Eating Shizuoka

No wonder it's on sale ...

2010-07-09T08:30:00.003+09:00

A breaded and fried white-bread sweet red bean paste sandwich at a local grocery store

Drinking Sake

2010-07-07T22:17:00.005+09:00

Shizuoka sake, named KazeKaori (wind smell?)

One old way of drinking sake I first saw last Friday in a small izakaya: put the sake glass in a square box (lacquer in this case). Pour the sake into the glass (as the accepting party chants "とっとっと" or "toh toh toh") until the sake overflows into the box. Drink from the glass and then from the box. And may your life overflow with bounty like your glass with sake. Kanpai!

Sweet roasted pepper pasta sauce

2010-07-03T23:53:00.004+09:00

As I've learned the basics of cooking, I've been trying to develop techniques for making culinary staples, without - for the most part - reading recipes. Pasta sauce is a pivotal Euro-American culinary necessity. How else do you consume noodles? Usually, I'd have to bide my time, waiting until I bought some meat to make some stock and then use the stock to make the sauce. Today, I got tired of waiting. I cut out what I thought was a necessary ingredient, the meat, and made an amazing pasta sauce. No canned tomatoes. A rich sweet and burning hot flavor (burning hot from the hot sauce I threw in at the end) and a great variety in texture, from the liquid tomatoes, the crunchy onions, and the chewy roasted bell peppers.

Sweet roasted red pepper pasta sauce (for one):

Heat oil in a pan. Add two or three crushed and sliced garlic cloves and a medium onion cut up into sixths. Saute covered for a couple minutes on medium-low. Add eggplant cut into large cubes. Add a dash of white wine vinegar, some salt, sugar and black pepper to taste. Saute some more and stir occasionally making sure not to burn the sauce. Cut into sixths three medium-sized tomatoes and add to the rest of the vegetables.

Meanwhile, cut one red bell pepper in half, taking out the white insides, the seeds at the green head and put skin up in an oven. Bake until the areas of the skin bubble and turn black. (about 15 minutes on 220 degrees). When done, remove and careful skin the peppers, cut them up, and add to the pan.

The sauce is finished when the tomatoes liquefy and the eggplant is cooked through. I also added a too-ample dash of habanero sauce. Pictured here, it's served on two kinds of pasta.

Sea cucumber, a life

2010-06-27T20:35:00.003+09:00

A sea cucumber under assault expels the organs of its digestive tract through its anus (and then grows another set). Given that the sea cucumber's greatest threat is Asian cuisine, this "autoevisceration" - essentially gutting yourself and saving the chef the bother - probably needs to be rethought as a self-defense.

Bonk: the curious coupling of science and sex, by Mary Roach

Summertime

2010-06-16T19:46:00.005+09:00

For this simple salad, use ripe flavorful vegetables. I sliced up a large tomato and half an eggplant and arranged them on a plate together. Open up a can of salmon (I bought a can of very tasty Alaskan wild salmon from Kaldi on sale!) Mix some of the water from the salmon, sesame oil, a sliced up clove of garlic, sesame seeds, just a bit of rice vinegar and sugar (I used brown sugar). Crush together. Sprinkle the salmon on top of the vegetables, pour the sauce over everything, and season with salt and pepper.

(Inspired by an idea my friend Mel gave me a while back for how to eat raw eggplant. It was news to me.)

Salmon with Preserved Lemons

2010-06-08T17:07:00.004+09:00

About six months ago, I packed a few lemons in a jar with salt, cardamom, cinnamon, chili, and bay leaf. The Moroccan Preserved Lemons have since been swimming in their own juices, now as thick as honey. It was time to put them on fish.

I used half a lemon and two fillets. Wash the lemon and scrape off its flesh in a sieve. Then, dice it finely and with fresh sweet marjoram, crush it with a pestle in some butter.

Put washed fresh salmon fillets on foil, top with the butter, seal and bake until cooked through. I made them in my toaster oven: about 25 minutes on 220 degrees.

I wasn't sure what six months in a half-full jar of salt and lemon juice would do to a fruit, and was prepared to suffer from food poisoning. Instead, the result is a buttery and crumbly fillet, with a slight lemony punch. It was delicious!

Chestnut Spread

2010-05-27T13:28:00.003+09:00

Chestnut spread on toasted bread

For this recipe I bought a snack-pack of cooked peeled chestnuts. Cooking and peeling them is kind of a hot mess, and a mess is something this recipe shouldn't be. So just buy them ready for eating.

In a mortar, crush the whole chestnuts with plenty of lemon juice, a drizzle of sesame oil, salt, a good amount of vegetable or olive oil (otherwise it'll be very dry) and chopped up garlic. Spoon the mixture onto sliced french bread and toast in a toaster oven or a conventional oven. Top with more pepper, drizzle with olive oil, and top with a little sour cream. Add some hot sauce on top (I used a really punchy habanero sauce).

