this and that

How are you doing?

We received a nice surprise...Thank you Carol for sending us your delicious Paris map.
 

Have you seen the news on those yucky sandstorms in China?

Well, they have made the sunrises pretty spectacular here.

Since the sand that is flying around is apparently so minute, the weather dude mentioned that anyone that was caught in the rain wearing a white t-shirt these days would have a black t-shirt when it dried...eew!

Saturday, the rain was krazy...I heard there was also hail in some parts of Tokyo too. 

Sunday, it was beautiful, but so blustery! 

Someone's umbrella flew off their lanai, I thought it was a bird when it passed overhead. (click on the photo to see it)

Sunday was also White Day...but guess who forgot...pfft.

Remind me next year...No more chocolates for him...ha!

I bought some cheeses from Daiwa Farm.

If you remember, we tried some of their products last May through Tabechoku.

These cheeses have interesting names.

From left to right: Robi-Daiwa = robiola (washed),  Toma-Daiwa = toma (semi-hard) & Yamankubbai Bleu = bleu cheese.

The bleu cheese is named after the area of Miyazaki Prefecture that they are made, in the cheese maker's local dialect.

My only peeve with this cheese maker is that they do not tell you how many grams you are purchasing...the bleu was 50 grams and the other two were 100 grams...we’re having this with wine tonight!

Monday, the sakura started blooming...apparently it is two weeks early?!

Tuesday morning we were shaken awake by an earthquake with its epicenter in Ibaraki...if you ask me, the earthquakes these days have been shaking a little longer and more scary!

I love walking past this senior day care...they always have some sort of craft posted in this frame outside...this one was origami tulips.

It looks like the main branch of goverment will end the State of Emergency for Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures this Sunday...even with the variant cases increasing...sigh

Have a safe weekend!

next chapter

Last Wednesday, the second box I ordered from Tabechoku arrived.

It was from Daiwa Farm, a dairy farm in Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu.

The set they were selling had 2 mozzarella, some ricotta, a tub of yogurt and 2 yogurt drinks.

Mother Nature slammed us back to March temps...low to mid 50s (F) (low to mid 10s (C)), my mind is already in summer mode, so of course, I already put away all my winter stuff...

I tried to mail a letter to a friend in Europe and was told that AIR MAIL was not an option, it would go by boat and they could not give me a timeline as to how long it would take (I overheard the clerks say, "maybe until next year?"...WT?!)

Thursday, we went to MOS to pick up lunch.

I hadn't been there in awhile, so I was surprised that they moved out most of their tables and had these marks on the floor to "social distance".

Even though we took out, I was also surprised that they were allowing "eat-in".

Saturday, we had part of the ricotta with some fig spread, proscuitto and toasted boule.

And one of the mozzarella as a caprese of sorts with pesto drizzled on top.

Both cheeses were delicious...very creamy!

Sunday, I used the other mozzarella to top a pizza.

The dough recipe I got from Elle Japan was a bit sticky, but was tasty, the texture seemed more like foccacia.

The dough was featured in the magazine to be used to make 8 mini pizzas, but I instead made one big one using the turntable of my oven as the "pizza stone/pan".

I topped this pizza with kale, thinly sliced onions and cherry tomatoes.

Even if it was really sticky, I love how easy this dough came together, and think I will give it another try when the weather warms up.

We ate the pizza with slices of proscuitto, pesto and homemade marinara...so good!

Monday we had the rest of the ricotta crumbled on raisin french toast.

I am glad we tried this farm's products, all were creamy and rich.

I look forward to trying other vendors from Tabechoku in the future.

Monday evening, the Prime Minister declared Japan's state of emergency was over because most of the numbers are in "manageable ranges".

The past couple of weeks were an interesting look at how local and main branches of government do not communicate well.

How the main branch of government just "throws" their ideas out there and expects the local branches to "make it happen".

Most local branches have set up their criteria to keep their prefectures open, with the understanding that if their numbers come close to becoming unmanageable, we might all have to "stay at home" again.

For now, Tokyo still needs to "stay at home" until May 31.

Satoshi is back to work from June 1, but will meet to see what they will do for the future months.

Tokyo, as well as other prefectures (Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama and Hokkaido) are not allowed to travel to other prefectures and other prefectures are not allowed to come to Tokyo or the other 4 prefectures until June 19.

The experts say that it will take Japan at least 5 to 10 years to produce a "safe" vaccine.

Until then, the medical system here will use the drugs that have seemed to help patients recover from their symptoms from the virus.

We still need to keep social distancing, washing our hands and keeping out of confined spaces.

Most stores here require you to wear a mask and to use hand sanitizer upon entering.

