giving thanks

Around the web I've been seeing bloggers giving thanks for different things as they lead up to Thanksgiving.

Well, I wanted to do something a little similar, so let's back up a bit...

A couple of days after coming back to Japan, my brother emailed that the care giving company that was taking care of my Dad suddenly decided to pull out and referred us to another company.

To tell you the truth, I felt hurt because the day I left to go back to Japan, the coordinator came to visit my Dad and made no mention that they were thinking of pulling out.

Since "we" only had about two weeks to find some other kind of care, I asked around my network of friends. Many gave very helpful information which I passed on to my brother. (Thank you!)

My brother also asked his network of friends, as well as family, who helped him look into different options.

After checking into various options, my brother decided that the best would be to look for a facility to care for my Dad.

Apparently my Dad wasn't too thrilled with this decision and how could you blame him?

Unfortunately his Parkinsons seems to have advanced so more full-time care was definitely needed.

So after many email exchanges...my brother emailed the other day to say that my Dad moved into his new "home".

I hope he'll adjust nicely.

Being so far away from everything has been a bit nerve wracking for sure, but I appreciate everyone who helped in this process.

I'm also thankful for the internet, its help keep me in the loop.

"Thank you!"

It's Friday here, I hope you'll have a great weekend.

autumn roses

The other week I went to have my teeth cleaned. Afterwards I took a little walk through Nakanoshima Rose Garden. I was surprised that there were many roses still blooming...Like Mme Figaro.

This one had a spicy fragrance.

Grisbi

Mme Albert Barbier

Mme Pierre Euler

Mme Melanie Soupert

The weather wasn't the greatest this day, but just to stop and smell these beauties made it a good day.

ispahan

I love the internet and social media...

the other day while scrolling through the people I follow on "Tabera", think Instagram for foodies, someone had posted a photo of this...

A Japanese dairy company has made Pierre Hermé's Ispahan in yogurt form!

Rose, raspberry and lychee, all perfectly balanced with the yogurt. The yogurt was kind of watery but I really liked the flavor.

And since the portion was a little bigger than what we normally eat for breakfast, so Satoshi and I shared the cup.

I'm glad I got to try this.

What have you been enjoying for breakfast?

movies

I haven't been to the movies in the States in ages, so I'm not sure if you have this.

In Japan, whenever you order food at the movies it comes on these oblong trays. One side is smaller than the other.

By the way, this large popcorn and two drinks (we bought coffee) were 1000 yen.

Then when you sit in your seat, you put the smaller part of the tray into the cup holder and it holds up the whole tray!

Another thing about movies in Japan is that when you buy your ticket, you reserve your seat.

I like this because you can choose where you want to sit and some theatres have love seat seating so if you go as a couple you can sit together without an arm rest coming between you.

Do your movie theatres have anything interesting?

more from masakichi

I tried several more recipes from Masakichi, this time from her book titled, "Bento no hon" (Bento book).

This chicken recipe is called Buchi-uma chicken. Buchi means "really" in Hiroshima dialect. Uma is a shortened version of umai which means delicious.

So, this is "really delicious chicken"

10 chicken drummettes
2 teaspoons grated ginger
2 teaspoons grated garlic
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup shoyu (soy sauce)
1/4 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
2 tablespoons sugar

Put your chicken into a pan, making sure that they line-up and don't overlap each other and there isn't too much space between each piece.
Add the next 6 ingredients and put the stove on to medium heat.
When the liquid starts to bubble, put an oshibuta (drop lid) and turn the heat down to medium-low.
Cook for 10 minutes
Turn the chicken over and cook for another 10 minutes.

NOTES: This recipe is easy and delicious, it kind of reminded me of shoyu chicken, a dish we eat in Hawaii.

The next recipe was easy also but needed a bit of tweaking.

Kabocha no kurogoma yogoshi ("dirty" pumpkin)

1/8 kabocha, cleaned and washed
1 tablespoon dashitsuyu*
1 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
1 teaspoon ground black sesame seeds

After cleaning and washing the pumpkin, cut into bite sized pieces
Put into a dish and drizzle the dashitsuyu & sake
Cover tightly with plastic wrap
Zap in the microwave for 1-1.5 minutes, pumpkin should be soft when tested with a chopstick
Toss in ground sesame seeds

NOTES: Dashitsuyu is a blend of fish-seaweed stock, soy sauce and a little sugar, if you can't find dashitsuyu where you are, I would suggest making your own by adding a teaspoon of fish-seaweed stock, a teaspoon of soy sauce and a half teaspoon of sugar. In the directions it didn't mention the plastic wrap, so I ended up zapping it for longer than 1.5 minutes in fact it was almost 2 minutes total.

The last recipe I tried was called Cabbage Oyster-bitashi

Hitashi or in this case bitashi is a style of cooking where you boil the veg and then toss it with a shoyu based sauce.

3 or 4 large cabbage leaves
1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce
1/2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
some chili flakes
water to blanche cabbage
white sesame seeds

After washing the cabbage, cut into large bite sized pieces
Mix the next 4 ingredients and set aside
Boil some water
When the water comes to a boil, add the pieces of cabbage and swish around for about a minute
Drain
Add the cabbage to the oyster sauce dressing, toss
Sprinkle with white sesame seeds

NOTES: I would just drizzle some sauce to toss instead of dumping the cabbage into the dressing, it was a bit too much dressing. But taste-wise this was good, I would definitely make this again.

Over all, all the recipes were easy and delicious, I'd make them again.

What's cooking in your kitchen?

p.s. it's pocky day!!

shima no megumi

When I came back to Japan, I saw a small bunch of bananas called "banapple" because the banana was supposed to taste like an apple.

Since I saw this "banapple" at the department store, you can imagine how much they wanted for this.

This got me thinking that apple bananas have got to be out there somewhere in Japan.

You should know that in Hawaii, the apple banana can be found in all of our markets.

In my family, it is the most popular. It is slightly sweet, a little tart, firm and lasts way longer than the "normal" banana.

So, the other day at the supermarket I was checking out the bananas...and came upon this...

　"Shima no megumi" means bounty of the island...since it looked the senorita banana, which we tried previously, I debated about buying the shima no megumi...

I'm glad I did though because this variety is very very close to the apple bananas we get in Hawaii.

Our weather is all funky...sunny one day, rainy the next then super freeze-a the next.

I think we're gonna skip over autumn and go straight into winter, which is kinda sad because I really like autumn...how's the weather where you are?

apple butter

It's Autumn, apples are in season.

So, naturally there are more apple products out there as well. The other day, my Twitter friend, H, sent me a care package! (Thank you!)

It was filled with all sorts of goodies and one that particularly stood out was this...apple butter.

Now, in the States, apple butter has no "butter" in it.

Sadly, I don't recall ever tasting apple butter in the States, though I had heard of it...

Well, in Japan, apple butter actually has butter in it! In fact it is made with sugar, apple, butter and a little salt.

We had this on some scones the other day for breakfast, the butter flavor isn't overpowering instead there is lots of apple flavor.

Thank you H!