Roasted Eggplant

2010-05-27T13:12:00.003+09:00

Roasted eggplant with tomato pesto

Preheat oven to 220 degrees (I used my toaster oven). Slice long eggplant in half length-wise. Make 5 long slits down the flesh, but not through the skin. Spread the slits. Rub flesh with salt and black pepper. Pour oil on your baking surface and put eggplant flesh down. The eggplant will absorb a lot of oil, so simply greasing the surface is not enough. Bake for 10 minutes.

Flip the eggplant and spoon tomato pesto on the flesh (Kaldi, the foreign foods store, had - or still has - this stuff on sale. Alternatively any kind of pesto will work). Sprinkle with a little more salt and pepper and put the eggplant back in the oven, fleshy-side up, for 5 minutes. Enjoy!

You can also make your own paste by grinding together sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, salt and spices to taste.

Okinawa donut

2010-05-25T18:23:00.003+09:00

Brown-sugar Okinawa donut (also available are original and sesame); 100 yen each; stall across from the foreign foods store and Vie de France cafe in the east wing of Shizuoka JR station (limited time only!)

It's very dense and chewy, but not greasy. The flavor takes time to dissolve in your mouth.

Niku onigiri

2010-05-25T01:31:00.003+09:00

The Niku Onigiri (with cheese) getting torched: rice ball wrapped in bacon, topped with an immeasurable drizzle of hot sauce, mayo and cheese, served with lettuce. 350 yen. (300 without the cheese).

Found in Shizuoka, when walking from KFC (or 109) across the crosswalk and straight toward the Shizutetsu train line, in the short shopping street, on the right.

I love street food. Although for any significant amount of street food, I'm surely in the wrong country.

My good old friend

2010-04-23T16:46:00.003+09:00

I bought two packages of raspberries on sale. I was able to salvage most from the mold. It's getting warm and humid and mold takes over vast swaths of my home. It's a disgusting battle.

Ahh sandwhiches ...

2010-04-18T17:16:00.003+09:00

... all we've got around here for store-bought or even the rare restaurant-made sandwiches is pillowy white bread. It's a shame. Back in the States, I remember foccacia, wheat, rye, pretzel breads serving as the foundations of the sandwiches, something really nutritious or at least simply delicious.

I've been weaned off sandwhiches for as long as I've lived here. So it's no doubt this is probably my first home-made sandwich in Japan: Gouda, "raw ham" (salami) and sour cream on a toasted baguette. (The discovery that the meat department at the Shizuoka JR grocery store weighs out deli meats forced a kind of nostalgia on me.)

Less than four months to go ...

2010-04-11T22:07:00.004+09:00

You know the kind of kitchen where the foil covers the walls around the range? Where you sit just watching, entertained by admiring the years of stuff surrounding you, by the TV everyone's watching and the remote lying in front of you, by the person cooking talking animatedly to him or herself? It's your own kitchen, or your friend's kitchen, or your parents' kitchen. The appliances are coated with an ages-old layer of black grease. The mess looks like a mess but it's an ordered un-messy mess which feels comfortable. Of course, initially in this mess I felt like I'd get food poisoning. There must be some health violations here. What did I walk into? Then I relaxed, remembering all such kitchens in Japan, on my travels, everywhere: It's my kitchen. It's my friend's kitchen. It's my mom's kitchen. Lunch is coming.

A text message

Subject: Untitled
Sent: 04/09

i just went to the most hole in the wall place in the world and had a large traditional lunch set (miso, rice, sashimi, sides, even curry) with strong coffee for 480 from a cute couple. im gonna miss japan

Taking This Cheese Thing Up a Few Notches

2010-04-09T00:10:00.004+09:00

Taking my mom's Russian woman wisdom that home-made fresh cheese is healthier when it's cooked, I made this cheesecake type thing with my friends from my last batch of homemade tvorog. (Inspired and tutored on the ways of Russian cheesecake by this recipe. Mom wasn't around to answer questions.)

It's a hybrid Russian and American cake, because unlike Russian ones, it has a crust we made by crushing a bunch of sweet biscuits and packing them in the bottom of the dish with butter. For the cheesecake, we mixed butter and sugar until they were fluffy, then poured in beaten eggs, added a pinch of salt and some vanilla extract. We mixed that up well and added the tvorog, almond powder and cinnamon, then poured it over the crust. We cooked it on 200 C for a very long time, first under foil and then without it. Note: tvorog (the homemade cheese) burns easily so watch out.

The end result was good, the crust a bit too sweet, the cheesecake a bit too eggy. Nevertheless, something I baked actually had a shape, actually stuck together as supposed to, actually tasted good!

Topped with ice cream!

