yamagata no 3 jam

I should have tried the apricot before turning it into jam

But, after seeing the recipe that was tucked in the package of apricots I took it as a sign that they were tart…

Here’s the recipe

500 grams of apricots

300 grams of sugar

After pitting the apricots I only had 450 grams (before pitting it was 480 grams), so I cut the sugar back by 50 grams (250 grams)

Since I had 1/2 a lemon, I squeezed it and added it to the fruit and sugar, even if the recipe didn’t call for it

The recipe had said to let it macerate overnight, but I have something to do today, so since I had started macerating the fruit early Friday morning, I made the jam in the afternoon.

I brought the mixture to a boil then turned it down to a simmer, and scraped the scum off 

I simmered the mixture for about 30 minutes.

And was left with about 300 milliliters of jam

We look forward to trying this soon.

I hope it will be tasty.

this and that

the first peach of the summer was junk...it smelled peachy but was picked too green and wasn’t sweet
 

late bloomer wisteria

shirokuma, we've had this in the past, it is like shaved ice with condensed milk and fruits

spotted one of these guys on my blood orange tree...threw it into my veggie peel garbage thingy and within seconds it was back on the counter...so I threw it into the trash bin afterwards...

more late bloomer wisteria

this frozen mousse from calva was rich and delicious

Satoshi got this tea from a new co-worker that was working in China.

The tea is an oolong base and is flavored with grape

I don't particularly care for the grape smell, it is kinda sickly sweet smelling like grape candy

guess what was inside with the apricots....this recipe for jam

I have the fruit macerating and will be making the jam later today, will keep you posted

You may or may not have heard about the manga that is predicting a major disaster in Japan on July 5th

This prediction, paired with the many earthquakes happening near the Tokara Islands, a group of twelve islands between Yakushima and Amami Oshima have given lots of tourists reason to rethink their visit to Japan during this time.

I feel so bad for those living on those islands, they have had over 1000 earthquakes since June 21st!

With so much uncertainty these days, I hope you have a safe weekend.

yamagata no 3

Was happy to find fresh apricots at the supermarket.

This particular variety is called Yamagata No (number) 3 and was grown in Nagano.

I hope these are sweet, though I did read online that they may also be sour/tart and better made into a jam rather than eating them fresh...

finally

They are finally finished building the apartment next door...

Looks like I'll get back my sunrise view.

The sun rises a little too early during this time of year but I look forward to checking out the sunrises later on this year

mosquito magnet

I don't know about you, but I'm a mosquito magnet

I was using the spray on the left and the one time I missed an area, I got bit

Another thing kinda junk about this spray is that it has powder in it, so sometimes I have this white line, going down my arm, leg...

And then I started thinking about the environment, that maybe I shouldn't use too many aerosols...

So after that can was used up, I bought the spray on the right

The junk thing about this spray though is that you have to "spread" the sprayed liquid out, to cover areas...I didn't know this and got bit in areas that the spray didn't hit...boo!

So, after this bottle gets used up, I'm either gonna go back to the one on the left, or find a different aerosol spray without powder.

game changer

Found this at the supermarket and have been using it whenever I make musubi with kombu in it.

Fujikko-ni is part of the Fujikko group.

This is their kombu for onigiri/omusubi.

Instead of the long strips of kombu tsukudani, the kombu is chopped up.

I used to buy their sesame kombu and shiso kombu but whenever I put these into musubi, a long piece of kombu would come out and I would hardly have any filling left…boo! 

If you find this where you are and try this let me know what you think

docomo hikari

So...we got new routers for wifi from the reno guys...

I thought we could return our old router to Docomo...

We made an appointment with Docomo, to tell them to cancel our Docomo wifi...which is called Docomo Hikari

I dismantled the router, put it back in its box and carried it to our appointment

The guy at Docomo, was the same condescending guy as when Satoshi bought his phone..sigh

He told us, he cannot cancel our wifi, we would need to call the Service center...and he gave us their number.

So we went home and tried to call the Service center with our landline...but our phone was dead

(After dismantling the router, I had plugged the phone into that dark beige area in the photo)

Panicking.. I put the router back together, plugging the phone into that tiny slot to the bottom left that is marked with the kanji "hikari"

Doing all of this, we were able to call using our landline...whew!

When we finally got in touch with the Service Center, the woman on the other side kindly explained that Docomo Hikari is not only wifi but also telephone lines

Our landline and wifi was a fiber optic type...

She then explained that if we cancelled and only wanted phone line, we would have to have them come in to set up an "analog" style phone line (the dark beige area) and our phone number would change...sigh

Since we didn't want to have to change our phone number, we decided to just keep the fiber optic line...though if and when we need to move, we'll definitely get rid of it.

We learned a lot from this experience...small kine stressful, but grateful it all worked out.