all the dishes that my Tokyo-born sister made were salty. I wonder if your husband was born and bred in Osaka.

[helenjp]

I had to laugh at the salty/tired comment too...I don't think my husband is capable of cognitively combining the concepts of "excess" and "shoyu/salt"!

[Corinna Dunne]

Ponzu is my all-time favourite condiment and I use it almost every day. I'm not crazy about all the additives in cheaper ponzu, but I can't afford the good stuff. So I compromise: Ajipon or similar cheap brand for regular use and the expensive stuff for special dishes. And when I find cheap yuzu, sudachi or kabosu (or when a student gives me a bagfull from one of their trees) I make it myself to replace the expensive ponzu.

I adore ponzu too, but I’ve only used it with shabu shabu and sukiyaki and use green onion and daikon as condiments. I’d be interested to hear what dishes you use it with and how you cook them. I make it with soy sauce, lemon juice, stock and mirin. Is this the recipe you use?

[smallworld]

Ingredients for tonjiru (pork soup):

Thinly sliced pork, negi (long onion), carrot, daikon, kabocha, gobou (burdock). They are sauteed in sesame oil then simmered until tender, then miso is added.

Clockwise from bottom left: shin-gobou to renkon no kimpira, leftover from Monday night; cherry tomatoes, cabbage and wakame seaweed dressed with sesame oil, ponzu, pepper and crushed sesame seeds; tara no kasuzuke (cod marinated in sake lees and miso); hourensou to abura-age no nibitashi (spinach simmered and fried tofu simmered with soy sauce); tonjiru; steamed white rice topped with mentaiko (spicy cod roe). In the back is shirasu (baby sardines) with umeboshi (pickled plum) and mentaiko, to eat with rice.

[_john]

finally a blog I can relate to!

Ive never seen "loaner" umbrellas but you can buy an umbrella for less than $1 so it is no big deal.

Do you have certain staple meals that you eat a lot? What do you like to eat when you eat out?

[nakji]

I used to shop at an Inegaya when I lived in Nishi-Tokyo! I found their english muffin supplies to be shockingly erratic as well. Where I live now, they're practically non-existent, so I stock up when I see them, and freeze them. Somehow, they just taste better than the plain old white bread.

I agree about the conbini food. I usually pack a homemade bento for lunch every day, which causes a lot of surprise amongst my Japanese co-workers, since most of my foreign co-workers seem to live off conbini food. One of the ladies I work with told me that when a teacher brings in a conbini bento, and heats it up, it just smells like chemicals, but when the teachers bring their own food to heat up, it smells good. I have to agree.

[Shelby]

Hi Amy! I'm really enjoying this. Every morning I perch on my stool, log on, eat my breakfast, and read!

One question that popped in my head. Do you use chopsticks to eat every meal?

[shinju]

I had to laugh at the salty/tired comment too...I don't think my husband is capable of cognitively combining the concepts of "excess" and "shoyu/salt"!

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Me neither.

[smallworld]

Thanks for your reply.  I'm also interested in what you call dashimaki tamago (Kansai style).  Is yours less sweet than atsuyaki tamago in Kanto?

My Osaka-born brother-in-law used to complain that all the dishes that my Tokyo-born sister made were salty.  I wonder if your husband was born and bred in Osaka.

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I didn't know there were different styles with different names! I call it dashimaki tamago because that's what my husband calls it. And I guess I make it Kansai style because it's lightly seasoned with dashi and soy sauce, no sugar. I just naturally chose that recipe because neither my husband and I don't like our food too sweet.

My husband was born in Osaka but spent time in Tokyo and Sapporo while he was growing up, and then America from his late teens. He can speak perfect Tokyo Japanese but reverts to Osaka-ben when we go back to visit, and he does prefer Kansai style seasoning. He makes a mean okonomiyaki and takoyaki too, but that happens rarely now that he's working out of the home.

Helen, your husband sounds just like my sister-in-law's husband, from Chiba. When he's visiting the in-laws in Osaka he douses everything he eats in soy sauce. Admittidly we all feel the food is underseasoned at times because my father-in-law, who lost most of his stomach to cancer and is on dialysis, has so many dietary restrictions.