Channeling the Motherland and Making Cheese

2010-03-17T09:42:00.010+09:00

This video comes to you today because right now I'm feeling like Tom Hanks in Cast Away when he created fire. "I have created cheese!" say I. This is a first for me. It's also an incredibly simple procedure so listen up.

tvorog

This is an Eastern European specialty, an un-aged cheese called творог (tvorog). It is similar to ricotta in flavor and texture, but isn't really creamy. It can be eaten straight, mixed with jam or honey, or used to make desserts along the lines of baked cheesecake and little cheese-cake patties. (My mom and her friend who owned a restaurant in Ukraine advise me that cooked tvorog is actually more nutritious than the raw kind I'd eat straight.)

To make these patties, known as сырники (sirniki, from the word for cheese), mix trovog with eggs, sugar, a bit of salt and some flour, shape them and cook them in some fat on a skillet. When cooking them, be careful, says my dad, "they can burn quickly." This caution applies to all tvorog cooking.

You can also make the same dough, roll it on a floured surface into a sausage, cut it up into bits and boil them for two minutes in lightly salted water. Then serve them like dumplings with melted butter.

Or forget the flour and use the tvorog / egg / salt / sugar mixture to stuff dumplings.

You can also whip and steam tvorog.

But back to the basics. Tvorog is basically curdled milk. Almost every work day, I get richer by 200 ml of milk. Dad: "Have you bought a goat?"

No. My school lunches always come with milk, but I never drink it because I get incredibly full from the food. So every day, I take the milk home. So does my friend Kat who provided me with 5 packets of milk when my first batch of tvorog failed.

I had my parents write me the instructions for making tvorog so I could easily use up a liter of milk. Here's my simplified translation (the recipe they sent calls for 2 liters so I'll write it like that).

Tvorog

Mix together 2 liters of milk and 3 tablespoons of sour cream in a microwavable container.
Cover the container with a clean towel. Keep in a warm place for 1 to 2 days. [The time depends on the environment. I had to leave mine sitting for about 3 days. Back in Moscow, the stuff was done much sooner. Just check on the progress and judge accordingly.]
You're ready for the next step when a mass with a yogurt-like texture appears at the top and separates from the liquid below. DO NOT STIR.
Place the container in a microwave for 3 to 5 minutes, until the top part tightens and separates from the liquid below. The liquid will be clear when the 5 minutes are up (do no discard this clear liquid. Please see below for a recipe.)
To strain: I set up a sieve over a bowl and covered it with two paper towels used specifically for cooking . Preferably using a slotted spoon, carefully spoon out the solids and place them on the paper towels.
Cover the top of the solids with the edges of the paper towel or put a new paper towel on top.
Put a small plate on top of the paper towel and a weight of about a pound. Leave for an hour.
Transfer the tvorog to a glass or ceramic container, cover and store in the fridge (consume within a couple of days).

my friend Kat tries tvorog and buttered sugared blini for the first time

Using the clear liquid left over from making tvorog, you can make some killer blini (Russian crepes). My mom has always told me how she spent her whole childhood being in charge of blini and learning the proper technique for making them. It's no easy task, she says. My impression is than unlike crepes, they tend to be slightly thicker and not have paper-thin crispy edges. The tvorog liquid has noticeably made an improvement in their texture and flavor, making them more fluffy and giving them a creamy taste.

For four crepes, I took about 500 ml of the clear liquid and mixed it with one egg and flour. The batter should be very runny.
Butter up and heat a skillet and ladle the batter on, making sure to coat the surface with all the batter. When the crepe is cooked through and golden brown on one side, flip it and brown it on the other side.

For a very Russian take on the blini, stack them, buttering the top of each one and sprinkling it with sugar as you stack. Then cut into them and enjoy.

You can also fill them with caviar, or sour cream, or ground beef, or jam, or honey and roll them up. I'm obsessed with blini, and when I've returned to Russia, my grandparents have been diligent providers of blini for the occasions.

The Stuff We Eat

2010-03-15T16:21:00.004+09:00

tuna belly-buttons in sweet miso sauce (front)
shiokara; squid preserved in nothing but salt (middle)
fried fish patties (kurohanpen) made from ground up sardines (back)

My friend Tomomi explained that shiokara is fermented for weeks. It's the type of food fishermen can keep with them aboard ships on long trips from home. Yaizu is home to a prominent fish market, where the trading floor fills up with professional cooks and sales people from as early as 5 in the morning on the weekdays. It's been open for 100 years. From here, boats leave for 3-month fishing trips to catch tuna.

But I know what's on your mind: tuna have belly-buttons?

A room with a view of an elephant

2010-03-14T21:28:00.005+09:00

(photos by Tomomi, click to enlarge)

At one time, the little Obama community in Yaizu had an elephant, called Hanako, or little flower. Children came to see her living happily on the beach, between Suruga Bay and the mountains. No wonder a lone elephant along the Pacific coast was an attraction. People had no idea where she came from or how she came to be "domesticated", my friend Tomomi said.