I need to adjust to waking up earlier to make Satoshi's bento and look forward to going market shopping more than once a week.

(it was tough to shop for a week (without a car to carry everything) especially when I needed to restock on heavy items like bottled condiments or rice!)

I am not sure when I'll start to ride the train, but will gradually work my way back to the "city".

Oh, and the letter I thought would go by boat to Europe, instead came back yesterday, saying to come back for a refund and apology letter...when we called the post office they said that Japan was not allowing mail to go or come from 140 countries...boo!

As the next chapter starts, I hope Japan will take this time to prepare for the 2nd wave...

Hope you are all doing well.

supermarket finds

Trying two new (to us) fruits...plums and hebesu.

The plums were from Yamagata...bummer that the first one we tried were hard, not too sweet either. Hopefully the other 3 will be better.

Hebesu is a citrus from Miyazaki...like lime but not as sour...delicious!

It is fun discovering new fruits and veggies.

mansaku

Saturday, after Satoshi's German class, we had lunch at Mansaku, which specializes in Miyazaki cuisine. Which if I'm not mistaken, is all things chicken.

Satoshi's not that much of a fan of chicken (unless it is fried), so he chose the Miyazaki beef bowl.

This was a nice sized serving topped with a poached egg. His meal also came with some salad and miso soup.

I chose the Tori Namban.

Fried chicken dipped into a shoyu based sauce then topped with tartar sauce.

Tartar sauce in Japan usually has hard boiled eggs in it.

This piece of chicken was huge!

I usually can't finish all the rice I'm given so I gave the rest to Satoshi.

The food was good here, and there were other items we would like to try...we'll be back.

Mansaku
Grand Front Osaka South Building 7F
Phone: 06.6485.7474
Weekdays: lunch 11:00-15:00, dinner 17:00-23:00
Weekends: 11:00-23:00
Open when Grand Front Osaka is

re-do

Remember the nikumaki onigiri? Well, the other day I remade them, this time adding ginger and then baking them in the oven.

By adding the ginger, it came out more Japanese tasting.

I used some leftover kodaimai rice that I had in my rice warmer, formed them into cylinder rice balls and chilled them.

Then I soaked the meat for 30 minutes. To the original sauce, I added about 1 tablespoon of grated ginger.

After the 30 minutes were up, I heated my oven to 350F (180C) and wrapped each rice ball with the pork.

Then I stuck them in for 15 minutes.

After the 15 minutes were up, I drizzled the 1/2 tablespoon of honey, then put them back into the oven for another 15 minutes.

After the second round of 15 minutes were up, I sprinkled sesame seeds and sliced one in half.

Yummy! Since these tasted more Japanese-y, I recommend serving them with Japanese pickles instead of kim chee.

Enjoy!

nikumaki onigiri

We're back from our little trip, but I need to go through photos and think up what to write, so in the meantime, here is a post I had in my drafts which I had written up about our dinner this past Thursday.

Have you ever been influenced by a photo? The other day I was looking through the television guide and was oohing drooling over this photo.

Since we don't subscribe to a newspaper, I usually buy a television guide from the bookstore. This television guide comes out about every 2 weeks and is like a magazine filled with info on movies, CDs, DVDs, Japanese books, the latest food trends, events and some fashion, as well as the television schedule.

So, as I was flipping through the latest issue, I noticed this photo of nikumaki onigiri. The one on the far left actually has cheese on it.

The caption on the photo says "nikumaku onigiri 300 yen (about US$3). Japanese pork soaked in a special sauce for 6 hours is wrapped around rice then baked in the oven to perfection"...doesn't it make your mouth just water??

I then googled around to find a recipe, but everything I found didn't sound "right", mainly because most used beef. Some used a pre-made bottled sauce.

Then I came across a company that sold this online. Apparently this type of onigiri is a popular food item in Miyazaki prefecture. Miyazaki is located on Kyushu, the third largest and southern-most of the four major islands of Japan.

While they didn't give a recipe (because they are selling their product online), they did give a list of the ingredients which they use for their product. They listed berkshire pork, rice, shoyu, sugar, apple, ginger and garlic. As soon as I saw "apple", I immediately thought of...bulgogi!

So, I bought some thinly sliced pork belly and some kim chee.