I adore ponzu too, but I’ve only used it with shabu shabu and sukiyaki and use green onion and daikon as condiments. I’d be interested to hear what dishes you use it with and how you cook them. I make it with soy sauce, lemon juice, stock and mirin. Is this the recipe you use?

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You can use it in any place you'd normally be using salty and sour flavours. Salad dressing is a great use for ponzu: just mix with your choice of oil (it goes very nicely with good olive oil and sesame oil) and season it with black pepper, chili sauce, herbs or whatever else you like. It's wonderful with seafood (especially with butter) and good with chicken and pork too. And there's no better way to flavour vegetables like brocolli and asparagus.

My recipe is similar: juice the citrus (yuzu, sudachi and kabosu are best, and one type is fine but two or more types blended is better) and add it to a pan with soy sauce, sake, a little mirin, kombu sliced into small pieces and katsuobushi. Bring to a simmer and cook for a few minutes, then turn off the heat and let it sit for a few hours (you can also let it all sit in a jar in the fridge for a week or so without simmering it, but I like to do it the fast way). Then strain and pour into a bottle, keep in the fridge.

The simmering/steeping adds extra depth of flavour that you don't get from just mixing everything together and using right away. And I understand that yuzu and the like are not easy to find overseas, but do try to use something other than just lemon: a blend of lemon and lime maybe? Bottled yuzu juice is fine too, if you can find it.

finally a blog I can relate to!

Ive never seen "loaner" umbrellas but you can buy an umbrella for less than $1 so it is no big deal.

Do you have certain staple meals that you eat a lot? What do you like to eat when you eat out?

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Well SuzySushi, I think John has just answered your question! The loaners probably disappeared when those cheap clear umbrellas started to be sold everywhere for 100 to 500 yen. I imagine a lot has changed since 1991 (I've only been here since 96). You're long overdue for a visit!

John, the only staple I can think of is pasta with tomato sauce. In winter I use a sauce is like Amatriciana but when I learned it (working in an Italian deli in Vancouver) it was just called "tomato sauce". In summer I'll use a lighter sauce with fresh tomatoes. NOT because the tomatoes are any better in the summer though. I mean, do hothouse tomatoes have a season?

I guess noodles, either soba or udon, are another staple meal. We eat them about once a week when we're both too tired to cook but don't want to go out, as they're fast and simple to prepare.

We don't live in a great restaurant area so eating out is more about what's available than what we really want. We often eat Chinese, sushi (kaitenzushi of course) and soba, and sometimes "fast food" like oyakodon (at Naka-u), ramen and tempura (at Tenya).

Oh, and we hit Mr. Donuts about twice a month!

I used to shop at an Inegaya when I lived in Nishi-Tokyo! I found their english muffin supplies to be shockingly erratic as well. Where I live now, they're practically non-existent, so I stock up when I see them, and freeze them. Somehow, they just taste better than the plain old white bread.

I agree about the conbini food. I usually pack a homemade bento for lunch every day, which causes a lot of surprise amongst my Japanese co-workers, since most of my foreign co-workers seem to live off conbini food. One of the ladies I work with told me that when a teacher brings in a conbini bento, and heats it up, it just smells like chemicals, but when the teachers bring their own food to heat up, it smells good. I have to agree.

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Which Inageya? I lived in Nishitokyo for 6 wonderful years and much preferred the shopping there.

Inageya doesn't even carry whole-wheat English muffins, which are the ones I buy. I go to Summit or Life for those. Freezing is a great idea, and as soon as there's room in my freezer I'll start stocking up.

Hi Amy!  I'm really enjoying this.  Every morning I perch on my stool, log on, eat my breakfast, and read!

One question that popped in my head.  Do you use chopsticks to eat every meal?

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I use chopsticks for Japanese, Chinese and other Asian food, and a fork and knife for western meals. Hopefully I'll be showing my cutlery drawer today, so more on that later.

[Hiroyuki]

I use chopsticks for Japanese, Chinese and other Asian food, and a fork and knife for western meals. Hopefully I'll be showing my cutlery drawer today, so more on that later.

