ninomiya orchard

About this time of year I talk about blood oranges

In recent years, I pre-order them from Tabechoku’s group of farmers

Back in October of last year, I pre-ordered 4 kilos to be delivered in January

One reason I chose this farm was the price for the blood oranges and shipping were reasonable…5218 yen (tax included)

The specs of the order was that 2 to 7 days from January 15th, the order would be sent out

Well, January 17 (2 days) came and went and so did January 22 (7 days)

I wrote to the farm as well as to Tabechoku

The farm replied that since the summer was so hot and that there were a ton of kamemushi (stink bugs) their crops were late and the quality of their products were not so good.

While I understand that not everyone is tech savvy, the farm still could have at least communicated this to us, instead of letting the delivery date lapse

So the farm said they would send our order out some time next week…

Tabechoku also replied and pretty much said the same things the farm did…

So on the last day of January, my order finally came

Since I would be going out during the day, I left a note on our door (wish I had taken a photo of it) for the Kuroneko Yamato guy to leave the box outside our apartment.

I came back from my holoholo, and it still hadn’t come, so I left the note on the door 

‘cuz somehow I just knew it would be delivered when I was about to go bocha (take a bath) or while I was using the toilet

Sure enough, I’m getting ready to bathe and “pin pon” (the sound the door bells make in Japanese) the door bell rings…after coming out of the bath, I looked outside, and there was the box

The delivery guy took my note, probably for proof that I said it was okay for him to leave my box outside of our apartment.

Anyway, it was delivered, they aren’t the usual reddish color on the outsides nor do they have the fragrance of blood oranges when I opened the box

And due to global warming, they are all sorts of sizes...at least they are sweet

And even with all the stress still thankful we will be able to enjoy some blood oranges this year.

this and that

I kind of stopped making my own granola because it was hard to find reasonably priced maple syrup, so we’ve been trying all kinds of granola…this peanut butter chocolate granola was too sweet

Loved this cat posing...saw him in a record shop in Jimbocho

This “granola” by Ogawa Herbal Medicine, uses no oils or sugars, just toasted/puffed rice and roasted soy beans...nutty in flavor, delicious

Tokyo People: saw these two going somewhere dressed in yukata (summer kimono)

7-eleven now sells donuts...I bought one to try, this was their maple flavored...140 yen (tax included)...they give you a little sugar to put onto your donut, I didn't use it, the donut was quite soft and a little sweet.

They also have chocolate and custard filled

Tried this O-i ocha Premium strong...it is brewed really strong, a little bitter.

Apparently they have a limited amount out on the market, so I’m glad I got to try this

Tokyo People: this guy's helmet!

Satoshi's friend, A, sent us a boxful of shine muscat...Thank you!

I had also ordered an assortment of grapes from Asunaroen through Tabechoku...and they came a day after A's grapes...so my refrig has been taken over by two boxes...

There are 9 different grapes and they also included a "map" to explain which grapes were which, but we couldn't tell them apart

Some had seeds, some did not, some outer flesh could be eaten, some could not, some were sweet, some were not...glad we got to try them.

The sunset the other night....

also came across the new 5000 yen bill (top) which features Umeko Tsuda, who spent her life fighting for higher education for women and founded Tsuda University 

Almost the end of September...so fast!

hiramiyuki farm

The Noto Pennisula earthquake that happened on New Years Day was so tragic.

One of the stories that was featured on the news here was of Hiramiyuki Farms' blueberries.

The farm experienced a landslide

Wanting to help some how, I was happy to see her selling what blueberries she had at Tabechoku

We've ordered from Tabechoku numerous times since the pandemic

800 grams, with taxes and shipping (special type since they were frozen)...4976 yen of which 300 yen will be donated to the earthquake victims

These orbs are huge! and delicious.

Seeing Japan grown blueberries at the market has been rare these days.

I'm glad we got to help a little and I hope she will be able to get back to her farming again soon.

kajibou

When I was looking at Tabechoku to order blood oranges, the farm we ordered from last year, T-farm had not posted anything, so I bought 4 kilos from Kajibou instead, another farm in Ehime prefecture.

This is the Moro variety.

