(not so) golden week

Today is a national holiday and we're technically in the middle of Golden Week.

What would normally be happening would be everyone travelling....this year though, most of us are staying home and practicing social distancing (there are still those rebels out there...grr).

I had often passed by Sao Paulo, a tiny shop nearby that sells coffee beans.

They have been in business since 1979.

Since I am staying off the trains, I haven't been able to get to Takeya, my favorite place to buy coffee at, so I decided to try buying some beans from them.

They are a little pricey but I'm glad they are in walking distance from where we live and we can get our hands on freshly roasted beans...I'll be back.

Can you believe that most housewives were not cutting back the amount of times a week that they were grocery shopping? Most were still going every day?!

Last week our governor requested that we cut back grocery shopping to once every three days...I am still going only once a week.

This means I plan basically what we will eat for the week.

I try to do a combination of bread, rice, noodles a day.

Make a list of the things we need and go shopping.

I sometimes buy pre-made foods so that I can take a break from cooking some days.

I also post a "loose" menu on the fridge because "someone" keeps asking me what's for lunch and so on...(it also helps me remember what day it is)

My vegetable of choice these days is cabbage.

It lasts about a week and is pretty versatile as salad or in stir-frys.

I was happy to pick up some blood oranges on my last grocery run.

They are HUGE! about the size of a tennis ball.

The ones we had earlier in the year were smaller like the size of golf balls.

The medical experts here have recommended that you sit diagonally from each other when eating, so that "things" like saliva, food do not "fly", when you talk to each other.

We had talked about getting a square table one since it is only the two of us...I guess it is a good thing we got a rectangular one...

Got a little creative with cooking...I used some leftover gyoza filling and tossed it with some cooked udon.

At the end, I drizzled some shoyu, vinegar & chili oil, similar to how we eat our gyoza...to make some yaki udon.

I would definitely make this again.

I found some really old carnaroli rice in my pantry so I have been mixing it with our Japanese rice and cooking it in the rice cooker.

It doesn't get "sticky" like Japanese rice but still is okay.

Since we drank most of the blood orange infused vodka (still have a little left), I used some of the peel and put it into some muffins and topped it with some chocolate chips.

I wanted to try roasting garbanzo beans but since I didn't have any, I tried roasting cannelini beans and tossed it with some "everything but the bagel" seasoning.

They didn't come out crispy, but we still enjoyed them.

Hope you all are doing well and keeping your spirits up.

Take care!

Sao Paulo
7-52-5 Nishikamata
Ota, Tokyo
Phone: 03.3735.2139
Hours: 10:00-18:00
Closed Sundays