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Great! I hope you show us your knives, too. I think I have seen only one knife so far here in your blog.

[smallworld]

This is one of the free-range eggs. It has a nice, fat, bright orange yolk, typical of good Japanese eggs. This is about the be sprinkled with salt and pepper and microwaved for one minute.

English muffins toasting, one with cheese. This stuff is called "Natural Pizza Cheese" and is anything but natural. I've given up on using real cheese for daily use, as it is expensive and hard to find in reasonable amounts. But every supermarket is full of this fake shredded stuff, and hey- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I kind of like the stuff now.

Most Japanese kitchens do not have an oven, but every gas range comes with this little broiler toaster thing. It is quite useful for toast and fish (last night's fish was grilled here), not much use for anything else.

Egg and cheese on a whole wheat English muffin. This will be my husband's breakfast, along with strawberries, kiwi and tea (it's Red Zinger today). He gets the egg muffin almost every weekday, except when I can't find English muffins or when I know we'll be having eggs for dinner. On weekends there might be bacon added.

He watches the news on NHK (the national broadcaster) while eating, and meanwhile records another channel's business news on his cellphone. His phone comes with a TV but since he takes the subway to work he doesn't get reception during his commute. Taping the news beforehand solves the problem nicely.

As you can see, it's pretty cloudy up in Northern Japan. They were just showing the Cherry Blossom Front before this, and I'm killing myself for not taking a picture for you. The Cherry Blossom Front is a special kind of weather report that shows a map of Japan with different areas marked in varying shades of pink, representing where the sakura are in bloom, and at what percentage they are blooming. It's the first blossom report I've seen this year and I didn't see the screen long enough to see where the cherry blossoms are, but I imagine it's down in Okinawa or maybe Kyushu. We won't be seeing sakura in Tokyo for another three weeks or so.

At the top of the picture you can see the filter and grinds from yesterday's coffee. In the winter I dry them in the living room, where the air is so dry it just takes a few hours (the rest of the year they are dried outside, and during the rainy season I don't bother because the get moldy before they dry). Dried coffee grounds are great as a deodorizer, and the filter is good at sopping up liquids. So it all gets thrown into the garbage to reduce odours and leaking.

First breakfast is strawberries, kiwis and yogurt. Second breakfast will be the same egg muffin my husband had, with some chopped tomato on the side.

[smallworld]

I use chopsticks for Japanese, Chinese and other Asian food, and a fork and knife for western meals. Hopefully I'll be showing my cutlery drawer today, so more on that later.

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Great! I hope you show us your knives, too. I think I have seen only one knife so far here in your blog.

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That's the only knife you'll see! I do have a serrated knife and a paring knife that I use occasionally, but it's mostly just this regular santoku. I've long wanted a collection of good knives but I'm incredibly clumsy and already manage to cut myself quite often, and I can only imagine the carnage that would result from me using a super-sharp sashimi knife.

But this year I've made a new year's resolution to improve my knife skills, and have made a deal with myself: when I am able peel an apple in one long peel, without breaking it, I will buy myself a good knife. Until recently I used a peeler for everything but have trained myself to peel fruit and most vegetables (still use a peeler for carrots and potatoes). Which doesn't sound like much to the average Japanese person but is a huge achievement for me.

For those outside of Japan, let me tell you that the knife skills of the typical home cook here rivals those of a typical chef in North America. It's just amazing watching people cook here. And the pros are even better. If you ever come to Japan, get yourself to a "fruit bar" or "fruit parlour" and sit at the counter where you can watch the chef (fruit cutter?) do his stuff.

[winemakerswife]

Amy, I am a long time fan of your blog Blue Lotus, and your posts thus far on eGullet are so inspiring! My best friend lives in Tokyo, and I visit often, but I get to relive my joys of discovery of Japan through yoru blog. Your posting about how you do your shopping are just as interesting as the cooking that you do. Your shoppign list note book is very cool, do you save eahc of your shopping lists in it? Tell me more about the other information you keep in it, I know you mentioned a wine list of some sort. (My husband is a wine maker in California.) Thank you for sharing so much of your time this week!

p.s. i love greek yogurt with honey, my favorite breakfast.

p.p.s. I bought a few sashimi knives in Tokyo last July, I bought mine got mine from a small kinfe store is Asakusa selling Masamoto brand, My husband prefered the Tokyo Hands store. He bought a cheaper version of my knife, and really... it's just as good for amatuer cooks like us.

