keeping cool

It is the last day of July. There were so many things I wanted to post about, but didn't get around to, so here is a round-up of what we have been eating/drinking this summer:

There was spam fried rice.

Fanta puru puru shaker: this gelatinous soda is the only type of soda that you need to shake before drinking. I wasn't too impressed with these. The orange one tasted like Airborne and the grape one was grape-y, but wasn't even purple!

Salads: orzo with cashews, wheatberry with pumpkin seeds & chinese chicken salad.

Starbuck's shaken lemon passion tea--a tart and refreshing way to cool off.

Dean & Deluca's Super Premium Ice Cream--I actually tried these before summer. Sicilian Pistachio & Californian Strawberry. Both were good, smooth, but I wish there was "stuff" in it.

Ciao Bella's hazelnut gelato--delicious.

Fauchon's cafe latte, milk tea, earl grey ice cream & millefeuille tea. I really liked the cafe latte (black) and milk tea (pink). The earl grey ice cream and millefeuille (gold) tea were just too sweet.











Even though the Fanta shakers were a bomb, A & W root beer wasn't...I hadn't had this in ages! With the heat, I have been craving for fizz and sugar.

These two new beverages from Kirin: Confiture au lait (Milk jam espresso)--creamy delicious and Caramel au lait (salt butter caramel)--if you like salted butter caramels this drink is an interesting, but delicious approach to it.

We've also been eating spicy foods: curry and mabo nasu tofu. When I make mabo tofu, I usually also add some nasu (eggplant) in there. Instant keema curry with ground cashews. 2-curry lunch from Cafe Ata, a cafe in our shopping arcade.

There was also some matcha...bouchee by Kobe Fugetsudo, warabi mochi by Chikujian, matcha yokan by Sasayaiori & matcha latte by Fred's Cafe.

Whew...so, what have you been eating/drinking to keep cool?

p.s. The house right across our lanai is finished. I was shocked to see someone looking out the window one day. The other week, the man of the house and his son came to introduce themselves. They brought a small gift. In Japan, you are supposed to go over to introduce yourself when you are new, but this custom is near obsolete and most people do not know their neighbors.

p.p.s. Oh, remember I sent in my passport for re-newal? Well, I got the new one yesterday, talk about speedy...I think it may rain because my passport was so speedy, but I'm secretly hoping it will snow....

vanilla (week 1)

The construction in front of our lanai is going smoothly--they have 2 houses up. There are air gun sounds (which I think are hammering in nails), pounding sounds, electric saw sounds, from 8:00 until 17:00 everyday except Sunday!

Yes, the Japanese love to work on Saturdays and not only construction, the offices too, which is where Satoshi is today (Saturday). The weather has been so nice that I want to open our sliding door to let in the cool breezes (while we still have them), but haven't been able to, because of the ruckus.

While the construction is going well on one side of our apartment, the destruction of the houses in front of our front door is also progressing. This turned out to be a very dusty undertaking. While the breaking of tiles and glass is over, I can't open the window on that side of the apartment because it is so dusty.

Anyway...it is the first week since I started making my own vanilla extract.

The color from the beans have started to mix into the vodka, but it still smells like alcohol more than vanilla extract.

Since I didn't pour in a bottle of extract, I think I need to wait more than the 6 to 8 weeks for it to start smelling like vanilla extract.

Will keep you posted.

Hope you have a great week!

foodie kind of weekend

Saturday was a nice day. Great for laundry.

After a couple of loads, we decided to go to Ikeda. Satoshi wanted to check out their rakugo museum. On the way, we stopped into Yuan for lunch. This place is run by Toyosu, a local arare (rice cracker) maker. I had the o-makase (leave it up to the chef) set.

It came with a mini dessert. I chose the kurogoma dango (black sesame dumplings)--rice dumplings covered with a black sesame sauce.

After lunch, we walked about 30 minutes to Ikeda.


The Rakugo museum opened sometime last year. Rakugo is a "sit-down" comedy that has quite a long history. It is part story telling and part comedy. I once saw an english version of Rakugo at the University of Hawaii.


One of Satoshi's co-workers does rakugo as an amateur. Rakugo is still quite popular in Osaka. This museum is free to the public and there is even a viewing area where you can borrow DVD to watch in the area. There were quite a number of people laughing out loud with their headsets on. Kind of fun to watch these people.

Sunday was another great day. Since we didn't want to stay indoors, we decided to go to Nakayama after lunch. Nakayama is about 5 stations from where we live. We stopped in to Marie-Ange for dessert. The cafe area seats only 10 people, but since it was Sunday, no one was there. Satoshi chose the Sakura (cherry blossom) roll--a vanilla sponge cake filled with cream and a sakura an (cherry flavored sweet bean paste) in the middle.

I chose the chiboust. A flaky crust filled with bananas and topped with chiboust cream. The sugary top was caramelized, like a creme brulee.

Delicious! The best part of this cafe was that they had free re-fills of coffee, something that is unheard of in Japan!

After dessert, we went to the grocery store. I wanted parmigiano reggiano...and was surprised, as the price has since doubled since the last time I bought a slice. 80g is now 1000 yen (about US$10)!

We used the cheese very sparingly on our pasta for dinner. Peas are in season now, so I added some to our pasta.

It looks like the houses on the other side of our building will be torn down. They vacated the houses and have started putting up the poles to attach dust curtains. Hopefully it won't be too dusty.