She said you could see the elephant from this cliff-side gallery and cafe, Hasekawa, which has been here for at least 20 years. Look up the coast, and there was Hanako. Look down the coast, and there was and still is Yaizu port.

Some 15 years ago, a piece of art at the gallery caught her eye, left an impression. Only later, while looking through the early work of Takashi Murakami, who collaborated with Yves Saint Lauren on a famous line of white accessories decorated with googly eyes along side the YSL logos in bright colors, did she spot the piece she actually saw in person many years back. Now, she says, his work is the most expensive contemporary work in auction houses in New York.

The house-turned gallery still features art, and has a little shop. There you can find jewelry, tableware and some small furniture from all over; a plate from Myanmar, chairs from London, necklaces from Africa, etc. The spoons that were served along with our coffee came from Thailand.

The coffee is solid, tasty. There's no espresso machine. Desserts are simple and satisfying, not too sweet. A dessert set costs about 900 yen. The vanilla ice cream is almost too plain. The pumpkin cakes are organic and only 10 are made per day. Of course what you pay for is the stunning views of the Bay, the panorama, and to play with the house cat with extremely sharp teeth and claws.

Tomomi doesn't recommend the food; a simple plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce costs 1000 yen. Come over to my place instead; I'll make something that looks and probably tastes 10 times better.

Kogomi

2010-03-14T10:56:00.004+09:00

Google Translate tackles the Wikipedia entry for kogomi, the beautiful coiled sprouts of the ostrich fern plant which grows across the northern hemisphere and is eaten (although not widely) in Japan:

Collected from early June to five young leaves spirally curled in mid-May, boiled, salad, seasoned sauce and sesame seeds, eat and then tempura. Unique strong as bracken "slime" in that, it is easy to access because there is no cooking and unlike pohole. But if you live to be eating small, so careful to eat a lot of loose stomach. Like sunlight and relatively good slope, overlooking most of the harvested edible wild plants is also due to the colonies. Since most forests in 生Enai, moist well-drained location and under the cliff of the mountain and roadsides. 出揃U it is easy to harvest grass before. Growing very quickly, because only short harvest period for each location, conducted a preliminary examination frequently better. In Japan, are also grown as food forcing.

Onigiri

2010-03-07T16:36:00.003+09:00

I'm leaving Japan in 5 months, and one of the things I'll really miss is onigiri, or rice balls. They're ready-made and sold in all convenience stores and grocery stores. Also, they come wrapped in an interesting plastic packaging that keeps the rice separate from the dry seaweed covering. You have to follow the three steps shown on the plastic wrapping to peel it just so that as you do, the seaweed attaches to the rice without a mess.

First time I saw them, I thought, "Who in the world would buy just a stuffed ball of rice wrapped with seaweed?!"

And here we are. I would.

I consider them to be the Japanese version of a sandwhich. Easy to transport. Non-messy to hold and eat. Very filling. Splendid. They come stuffed with a variety of sea products, like mayo tuna, mayo shrimp, salmon, seasoned seaweed, fish ovary, roe, etc. as well as traditionally with pickled plums. Others are simply rice balls wrapped with seaweed and a small hamburger patty. Others have no filling, but instead are made from rice seasoned with bits of seaweed, or baby herrings, or pieces of pickled plums, etc. Also a tasty variety is made from a very sticky red rice, cooked with red beans and seasoned with black sesame. There are many varieties to choose from.

Home goods stores also carry onirigi makers, small plastic thingamagigs that shape what rice and filling you put inside. But, as my friend Emi shows in this video, making them without any special tools takes only a minute. We used short-grain sticky rice, commonly eaten in Japan, to make them.

Curing pickles

2010-03-01T15:18:00.003+09:00

Pickling is a tricky thing. Or at least good pickling. I tried to preserve in salt some giant red radish, Japanese style, but I fell short on the salt. The translucent pink slices were crunchy, but not salty and not too flavorful. To save them, there was this salad.

I mixed my insufficiently pickled pickles with sliced ripe avocado and fresh Japanese eggplant and topped with sesame seeds, chili pepper flakes, salt, black pepper, olive oil and white wine vinegar. That's enough of a kick to rev up my previous shortcomings.

Mel's comfort food, in haiku

2010-03-01T15:07:00.004+09:00

Breakfast begins now!
Get your stomach, soldier, FAST!
It's a' rumblin', wow!

Pancakes like the moon.
Fried garlic, over easy
Corn starch in hash browns.

Yogurt with honey.
banana and oatmeal ... mmmmmm.
Gulp it down. Thank you!

"The winter on the banks of the Volga has been hard"

2010-02-26T18:42:00.004+09:00

Not too long ago, I was Gchatting to my buddy Steve from Chicago about how I miss whole-wheat bread here. Japan has us covered for bleach-white pillowy bread cut into slices as thick as a big fat steak. And we've got French baguettes, and sour loaves filled with cheese, while other rich brown loaves are filled with raisins. Then there's all the pastries, filled with everything from Japanese curry to red bean paste, to creams and chocolate, and sugared to no end. American kids would be in heaven. But I'm not fulfilled. There's no whole wheat.