Edited March 5, 2008 by winemakerswife (log)

[thdad]

I am really enjoying reading your blog this week.

I live in Korea and with regard to oysters, they are usually eaten raw here. They are widely available in stores and sold pre-shelled and sealed in cylindrical vinyl packaging. How are oysters sold in Japan?

It may surprise oyster lovers in other parts of the world, but in Japan it's more common to cook oysters than to eat them raw. Oysters are acknowledged to be one of the most dangerous seafoods (well, there's fugu, but fugu poisoning will get you whether you eat it raw or cooked) and people tend to be careful with them. Other than kaki furai oysters are cooked with rice and with okonomiyaki (especially in Hiroshima) and stir-fried (often Chinese style).

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Edited March 6, 2008 by thdad (log)

[JasonTrue]

I can recommend meyer lemon and seville orange, particularly in combination, when yuzu isn't available. Meyer lemon alone is good, too. Seville orange is essentially the same as daidai, so you'll need something more acidic like lime or lemon if you are working with the bitter orange. Meyer lemon peel has an aroma comparable to but still quite distinct from yuzu, and produces more juice.

I don't usually make a cooked ponzu when I'm serving nabe, since the nabe has its own kombu and basically makes its own stock. If I'm using ponzu for something other than nabe I'll add a little kombu-dried porcini stock, as porcini comes closest to the depth of flavor of katsuo for a vegetarian stock. But I usually just add the stock to the ponzu base, since it's more "sappari" than cooking all the nice citrus juice.

The simmering/steeping adds extra depth of flavour that you don't get from just mixing everything together and using right away. And I understand that yuzu and the like are not easy to find overseas, but do try to use something other than just lemon: a blend of lemon and lime maybe? Bottled yuzu juice is fine too, if you can find it.

[sanrensho]

Add me to the list of people enjoying this blog. I haven't been a resident of Japan since 1999.

Smallworld, what kind of changes have occurred since you started living there, with respect to the purchase and availability of food? Do you think people are eating differently at home, compared to when you first moved there?

[smallworld]

My kitchen. And let me get this out of the way: I hate my kitchen!

My old kitchen was so much better, it was a corner kitchen that opened onto the first floor of our little townhouse and was bright and sunny and had remarkably large and high counters that were supplemented with free-standing counters that eventually took over the entire floor. This new kitchen is a separate room, closed off from the rest of the house. It has regular low counters (and at 178cm/5'10" even regular counters in Canada are too low for me) and a range hood at forehead level (meaning it's high enough that I don't actually see it while I'm bending over to cook, but low enough that I constantly bump into it). The total usable counterspace is 49cm X 58cm. It does have a nice big sink and a gas range with three burners. This was a huge plus, because although more and more apartments in Tokyo come equipped with a stove (traditionally apartments have nothing in them at all, not even light fixtures), it almost always has just two burners. How do people live with just two burners?

Anyway, the three burners are great but I've been cooking way less since I moved here 2 1/2 years ago. It took a while to figure out why and for a long time I just assumed I was in a rut, but now I'm sure it's the kitchen. My back gets so sore when I cook, and I often burn things: I can't be expected to stand around in the tiny kitchen waiting for stuff to boil or simmer or whatever, but in the rest of the house since I can't hear or smell what's going on in the kitchen I sometimes forget what I'm doing. OK, that has more to do with me being absent minded, but I never used to forget stuff in my old kitchen because I was always right there in the same room.

On the screen of the tiny window (which only opens a crack) I dry used ziplocks after washing them, along with any plastic shopping bags that I'm forced to accept.