Hope your week is a good one!

culture shock

This post is half rant and half culture shock. Being that Japan's workforce is mostly male, they go out for tsukiai and settai. Both include drinking and eating.

Most times tsukiai is amongst co-workers or friends, kind of like "pau hana time" (happy hour) in Hawaii.

Settai is when you take a client out for drinks. Sometimes settai includes taking client out to raunchy areas for their "pleasure".

Can you imagine that most men do not eat at home on the weekdays? For me, I'm okay if Satoshi eats out during the week, saves me time in making something for dinner, but the part that kills me is the "last minute" gathering. These usually include no phone call. Thank goodness, I'm not waiting for him to come home to eat with me...some wives actually do! Can you imagine waiting until 11 p.m. or later to eat dinner and then finding out that your husband ate out already?

The thing that I don't understand is why the men and women here drink to the point where they cannot walk. Maybe it is because we have public transportation like trains? They don't have to worry about driving a car to get home? I've seen people stagger, then throw up all around the place...not pretty. (sorry if you were eating while reading this...)

People fall asleep on the train. Miss their stops. Catching a train late at night smells like a brewery. Everyone's faces are red from the alcohol. Plus, the trains are packed, everyone trying to make it home before the trains stop. I think that this is the time when chikan (molesting/fondling) occurs. When you are packed liked sardines, have alcohol in you, it is bound to happen...sigh.

Having a hangover the next day cannot possibly be too productive for you at work.

So, the other night, Satoshi had a welcome party for some of his new staff. I went to bed before he came home, but wasn't "fully sleeping"--sub-conciously I was waiting for him to come home.

At about 1 a.m. I woke up and realized he hadn't come home yet. The trains stop at around this time, so the only way to come home would be by taxi.

Finally, at about 1:30 a.m. I hear a car pull up. Someone staggering up the stairs. It was Satoshi.

This is what he told me the next morning...He fell asleep on the train, missed his stop and had to catch a taxi home. But, he didn't have enough money to pay his fare, (the price of the taxi goes up after a certain time), so he had to come up, look for some money then go back down to pay.

(You should know that when he lived at his parent's house in Kyoto before we were married, he once overslept his stop and found himself at the end of the line in Shiga prefecture! I guess that would be like needing to get off in New Jersey from Manhattan but finding yourself in Washington D.C....or something like that.)

Anyway, he was in the midst of changing his clothes...then fell asleep on the floor. Lights on. I know this because I got up because the lights were on, turned the lights off and then shut the door.

Why did I shut the door? Satoshi's snoring, especially after drinking is so loud, you can hear it even with a walkman on...trust me, I still use my walkman to try to drain out the snoring, but can still hear it! He said I should just get used to his snoring, to think of it as BGM (background music), I call it more like BGN (background noise)...sigh.

So, the next morning, he complained of a headache, loss of appetite...he smelled like a brewery...blah!

I shook my head and let him suffer with his hangover. Even if it is for his company, even if it is for communication purposes. To drink yourself to the point where you are sick, is kind of...well, stupid!

I guess it is part of the culture I will never understand.

While I'm on the subject of culture shock...I never realized how fast pre-fab houses can go up.

At 15:45, I checked on the progress of the house building next door. They had the wall frames up and were working on the 3rd floor.

In the meantime, I made dinner (loco moco) and we ate at about 16:30 (early) because Satoshi had his German class.

At 17:30, I checked on them again because it was quiet. They already had the roof up. Scarily too fast...

odds & ends

In Japan, they have different types of strawberries. This one is called Amaou.

Not sure if this is what is called an acrostic, but the name comes from A: Akai (red)
Ma: Marui (round)
O: Ookii (big)
U: Umai (delicious)

These guys were definitely big, round and delicious! Perfect for dipping in dark chocolate. (Mom says that this is an acronym not an acrostic...thanks Mom!)

So, without butter, I used only olive oil for these banana nib muffins. As I baked the muffins, I realized I didn't put in any eggs or vanilla extract either! They came out a bit dense, but they were really moist, probably because of the bananas.

Some "old-fashioned" bacon that I found. Only 6 slices in a package...won't tell you the price. Of all the brands I've found, this one cooks up the crispiest! With a brand name like, Butz, I wonder if there is some kind of hidden message? (Maybe?)

A new brand of candied yuzu (citron). Saw a segment on television where they were making these. It takes about 6 months to make a batch. They soak the citron peels in sugar water for several days then, air dry them r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y, then add more sugar.

These peels are so delicious! Makes your mouth pucker because they are so sour. They are brownish, because they don't add any coloring.

Well, they have finally started building. It looks like it will be 3 (or probably 4) new houses on the lot next door. All I know is that the scaffolding is as high as our building (3 stories)! If you notice the 2 cement slabs, each is for a house.

The newest macaron flavor at Starbucks is lemon. A bright yellow outside with a tart lemony gel filling. Delicious!

I had lunch with my host-mom the other day. I like having lunch with her, it gives us time to bond and she always tells me about the newest food trends. I wanted to share what she told me...egoma oil. Egoma is in the same family as shiso (perilla/beefsteak plant) and the leaves are found in Korean cuisine, maybe the oil too? She said that if you have high cholesterol, this oil will help bring it down and is better than olive oil. The only thing with this oil is that it is expensive and has a very short shelf life.

Hope you have a nice weekend, next week is Golden Week here.