Anyway, soon enough there arrives a package, from Chicago, here, in Shizuoka. It was an envelope, and then inside was a box stamped up and down in red with "PERISHABLE", and then a series of ZipLock bags. Encased inside was a loaf of whole-wheat bread - magically shaped to fit inside the 28cm x 20cm x 6cm box - home-made brownies and a letter. The letter, dated and aged from January 1874, was written by a 19th century writer, in Russian, about the loneliness and hardships of winter, about love, and about chopping wood for a family with a sickly father.

Immediately, I found a chair in the post office and devoured half the brownies as I read Steve's account of his life along the river. The guy has spent as long as I've known him making jokes about my Russianness (to very good-humored reception), and here, he really impressed me. He's been learning the language since perhaps last summer, and hand-wrote the letter. Sure, some grammar was straight out of an online translator. But the two-page account of his life was perhaps one of the greatest things I've ever received, especially accompanied by homemade baked goods.

Druggie

2010-02-24T21:55:00.004+09:00

My caffeine intake has become ridiculous. A person who used to drink water like a fish now itches for caffeine like a life-time smoker for cigarettes. The coffee doesn't even rouse me anymore. I can fall straight to sleep after a cup.

Morning: one or sometimes two mugs of tea with milk
8:30am - 5pm: probably half a dozen cups of green tea and sometimes one or two cups of crappy coffee
Afternoon: occasional coffee-shop coffee
Evening: at least two more mugs of tea with milk

In part, this habit is cultural. Japanese people drink green tea like Americans drink water. It's a ceremonial drink as much as it's a thirst-quencher. I actually used to not like green tea before I came here, because of its grassy bitterness. Now, I understand how it's refreshing.

Now, if I try to change, I'm just kind of terrified of the withdrawal headaches.

Black 'N Tasty

2010-02-23T15:06:00.001+09:00

This taiyaki ice cream features anko, maple-flavored ice cream, and a thin layer of chocolate inside the crunchy shell. Delectable and awfully rich and sweet.

Fondue

2010-02-15T12:46:00.002+09:00

How simple yet unexpected！ This is the first time I see Japanese fondue (just the fondue set at a home goods store, actually): mochi (rice flour balls) dipped into hot anko (sweet red bean paste).

Oden. Why not, for once?

2010-02-13T00:32:00.007+09:00

cellphone photos suck; me, Masaki, Kat, at Asahi restaurant's stall, lowering their reputation by trying to help sell their goods. "International oden, you say? ... hmm ... that oden banana sounds more tempting."

Head out to Aoba Dori (fountain / park street perpendicular to Gofukucho in Shizuoka City) for a delicious taste of the infamous Shizuoka oden, the bigger of the two Shizuoka oden festivals (the other is in fall. Oden is a style of food boiled in broth, so it's a perfect cold-weather meal). Even though I think Shizuoka oden is only thought to be infamous by Shizuokans. The rest of Japan's like: "Oh ... Shizuoka ... that's nice."

It's goes on all Saturday and Sunday until 7:30 pm. Aside from the regular tasty juicy oden, come to find Italian oden (cooked in a tomato broth and seasoned with grated cheese); banana, tomato and cream cheese oden (really not gross, despite the sound of it, but also not too tasty); Hokkaido oden (with miso sauce; meh; I don't recommend it); grilled pork and beef from my friend BBC (for Big Boss Company, I believe. He's a cheerful big 34-year-old guy working a small grill); konyaku smothered in sweet miso sauce and a smile from my friend Hideki at his stall; Korean food and creamy rice wine (recommended) at one stall; and much more creativity than you can shake a boiled potato at.

A meal that made me want to dress up

2010-02-02T22:48:00.005+09:00

Today's dinner was a flaky calzone filled with pork, a side of green salad, and home-made umeshu on the rocks to celebrate the final - and utterly delectable - meal to be made from the dough I made last week.

If you're wondering why my coverage of my doughey adventures is so vast and detailed, it's because before last week, I only made dough once, and that was from rice flour to make mochi. Not the same. Here, the stuff was going to be molded and browned, made into something bread-like, bread and other baked goods being things I avoided. With many other dishes, if you mess up, it can still turn out alright. So you kind of burn a steak, over-spice a stir-fry or undercook the noodles, so what? It can all be easily remedied, or eaten as is.

To botch a dough is quite a different thing; in my mind, mistakes in this culinary area can be unforgiving, ultimately leading the chef to do what he or she never wants to do: throw the dish in the trash [gasp!]. Thankfully, however, my first attempt at this kind of cooking was satisfactory. Today's dinner was even splendid. I filled my flaky dough with cooked ground pork, sealed it and cooked the calzone on a well-oiled skillet until bubbly browned.

