kyushu fair

We shared this kuri (chestnut) sundae by a Kumamoto dairy at the Kyushu Fair being held at Hankyu Department Store.

Chestnut bits folded into the soft serve topped with two halves of a roasted chestnut.

We also came across a vendor from Oita prefecture selling fresh bambucha (huge) shiitake.

There were 3 of these in one styrofoam tray and we bought 2 trays.

The first time we cooked it in a non-stick pan then topped with a little butter and shoyu.

The second time was with a little shoyu and squeeze of sudachi (type of lime).

So good! and I'm glad we were able to help a little to get Kumamoto and other Kyushu areas get back on their feet after their natural disasters.

odds & ends

Thank you for your comments on the last post. I was so worried about the cracked dish that I should have been more concerned that no slivers of glass went into the pasta. Luckily, we ate it with no injuries...and I bought a new pyrex dish. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait on the new oven until it actually "dies" (shucks!) Guess I'll have to deal with the wacky element for awhile longer.

Time to clear out some photos...vegetable curry and turmeric rice from SOL...I like the chicken curry better. The vegetable curry seemed watery and the rice had no flavor.

Starbucks has a new food item--mixed nuts with lemon peel. Almonds and hazelnuts mixed with lemon peel. The hazelnuts overpower any lemon flavor. I like the cashew-blueberry one best.

Since the evening have been a bit nippy, I have been trying the Pukka teas...both have a sweetness to it when you sip it...my favorite is the "love" (rose, chamomile and lavender).

Yesterday, my student gave me some edamame and these shiitake...the shiitake on the left was HUGE! (Thank you!)

I bought this dark chocolate with chocolate mousse filling by Rittersport from the gourmet supermarket....very rich and delicious.

When we visited my MIL in the beginning of the month, she had an invitation to a COACH sale at a department store. Since she wasn't interested in going to check out the sale, I went and picked up her free gift for her...two cylinders of incense....she was nice to give me one (Thank you!) It smells really nice and flowery.

With the popularity of Korean soap operas here, Faceshop, a Korean cosmetic company is also quite popular here. Awhile back, I went and picked up their yogurt masks. They look and smell good enough to eat...

Can you believe October is almost over?

foodie new year!

It is the New Year here in Japan. I want to wish you all a Happy New Year! This year's Chinese astrological sign is the inoshishi (wild boar).

Unfortunately, Satoshi had to work today. It's not that he wanted to work on the first day of the New Year, but it is his turn to...plus, if you were on a trip and ran into some kind of trouble, you'd want someone to answer your call, right?

This morning we had ozoni. It is a traditional soup that most families have on the first morning of the New Year. I wrote more about this last year, if you'd like a re-cap, check it out here.

For lunch, I didn't feel much like cooking, especially since it was only for myself. But because many of the shops aren't open today, I decided to see what was in my freezer...I came up with croque monsieur--a very fancy name for a ham and cheese sandwich. I sliced some red onion and sauteed them in some butter, then put some butter into the frying pan and toasted both sides of the sandwich. Then I sprinkled cheese on top with some pepper and oregano and put the whole thing under the grill for 5 minutes. Having it with a bowl of cafe au lait made me feel like I was in Paris...


Dinner was our o-sechi (traditional dishes for the New Year). Our rice was a kamameshi type (rice cooked in an iron pot called a kama), with kuri (chestnut), kuromame (black beans) & gomoku (usually five ingredients--carrot, konnyaku (devil tongue jelly), sansai (wild mountain plants--warabi (fern shoots), zenmai (flowering royal fern)), takenoko (bamboo shoots). The rice is cooked with a shoyu (soy sauce) base which is put into the pot along with all these ingredients. Nowadays instead of having a kama (iron pot), you can cook this dish in your rice cooker.

We also had kohaku namasu (carrots and white turnip soaked in vinegar, sugar and mirin).



Kobumaki (rolled kelp), this dish is to bring yorokobu (happiness).

Tazukuri (dried anchovies), which prays for a good harvest.

Hinode cut kamaboko (fish cake cut to look like the sunrise). The fish cake is made in the celebratory colors of white and red.

Nasudengaku-roasted eggplant with a dengaku miso sauce. The miso sauce is a little sweet. I made the miso sauce with 80g red miso (soy bean paste), 1.5 T sugar, 2 T mirin (sweet rice wine) and 1/3 cup of kombu dashi (kelp stock). Since I roasted the eggplant and shiitakes in the oven, they came out a bit dry. I'll try cooking them in the frying pan again soon. This dish isn't part of the New Year celebratory foods, but I thought it would be a good dish to accompany all of our other dishes.

We toasted with a cup of sake (rice wine)--a limited edition ginjo (highly milled rice with or without alcohol added) called Manotsuru Tokimeki made by Obata brewery, from the island of Sado in Niigata prefecture.

During this time of year, you are supposed to warm up the sake, but I couldn't find my tokkuri (bottle to warm up the sake). So I decided to use my reishu (cold sake) ochoko (cups).

Cheers! Here's to a great start of a foodie new year!