You've already seen the fridge, and beside that is a cupboard/counter thingy that I bought by catalogue. At the top of this section is a bag dispenser for regular plastic shopping bags. Below that are flours, starches and table condiments (s&p, sugar, honey and gomashio). In the drawer are new ziplocks in two sizes, metal clips (there's no better way to reseal a plastic package than a simple metal clip) and twist-ties, and elastics. In the drawer below (no picture) are oversized plastic bags folded into triangles (the same way Americans fold their flag) and tiny clear plastic shopping bags, in a big drawer below that is rice, potatoes, onions and garlic.

Here is my microwave, which doubles as a convection oven. It will bake 9 cookies at a time, or a whole chicken (which will be lily-white everywhere except for the blackened breast).

The cutting boards beside it are marked for specific use: fruit (and neutral vegetables) on one side of the smaller board and onions and other strongly flavoured vegetables on the other; the other board is for raw meat and fish on one side, cooked on the other.

Below that, on a pull-out shelf, is the coffee maker, cordless Magic Bullet, and rice cooker.

And below that: bento/picnic accessories; rice additives like kombu, barley, brown rice and grain mixes; coffee filters and stuff; bentos (rarely used and badly in need of replacing); furikake, ochazuke mixes, instant soups; hand mixer and Magic Bullet accessories.

Above the microwave are teas and random dried and packaged stuff (no idea what's really in there) and to the right of that sugars, salts, baking stuff and spices.

Beside the cupboard is another catalogue bought storage unit. It is supposed to be a counter but the space is too narrow to use as a workspace so it's just a place to put stuff. Cutting boards (you can never have too many), trays, trivets, knives, and fruits and veggies that don't fit in the fridge.

Hanging on one side is plastic wrap, tinfoil, parchment paper and paper towel, above that are utensils, and to the left are aprons, plastic garbage and a curtain to close the entrance of the kitchen when company comes.

The plastic garbage really should have its own can, but there isn't enough room so this is a kind of temporary solution. In my area plastic is now being collected separately from non-burnable garbage. I don't know if it is being recycled (only recyclable types are allowed) or incinerated, but I do know that the brand-new incinerators popping up all over the city are capable of burning plastic at a high enough temperature to not release dioxins or particulates. Or so they say.

The top drawer of the counter unit is where I keep my cutlery. Plain chopsticks, fancy chopsticks, hashioki (chopstick rests), baby cutlery, full-sized cutlery, renge (Chinese soup spoons), booze accessories, random stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.

For the longest time I didn't know that most Japanese have their own personal chopsticks, so I bought all these chopsticks and enjoyed using a different pair every day. I still do, because I can't decide which pair I want to be mine.

I absolutely must have matching cutlery when I eat western food, and it has to be set on the table correctly. It drives me bonkers when my husband sets the table and the cutlery is just placed at random, and doesn't even match. I guess that's my husband's revenge for the way I do everything wrong when I serve Japanese food. But and at least he sets the table (sometimes), which is more than Japanese men do.

Well, I think that is quite enough for now, will do the rest of the kitchen later.

[smallworld]

My stove and work area. With the dish rack in place there is just enough counter space for a cutting board. Built-in dishwashers barely exist here, those who do have a dishwasher (many do without) use a counter-top model. Dishes are my least favourite chore in the world but even if I could afford a dishwasher I wouldn't know where to put it.

I keep my most-often used herbs, spices and seasonings by the stove, which is probably the worst place to put them. But there's nowhere else so there you go. The condiments are oils (sesame, olive, good vegetable oil, used frying oil), soy sauce, sake and mirin. They all have bigger bottles that live in the fridge or cupboard, and I refill these handy little pour bottles as needed.

The little tubs under the condiments are full of sugar, salt, instant dashi powder, and instant bouillon.

When I need extra counterspace I put the dishrack up on top of the cupboard. It's crazy up there and I hope I'm not in the kitchen when the big one hits (they say Tokyo is overdue for a major earthquake).

Check out all the counter space I have now, people! Enough for TWO cutting boards!!

Here's my sink area. Note the gas control panel on the wall: it needs to be turned on for hot water, and I can adjust the temperature (I think it goes up to 75C). I can also remotely fill up the bathtub, adjusting its temperature (usually 42C) and volume. (This system is not as cool as our old apartment as we now just have the one control panel. The old place had another panel in the bath where you could reheat the bathwater and also make the other panel beep to notify others in the house if there is a bathtime emergency.)