To make flaky dough from a regular ball of dough, akin to toaster strudels kids eat in America:

Roll out the dough very thinly. Then put thin slices of butter on one half and fold over the other half. Then put thin slices of butter on half of the dough you now have in front of you and fold it over again. And then fold it a couple more times. Roll it out again. Fold it over again a few times. Roll it out again. Fold it over again a few times. Put in more butter if you want (croissants are loaded with it) and keep folding and rolling. The more you do this, the flakier your pastry will be. I must have done it a dozen times, at least.

Approximate instructions to making the calzone (approximate because you're molding something together, it's not an exact science)

1. Fry ground pork in olive oil. For more flavor, I added finely chopped mushrooms, leeks, hot peppers, parsley, some other type of green I picked up at the store, ground black pepper, salt, and a splash of white wine vinegar.

2. Once the mushrooms are cooked and the meat is browned, use a slotted spoon to move the filling into a clean plate lined with paper towels to soak up extra grease.

3. While the filling cools, roll out your flaky dough. When I made my flaky dough yesterday, I folded it into a rectangle perhaps 3 by 2 inches, wrapped it in plastic foil, and put it in the fridge. I took it out a bit early today to let it warm up. I rolled it out on a surface well-dusted with flour into a large thin rectangle (see photo for size comparison to see how I started - bottom - and how I ended - top).

4. Spoon filling onto the rectangle. Moisten the edges with water as you seal.

5. I cooked my calzones in the skillet that still had all the olive oil and pig fat for the extra flavor. You can do as your heart pleases. Get it browned and bubbly on both sides, and you're done. As my friend Steve advised me:

"If you really want to get fancy, always cook the presentation side first with anything and don't move the item around. The pan is always at its most evenly heated prior to having food in it, so cooking presentation side down will always allow the item to be more evenly cooked on that side."

One time, Tanya made some dough ...

2010-02-01T13:50:00.005+09:00

All I wanted to make was some dumplings. So I took this simple recipe (it's in Russian) for Georgian dumplings ... and did them wrong. The shape is more of a combination of Japanese gyoza and Russian dumplings. But the results were wonderful. (For recipe, scroll down past the photos). I went through all the pork filling but had a sizable chunk of dough left over. Hm what was next in line?

I don't have an oven, but I've always wanted to experiment with making breads, flatbreads, but especially naan. My dough didn't yield a fluffy naan, and instead when rolled out and cooked over medium even heat on a buttered skillet resulted in a variety of crispy flat breads. The ones above are sprinkled with turmeric (I keep reading about its properties as a cancer fighting food, so I've been throwing it into everything), cinnamon (hey! Acrording to the link above, this spice could help control blood sugar and cholesterol), and nutmeg.

But why sprinkle the spices onto the bread, when you can roll them into the bread before even cooking. Then after cooking, cut up the breads and drizzle with sweetened condensed milk (I've gotten sort of addicted to this condiment, which was used left and right on my trip through Thailand, Laos and Vietnam).

But today, I've decided I have to finish the last of this dough. What to do? ... Well, I've got butter, and I'm bored. Let's try to make something like filo dough, the stuff croissants are made of. It's very simple, really, to make something akin to those toaster strudels kids love so much in America. You just roll out the dough very thinly. Then put thin slices of butter on one half and fold over the other half. Then put thin slices of butter on half of the dough you now have in front of you and fold it over again. Roll it out again. Fold it over again. Roll it out again. Fold it over again. Put in more butter if you want (croissants are loaded with it) and keep folding and rolling. The more you do this, the flakier your pastry will be. I must have done it a dozen times, at least. In the end, I had a neat rectangle the size of two Man Wallets (to imagine a Man Wallet, imagine the indentations wallets make in the back pockets of guys' jeans). Grease up a pan with butter and cook your double Man Wallet on one side over medium low heat. Flip when it just slightly becomes golden. Flip again at least two more times, and make sure your pastry has a very flaky texture on the outside with a hearty brown glow. I cut mine in half and drizzled it with sweetened condensed milk. You can also fill it with cooked ground meat before you start cooking, or any other cooked fillings, and prepare in a similar fashion. I have still to attempt these varieties. Don't you just love it?!

I learned the lesson that all dough should be labelled Playdoh, as its potential for delicious and fun results is astronomical.

To make the dough:

Combine two eggs and a cup of cold water in a large mixing bowl and mix.
Mix in enough flour (it'll be a lot), to make a pliable ball of dough.

To work with the dough:

Dust your work surface with flour and keep extra flour on hand to dust everything form your rolling pin to your hands.
Get a rolling pin or a pin-like object (I used my wooden pestle). If you try to work it with your hands (and you're not a professional dough-thrower) you'll end up ripping soggy dough that sticks to your hands no matter how much flour you add. Rolling it out increases its surface area, increasing water evaporation, and making the dough flexible, strong, non-sticky, and easy to work with.
Don't over stuff the dumplings!! This cannot be stressed enough. Even if you're surveying your work before you seal the dumplings and you think "Oy vey, these dumplings could be stuffed three times as much," you're wrong. The dough will get moist from the fillings and rip and then it'll be one giant mess.
To seal the dumplings, dab water all over the edges of the dough, and the two sides will stick together when folded over. Make sure to pinch the edges as you seal.