With tax and shipping it was about $45. 

A little higher than T-farm’s price last year and 1 kilo less, but we look forward to enjoying these.

hinata nouen

I recently ordered some figs from Hinata Nouen, through Tabechoku...(I think this is the sixth time I've ordered from Tabechoku since the pandemic started)

This farm is located in Okayama Prefecture.

The set had 3 varieties of figs...Violette de Sollies (left), Masui Dauphine (right).

Violette is a dark purple almost black, Masui Dauphine is a bright red.

and Rhodes...3565 yen tax and shipping included

This is what they looked like when cut in half.

I really wanted to sample the Violette variety because it is apparently really rare in Japan...it was really sweet!

Since the bulk in my order were the Rhodes variety and had to be eaten "right away", I made a small batch of Fig Vanilla Jam.

I also realized that this was the variety I had used when I made this recipe many years ago.

Christine Ferber, the chef whose recipe I use to make this jam, liked my post...total fangirl moment

Looking forward to eating this in the coming months.

 

umeshu

1st time trying to make umeshu (plum wine).

The directions were similar to when I made ume syrup (5 years ago).

1kilogram ume

1 kilogram rock sugar

1800 milliliters liquor

Here is what I did:

Wash the ume.

Take out the “belly button” with a barbecue skewer.

Sanitize the jar with some sake.

Dry each ume with a cloth.

Layer the rock sugar, and ume 

Pour in the alcohol.

I used kokuto shochu (liquor made from black sugar)

Now to wait a year.

NOTES: the most frustrating thing was waiting for the ume to be delivered.

When I ordered the 1 kilogram of ume, I was told it would arrive between 5 to 15 days after ordering…

Since I ordered it on May 18, 15 days would have been around June 3rd.

The next day (May 19), I got an email that said harvesting would start from June 3rd and he would be sending orders out in the order he received them, so my order would be sent out sometime between June 3rd and 13th

well June 13 came and I had heard nothing from the farm...boo!

Since I noticed on Tabechoku that others were receiving their orders, I emailed the farm on the 13th and was told my order would arrive by the 16th…um I think they should have contacted me to tell me it would arrive later than the 13th…

I received the ume yesterday and they were huge! and was a little more than 1 kilogram.

The farm grows the ume naturally without pesticides, so there were some black spots on the fruit but the fruit itself was still firm.

Drama this morning...I checked on it and it had overflowed (eep!), so I had to scoop out some of the liquid and some ume so that the liquid would come up only up to the base of the neck of the big bottles

Glad I checked and now I know not to fill it to the top! (live and learn)

Crossing fingers this turns out good.

t-farm

Ordered a 5 kilo (11 pounds) box of blood oranges from T-farm through Tabechoku.

It cost a little less than $40 with tax and shipping.

This is 2 kilos more than the farm I bought from last year..total 38 orbs, some are huge while others are tiny.

Hoping these are sweet.

T-farm is located in Ehime, Shikoku.

Besides blood oranges and other citrus, they also grow avocados.

I am interested in trying avocados grown in Japan but they are pretty pricey, 1 kilo (2 pounds) is $40-ish plus tax and shipping.

Guess I’ll have to wait a couple of years until they become more plentiful so the price will come down.

In the meantime, we’ll enjoy these blood oranges.

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!

makka nouen

Yesterday I ordered a box of  blood oranges from Tabechoku.

This is my 4th order from Tabechoku.

Makka Nouen is located in Hiroshima prefecture and the farmer was once a businessman.

10 years ago he quit his job and started farming.

The box I ordered was 3 kilos (about 6.6 pounds).

I wasn't too sure how many fruit would be in the box and was quite surprised to see each one wrapped in plastic wrap!

What a waste of plastic!

There were 25 orbs and all were different sizes. 

I unwrapped a few and we will work through the box over the coming weeks (maybe days)

I received a message from the farmer who said that he wraps each one to prevent the outside of the fruit from getting marked up.

I think he should invest in paper fillers instead...

Besides eating the fruit as is, I plan to make some blood orange infused vodka with the peel and also keep some peel in the freezer for baking.

