bambucha

The other day I found a bambucha (huge) pear...and a teeny avocado.

The avocado cost more than the pear too.

To give you an idea as to how big this pear was I put it on my palm.

Our weather is freaky these days.

The rain is totally depressing and the temps have kinda skipped autumn and went into winter..eep!

marguerite de marillat

Another thing that is in season now are pears.

When I first saw this pear in the market, I had thought it was a La France.

But upon looking closer, I realized it was a different variety.

Marguerite de Marillat is a rather old variety that was originally grown by a person named Marillat near Lyon, France in 1872.

Later, it was grown commercially in the early part of the 20th century in the United Kingdom.

The skin is rather tough and a bit sour, but the inside is very juicy and sweet.

The website that I found information for this pear on, said that this type of pear is usually used for desserts.

We had this with our breakfast the other day.

I put it next to an egg to show you just how big it is.

This particular pear was grown in the northern part of Japan in a prefecture called Yamagata.

my new "toy"

I first read about making my own light box from Melanie's post. I was waiting for a box, with some height to recycle and just so happened to get one in the mail the other day.

I think I cut the borders a little too thin, and the box wasn't really too big to put a lot of things in it, but I think it makes taking pictures in natural light a little easier.

Photos: "warm" dish

Mikage Takasugi desserts...pumpkin mousse & mont blanc. The pumpkin mousse had chocolate cake on the bottom, whipped cream and an outer layer of pumpkin puree.

The mont blanc was filled with chestnuts and whipped cream, the bottom layer was a crust and an outer layer of chestnut puree.

La France pear. I am not sure why they are called La France, maybe they originally came from France? The texture is like bartlett and really sweet.

The cost? very little if anything...I'm recycling the box and taped on tracing paper on the outsides. I think if I find a little bigger box, I'll try again, until then, I'll keep using this one. How do these photos look?

odds & ends

I had some leftover cranberry walnut campagne bread (though it was labeled as campagne it was softer and in the shape of a baguette), so for our breakfast the other day I made bread pudding. Besides the cranberry and walnuts, the bread also had orange peel, raisins and blueberries in it too. I cut up the 6 slices I had left, added 1 scrambled egg, 1 cup milk, a couple dashes of cinnamon and 3 tablespoons of sugar to the bread. Then I oiled 2- 8oz. ramekins with olive oil and put the mixture in. I then sprinkled the top with vanilla sugar and pre-heated the oven to 375F (190C). I baked it for 30 minutes and voila! breakfast was served....it reminded me of a warm and fuzzy french toast.

Can someone help me? My strawberries have started to form. It is a nice red color, but a bit too tiny. It is my first time with strawberry plants. How do you know when it is time to pick them? And how do I get them to grow bigger? (surfed the internet and it said I need to feed it more water to get them bigger)

Update: we picked them (weren't they cute??), they were a deep red color and the sweetest tasting berries we've eaten!

Awhile back as I closed our door, I looked up and saw these two mounds of cement which weren't there before. The other day, I scared myself because when I looked up to "check" on them, I saw that one of the bumps was cracked open. Gosh, I wonder what was in it? Well, Satoshi has since smashed the remaining bump with an umbrella and we have no idea what was in it because the bump disintergrated and whatever might have been in there was blown away with the wind. Anyone have any ideas what it could have been?

The other day in the supermarket I found these huge Asian pears (you have to open your hand like a glove to hold it). They are called Nansui (literally south water). They were very juicy sweet and juicy, which was almost kind of wine-y.

I also bought these mini chingensai (pak choy). The Japanese love to shorten the names of products, people's names, just about everything. Most of the words that they shorten are words that they take from other languages like air conditioner is air-con and personal computer is paso-con. So what do they call these? chibichin (chibi means tiny or small) and (chin is short for chingensai), cute huh?

Have a nice weekend!

nashi

Nashi (pears) are in season now. I never realized it, but there are many different varieties of pears in Japan. Here are just a few:

There are the "red" pears, these have reddish-brownish skins.
Hosui, the chinese characters mean lots of water. These pears are juicy, but not too sweet. I used a grated piece of this to make bulgogi the other day. It gave the bulgogi a sweeter flavor than when I used grated apple.

Kosui, the chinese characters mean happiness water. The Kosui looks like the Hosui and are juicy and very sweet.

And pears with green skins. Nijuseiki, which means 20th century.

Usually the skins are quite tough and bitter, which helps protect the fruit inside, so I peel the skins off before we eat them.

Satoshi and I agree that out of the three, the Kosui was the most sweet. Asian pears seem to be a little watery or juicier than the European types.

With most of the other parts of the world jumping into Autumn, Summer is dragging its self along here, which makes Autumn in Japan rather short these days, still, it brings different foods...I can't wait!

pears and scones

Well, the weather has been beautiful the past couple of days. Very cool in the evenings and mornings. I hope this will help the fall foliage. The past couple of years haven't been to pretty, in fact, some of the leaves dried up before it could change colors.


The other day, I received these HUGE pears called "Niitaka". If I'm not mistaken, these grow on the island of Shikoku in Kochi prefecture. I cut this one in half for our breakfast the other day. It is very crunchy and juicy. Thank you, Kazumi.

Before my foodie adventure the other day, I made some lavender scones for my breakfast on the train. I had bought this packaged mix from Alii Kula Lavender when I was home this past April. This mix is so easy and fast, just add the water amount on the package and bake. Delicious!

Well, this week will be a short one, hope you are having a good one.