To make a filling for the dumplings:

I combined 300 grams of ground pork, several crushed garlic cloves, finely chopped spinach leaves and chopped shitake mushrooms. I seasoned with salt and black pepper.

To cook and preserve the dumplings:

Throw your dumplings into salted boiling water. Observe them. They'll need to float for a while before they're done. Stir occasionally to make sure none are sticking to the pan. I cooked the ones I froze for about 10 minutes. Fresh, they take less time, maybe 8 minutes.

Since mine were kind of an international combination of flavors and sizes, I seasoned them in many ways. I ate them the Georgian way, seasoned only with black pepper. I seasoned them with soy sauce and rice vinegar the Japanese way. And I ate them the Russian way with the closest substitute I could find for sour cream here: mascarpone, which is like non-sour sour cream, also classified as cream cheese, or fresh cheese. All three ways were great.

Uncooked dumplings should be placed on a cutting board or plate very well dusted with flour and frozen solid. If dumplings touch each other, they will stick unless also well dusted with flour. After they are frozen solid, they can be put into plastic bags or cooked.

Melicious!

2009-12-20T21:46:00.005+09:00

Mel teaches me the way of the proper crushed papaya, also known as green papaya salad. The ingredients included: shrimp paste, fish paste, tamarind paste, fish sauce, home-grown chilies, cherry tomatoes, green beans, garlic, and shredded green papaya. After we shot the video, Mel seasoned the dish with sugar, lemon and her home-grown basil. We ate it wrapped in fresh cabbage leaves.

crushed papaya on the right

It's an incredibly fresh and crunchy dish that's very subjective to how you make it, so taste throughout your cooking. Mel's tasted as fragrant as a fruit. Mine kicked me in the mouth and nose with heat.

Chicken curry made with Mel's home-made curry paste; grilled chicken; crushed papaya; rice and jasmine tea. I won't insist that Mel open a little place called Chez Mel ... because it already exists in her home.

Five Meals

2009-12-08T21:39:00.002+09:00

Miso soup; rice with mushrooms; tofu with soy sauce and dried fish flakes; sashimi with ground ginger; green tea

Miso soup; rice with chest nuts; fried pork; spaghetti; green tea

Miso soup; rice; vegetable and meat salad (not clear on the meat ... probably pork); sashimi; green tea

Miso soup; rice; grilled fish; vegetable tempura; green tea

Miso soup; rice; potato-stuffed gyoza; grilled fish; green tea

These are five randomly selected dinners, out of the couple dozen I ate while living in a dormitory setting in the mountains of Ikawa in September and October. Teachers in the Japanese public system rotate from school to school on average every three years, so most of the school staff was not comprised of locals. The out-of-towners lived in this temporary setting.

We had a cook. She was a beaming old woman who arrived in our kitchen at about five every weekday, except for Fridays, and whipped up these very traditional Japanese meals. As you can see, most included miso soup and rice, created with seasonal touches like chestnuts or maitake mushrooms. Sashimi was actually rare, as was tempura, both huge favorites.

The alcoholic drink of choice during card-playing nights and Thursday evening parties was Chu Hai, a carbonated Sprite-like canned fruity number with only a couple percent alcohol by volume.

Preserving Lemons

2009-12-07T23:48:00.004+09:00

On a pickling / jarring / preserving streak, I decided to give preserved lemons a whirl. I found this recipe for preserving lemons - Moroccan Preserved Lemons - in salt, with cardammom, cinnamon, chili, and bay leaf.

My original plan was to thinly slice the lemons and cover them with sugar. I saw a jar of lemons preserved in this fashion, it appeared, at a cafe one time, and it inspired me. But I then saw so many recipes for lemons made with salt that I had to try it. Except I'll have to wait until I get back from my trip to Southeast Asia in mid January to crack these babies open.

The serving / cooking suggestions from this guy's article sound amazing too. I'm jittery with joy.

Green Papaya, attempt #2, With Chicken, SUCCESS!

2009-12-06T20:36:00.006+09:00

To make this delicious saucy number (serves 2):

In a sauce pan, warm some oil. Add coarsely chopped garlic (3+ cloves) and dried chili pepper (1+). Sautee on low for a minute.
Pour coconut milk in the pan (I poured about a third out of a 250ml packet). Cover and keep on the lowest heat. Add more milk throughout cooking as it evaporates or gets soaked up. I eventually used up about half that packet.
Chop up a handful of mint and a handful of basil. Add to the pan.
Add fish sauce to taste (about 2 teaspoons).
Peel and cube a quarter of a green papaya. Toss into the milk. Mix to coat well. Cook covered on low for about 7 minutes.
Cut fatty chicken breast with skin still on into chunks and toss into the milk. Coat well. Cook covered until the chicken is cooked through. Check by piercing the meat to check for pinkness.
Just before the chicken is cooked, add two handfuls of washed and chopped spinach. Coat well.