Our numbers are continuing to go down though the number of hospitalizations has not.

We do have the variant virus (South African and UK) in Japan.

About 80 cases, 1 from South Africa and the rest UK and I hope they are carefully watching this....

The experts have also said that Japan has its own variant which came about some time last year.

As for the Olympics...the top, who was once Prime Minister of Japan has shown his "true colors" with sexist remarks...oy!

Japan has a long way to go with gender equality, hopefully this incident will spark some changes, no matter how big or small.

I personally feel Tokyo should cancel hosting the Olympics and use what monies they do have left to support the medical community and work on getting this pandemic under control instead...

Have a safe weekend.

suzunari farm

I ordered another veggie box from Tabechoku.

This time from Suzunari Farm, which is located on the Miura Penninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture.

It came with colorful carrots, leek, turnip, potatoes.

A beet, onion, red daikon, purple daikon, and basil.

I made some watermelon salad with part of the basil. 

Since I couldn't get feta cheese, I used mozzarella. 

I think I prefer feta for the salty bites.

For dinner I made some reishabu, which you blanch thin slices of pork in hot water then stop the cooking by putting it into cold water. 

The farm suggested that you make a leek sauce with their leeks. 

Instead of soaking the leeks in the sauce, I made the sauce and then topped the pork with the leeks and drizzled some of the sauce.

Here is the recipe for the leek sauce from Suzunari Farm.

120 cc vinegar

100 cc shoyu (soy sauce)

60 grams sugar

1 tablespoon sesame oil

2 tablespoons white sesame seeds

leeks, cleaned and thinly sliced

Mix sauce and add leeks.

Use over reishabu,  karaage (fried chicken) or even cold tofu.

NOTES: I didn't add the leeks to the sauce, but just drizzled the sauce and threw on some leeks onto the reishabu.

I think this sauce could be used as a dressing for somen salad or any salad for that matter.

Since I knew we wouldn't be able to eat everything in a timely manner, I blanched and froze half of the purple daikon and red daikon.

I'll use it to make cold soups during the summer.

I made some pickles using the beet, turnip, red daikon and purple daikon with the recipe came with the veggies.

This pickle recipe doesn't have salt in it, so we'll need to eat these up quickly.

Here is the recipe for the pickles.

Veggies, cleaned and sliced

120 cc water

180cc vinegar

3 or 4 tablespoons sugar

Bring pickling liquid ingredients to a boil and make sure the sugar melts.

Cool the pickling liquid.

Pour over veggies.

NOTES: these pickles do not last long, so don't be like me and make a lot at once.  

For the amounts I made (1 beet, 1 turnip, half the red daikon and half the purple daikon), I used 2 times the pickling liquid recipe.

I only put 3 tablespoons sugar and liked how puckery this was.

With part of a leek I made an omelette for breakfast and topped it with a little okonomiyaki sauce.

I made each pickles of the root veggies separately to keep the colors from bleeding into each other....love the different pinks!

For dinner Thursday night, I  baked potato with the kitaakari (a type of potato) in the fish grill drawer.

Wash the potato well, and cut into 4 without cutting all the way through.

Wrap in foil and put into the fish grill drawer on high for 10 minutes.

Turn the heat down to low and cook for 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat and let sit in the fish grill drawer for 15 minutes.

I drizzled some shoyu (soy sauce) and put a dollop of butter.

It took some time but this was so good!

It's been ages since I've had baked potato.

I washed part of the carrot greens and froze them to make pesto with it at a later date.

I also washed and froze the beet greens to use at a later date.

I grilled the white part of the leeks in the fish grill drawer and with ate this with some Murray River pink salt flakes.

I bought some fried squid and drizzled more leek sauce and topped with leeks.

We ate the colorful carrots as is...so crunchy and sweet!

It was fun to see so much color over the past couple of days.

The humidity is up and weather kind of wonky.

Not sure when our rainy season will start, but we've been laying low.

Satoshi's first week was rather short because he had his birthday and Friday off.

He said the trains are rather packed for parts of his commute.

Since he works in travel, he is hoping business will pick up, though realistically he knows that it will take some time.

Have a nice week.

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.