The checked cloth hanging up is for drying dishes, the green cloth is for wiping the table, and the blue cloth is for the sink and counter. The blue cloth gets disinfected in the microwave a few times a week, as does the dish sponge.

Dish soap and bleach are in glass bottles-- for some reason I hate to see the plastic bottles that stuff comes in. I use the bleach to clean surfaces about once a week.

The little triangular box thingy is lined with a very thin cloth net and usually sits in the corner of the sink to collect kitchen waste. There is another little net in the drain. The waste goes in the burnable garbage, but I really want to start composting soon.

We used to compost everything in Canada (and now Brampton collects kitchen scraps for compost, which I think is really cool) and I think it's just such a good thing to do. But I don't like the idea of a regular compost or worm compost on my balcony (it would be sure to attract a certain creature to which I have such a phobia that I can't even print its name), so my only option is an electric composter. Right now I'm trying to decide whether to buy a slick Japanese model or import the cheaper Nature Mill from the US. I'd love to hear from any apartment-dwelling composters out there.

My utensil drawer is a mess. Lots of gadgets, some of which I use and some of which I don't. My mother and her sister used to exchange useless gadgets as gag gifts. My aunt passed away a few years ago (she was my Vancouver mother and took care of me when I lived there, and I miss her so much) and now I am on the receiving end of the gadgets (wonder if my sister is too). The second most recent one, a microplaner, is excellent. The most recent one, a strawberry huller, is useless for its intended purpose but rather handy for removing fish bones. It certainly looks nicer than the pliers I used to use.

Creeping out of the kitchen is this cupboard for regular dishes. Japanese meals require lots of dishes, something I learned very quickly. Just after getting married I tried serving Japanese food on western plates and it just didn't look right. So I did some shopping and solved the problem. Stocking up didn't cost much: almost everything here was either a gift or from the 100 Yen Shop.

The other side.

Now fully into the living room, this cabinet has classes and cups; larger dishes; drawers with napkins (hardly use them), oshibori (wet hand towels), aprons, coasters and the like; lesser-used kitchen equipment, and booze. I have a drink of something nearly every day, usually wine. My husband and I both like making and drinking cocktails, but as I mentioned upthread he doesn't drink much. And I feel kind of sad drinking cocktails alone so these bottles rarely get touched.

There are several home-made liqueurs in there, including ume, grape, strawberry and wild cherry made by me, and ume of several vintages (including one older than I am) made by my MIL, students and a the mother of a friend of my husband.

Please, somebody come visit me so I can use up all of this stuff!

Edited March 6, 2008 by smallworld (log)

[blue_dolphin]

....The old place had another panel in the bath where you could reheat the bathwater and also make the other panel beep to notify others in the house if there is a bathtime emergency....

Oh my, this sounds very handy. Reheating the bathwater would be lovely and I've often wished I could summon someone to re-fill my champagne glass!

I'm very much enjoying your blog!

[jean_genie]

IHi Amy, thanks for sharing your life with us. I am enjoying the photos and accounts of a fellow gaijin Tokyo-ite foodie.

I admire how well and often you prepare Japanese dishes - something that I have yet to regularly implement in my everyday cooking (although mind you, my husband is not Japanese so I don't have much pressure to cook Japanese food every night).

Take heart, my kitchen is tinier than yours. We haven't yet bought a rice cooker because there is no room for it!

edited to add a question: where do you buy your oats from? I love oats but often had to resort to buying them from FBC which can be expensive.

Edited March 6, 2008 by jean_genie (log)

[Hiroyuki]

My former kitchen in a resort condo unit was even smaller, but I managed to use the dining table as an "island". Anyone would feel that they were confined in your kitchen.

I'm interested in how you make onsen tamago. Are you going to make them in your blogging week?

[Pierogi]

My stove and work area. With the dish rack in place there is just enough counter space for a cutting board. Built-in dishwashers barely exist here, those who do have a dishwasher (many do without) use a counter-top model. Dishes are my least favourite chore in the world but even if I could afford a dishwasher I wouldn't know where to put it.