Nikumaki Onigiri : makes 6
1.5 cups cooked rice, warm
1/2 pound pork belly, thinly sliced for shabu shabu (hot pot which you swish the meat in a broth)

Marinade taken from bulgogi yanyomu:
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
1/4 apple or asian pear, grated
2 tablespoons minced green onion
1 tablespoon grated garlic
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 tablespoon ground sesame seed
1 tablespoon sesame seed oil

****************************
1/2 tablespoon honey
sesame seeds
kim chee

With the warm rice, make cyclindrical onigiri then chill for a couple of hours.
Put together marinade.
Wrap each onigiri with pork, covering the rice as much as possible.
Marinate for 30 minutes, turning them around at 15 minutes.
Heat pan and cook well.
Drizzle with honey just before removing from pan
Sprinkle with sesame seeds
Cut in half and serve with kim chee

NOTES: I know the caption said that the meat was soaked, but wasn't sure if I that was how I should do my version. Each onigiri took about 2 or 3 slices of pork, if you can find wider sliced pork belly you could probably cover your onigiri with 1 slice.

Try to cook at a low heat to cook all the way through. I ended up microwaving since mine weren't cooked through. I am thinking the next time, I will soak the meat first then try baking it. This was delicious! It would probably be nice as a pupu (appetizer) or even in a bento. I served it as our main dish with some kim chee and cucumber sticks.

kyushu-miyazaki & kirishima

This weekend we traveled to Kyushu. Kyushu is the third largest and southernmost of the major islands of Japan. We landed in Miyazaki prefecture.

Driving along the sea coast reminded me of Hawaii mixed in with the Pacific Coast Highway in California...The weather was nice but VERY humid, which made it really uncomfortable.

The first place we visited was Udo Shrine. This shrine is located on the coast of Nichinan. It is about a 15 minute walk from the parking area to the shrine, so wear sensible shoes!

After saying some prayers and walking around the shrine inside of the cave, you can purchase 5 clay pebbles for 100 yen (about $1) to wish for something.

Guys must throw their pebbles with their left hand and girls with their right. Your target is this little pool of water which sits on top of a large rock with a sacred rope encircling the pool. As you throw your pebbles, make a wish.

If it lands in the pool, chances are you'll get your wish...Satoshi got one of his pebbles into the pool, I wonder what he wished for....

We then moved on to a little town called Obi. This town is built surrounding the ruins of Obi castle.

I tried my hand at Shihanmato (archery), for 300 yen (about $3) you get 10 arrows and free instruction. The origins of Shihanmato is over 400 years old. It is called Shihanmato (which means 4.5 targets) because the peasants (me) received permission to use a bow requiring the target to be 4 shaku and 5 sun--old counting measurements. (about 136.35 cm) away.


This was tough, you have to sit on your knees, this is called seiza, they give you a little stool to rest your bum on, but basically, you are still on your knees.

Take aim....

and fire! I don't think the samurai would want me in battle with them....

For lunch, we tried a food item that Obi is known for called Obi-ten--a fish paste cake that is fried. It was a bit sweeter than most other fish cake that I have tried, but it was delicious.

I was impressed with all the huge sugi (cedar) trees in the area.

I was also impressed with the manners that the children of Obi have. They actually stop their conversations to say "hello" to you, something you will not see in the big cities. There was a billboard in the middle of town which stated that everyone should greet each other. The gist of the sign stated that by saying greetings such as "good morning", "thank you", "excuse me" and "I'm sorry", to each other, the town can be a better place for all. I think more places in Japan and the world need something like this.




We then made our way to Kirishima. Along the way you'll notice that there are a LOT of sugi (cedar), lots of lumber mills and flooring companies.

Kirishima is located in Kagoshima prefecture--on the western side of Kyushu. This area has a LOT of onsen (hot springs). We stayed at the Kirishima Hotel. Satoshi's friend, whom he met through his company's baseball team, works as General Manager there.

The hotel property has over 30,000 cedar trees on it and their bath facility is one of the largest I've ever seen. It was nice to go in and out of the different baths. Satoshi had a nice time bathing and also reminiscing with his friend about this and that.

Kirishima Hotel
3948 Takachiho
Makizono-cho, Kirishima-shi
Kagoshima-ken
Phone: 0995-78-2121


Kyushu is also known for satsuma imo (sweet potato). They have many treats and shochu (spirits, the bottle on the right) made from this potato.

I also bought some shoyu (soy sauce, the bottle on the left) from Obi. It is called Obi no murasaki. Murasaki is the name for the color purple and also what they call shoyu in sushi bars.

There was also a cheese manju made by Hiroya, this manju (steamed bun) is filled with cheese and butter, very rich and not too sweet.

Hiroya
2-9-24 Matsuhashi
Miyazaki city, Miyazaki prefecture
Phone:0985-23-5080

We have another 3-day weekend coming up this weekend. Hopefully I'll have some adventures to talk about.

Enjoy your week!