*LOVING* your blog Smallworld, absolutely loving it because it is so very different from my life.

And (standing and placing my right hand over my heart, and my left hand in the air, and using my very very BEST Scarlett O'Hara voice......)...."As God is mah witness, I'll never complain about mah small kitchen again !!!"

I am in awe of the meals you prepare in that space. Absolutely in awe. ESPECIALLY without an OVEN fercryin'outloud !!

[smallworld]

At the risk of getting off-topic I'm going to show you a bit more of my apartment. This first picture actually is food related though, because this is where it all ends up:

Our toilet. Specifically, the tank, which is the smartest design ever. When flushing the toilet the water first passes through a tap on the top before falling down into the tank, allowing you to wash your hands without using extra water. This makes extra sense in Japan, where the toilet has its own room, separate from the bath and sink. But I'd want this even if I lived in Canada, because you don't have to touch a tap or anything (except for the flush handle but you'd have to touch that anyway) to wash your hands.

Our kitchen table, foolishly bought online without checking the height. It was on sale and we were without a table and I like solid pine (not as easy to find here as back home). The problems: not only is it ridiculously short (67.5cm), it has a storage unit in the centre that juts down onto where your lap should be. So as soon as I can find someone to take this table off of my hands we're renting a car and heading to Ikea (which has been in Japan less than two years).

Because the table is so uncomfortable we usually eat at this low table. It's pretty normal to sit on the floor to eat in Japan but I'm getting tired of it. I don't mind once in a while but when my back is already sore from cooking it's really not fun to sit sideways (the table is too small and low to kneel or sit cross-legged). The heated carpet below is very nice though: central heating is yet another thing that's rare here, and our apartment can get pretty cold in the winter.

Note the poinsettia in glorious full bloom. I don't know what happened, but it's thriving. I'm terrible with plants and few last longer than a few months under my care (I've had poinsettias die before Christmas). But this one is doing great and is happily producing a bunch of new leaves and petals. This inspired me last month to do this:

This is mitsuba, a herb called trefoil in English, in planters made from plastic drink bottles. Behind it is an ugly unpaved parking lot that is mostly home to trucks, and beyond that is a very nice park. Not the greatest view right now but is quite pretty when there are leaves on the trees.

Back to the mitsuba: it is often sold at the supermarket complete with the roots, and I used to try to regrow it, without success. But this time all three attempts worked. Maybe the poinsettia is sending them good vibes. And that in turn inspired this afternoon's project:

My most ambitious gardening attempt in years: 6 types of herbs (basil, shiso, parsley, rosemary, peppermint and lemon balm). Herbs always die on me and the past several years I've just made a few half-arsed attempts at basil, which always expires by midsummer. But maybe this year will be different.

If everything works out well the herbs will be transplanted to larger containers and put out on the balcony when the weather warms up a bit more. Again, the view is better in the summer. And we get a few critters in the trees and on the vacant lot there, like pretty birds and stray cats. I know I shouldn't but I throw them (the cats) bits of saki-ika (dried squid). I just want them to like me!

That's a bus parking lot there, and we're really lucky to live right at a major bus hub. We're far from any train or subway station (the closest two are a 45 and 55 minute walk) but with the buses we have access to a dozen or so stations on 6 train lines, all within 10 to 40 minutes. There are also direct buses to Haneda and Narita, the domestic and international airports, and the return trip stops directly in front of our building, which is super.

The balcony is used by me for hanging laundry (but not right now as it's hayfever season and we're both allergic-- all laundry is hung indoors) and by my husband for smoking. I also dry stuff out here, like those yuzu peels. Citrus peels of any type help my broiler self-clean: when grilling oily fish or other greasy stuff I pour a little water in the tray along with a handful of peels (they don't have to be dry, it's just easier to store them that way). Somehow the oil from the peels prevents the tray from getting dirty and instead of scrubbing the tray with soap after each use it just gets a rinse of water.

Edited March 6, 2008 by smallworld (log)