You can serve this with rice. I was too lazy, so I made a side of renkon (lotus root) baked in the oven, and mopped up the oil from the greasy chicken with some crusty bread. Mmmm - mmmm!

Giant White Radish Pickles

2009-12-05T15:01:00.003+09:00

Daikon (giant white radish) is now in season.

pickled daikon

When I taught at an elementary school two days ago, the children gave me a present of whole daikon which they grew themselves. Kids in elementary schools learn to grow vegetables and flowers, plant rice, and even take care of animals like chickens, rabbits, frogs and insects. But that's beside the point. I got two giant daikon!

What now?
Japanese pickles!

I found salt pickling outlined on this Web site. Only I don't have a pickling jar. The solution was simple.

Slice one radish into thin half-moons, then sprinkle with half a teaspoon of crushed red pepper and two heaping teaspoons of salt. Mix well in a large bowl, cover with a small plate and press it down with something heavy overnight. In the morning, drain and rinse well in a colander. Done! Keep them in a refrigerator.

Things just got fruity

2009-12-04T20:31:00.002+09:00

Local grocers have got us covered for vegetables. Fruit is a different story. Tropical fruit? Don't even go there. Sure, you can always get a spiky, head-sized dorian for 3000 yen at Shizutetsu, as well as a few other very expensive varieties of fruit. But let's talk practically here. If you don't even know how to consume a guava, for example, or know what it looks like, have the gentleman entertaining himself on the shamisen show you at the cafe located close to the Shizuoka-shi stop on the Shizutetsu train line (somewhere around here).

The cafe serves alcoholic drinks, smoothies and desserts made from fruit like papaya, guava, kiwi, strawberries, nashi (Japanese pears), and dragon fruit. Just admire the 500-yen parfait above. It also is a shop (albeit very limited) for some of these and other produce, like green papaya (350 yen for one; see below), which you may be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in town. (The hours are weird, as on weekdays it closes at five; Mondays it only opens at noon; and Saturdays stays open into the night).

I bought the papaya, after hearing so much about salads made with the fruit. I enquired about its identity with the shop owner. Unlike the pungent orange variety, the green is cooked in stews or grated for the salad, popular in Thailand (my destination for winter break, hence the obsession with anything Thai, everything fish sauce, and curry).

Never having seen or even tried the salad, I thought I'd make a Green Papaya Salad as I imagined a Green Papaya Salad is made. I only used a quarter of the fruit, saving the next three parts for further experimentation and perhaps an authentic variety of the dish.

To make this salad (serves 1):

1. Peel and grate a quarter of a green papaya.
2. Mince the following and add them to the papaya: basil, mint, ginger, green pepper, green onion.
3. Season with crushed red pepper, fish sauce and a tiny bit of sugar to taste.
4. Mix well. Enjoy.

(If I hadn't planned to go out on the town tonight, I would've added crushed garlic. That mix oughta deliver a punch, not only in flavor but also in vitamins and supposed cold-fighting powers.)

"Tea and Cake, or Death"

2009-11-23T19:50:00.003+09:00

And I repeat, quoth comedian Eddie Izzard, "Tea and cake, of Death." The following two cafes aren't cheap, but they are exceptional.

In Shizuoka, to find the best in tea, head to Maria Thank, located just off Gofukucho, on the opposite side of the street from Parco, on the 3rd floor. It is no small feat to find a wide selection of black tea in Japan, and especially tea prepared with hot milk, or "stewed tea", as Maria Thank labels it, prepared from scratch. It's a far cry from Royal Milk Tea (sugary black tea with milk) and "tea with milk," which is generally a cup of tea with a side of cold creamer. Stewed tea is a rich creamy creation that reminds me of days growing up in Russia and eating cream of wheat porridge. Stewed tea comes in a few varieties on the menu, like chai and caramel.

The cakes at this frou-frou shop decorated in pink and frequented by women are luscious and creative. I had a very mild and fluffy cheesecake and a crepe cake layered with fruit (although by my standards, the chef cheated. He topped layers of cake with a few crepes and called it a crepe cake. There's a cake called Napoleon my mom would sometimes make for very special occasions, that had many layers of puff pastry layered with sweet cream. The uniformity of the filling is what made it pure gold.) My friend had a fruity mousse and a mousse of coconut and pumpkin, although she could barely taste the coconut.

Try the dessert set of two half-slices of any cake and tea or coffee for 1100 yen (add 210 yen for stewed tea; DO IT!).

For truly an eyeful and well-crafted goodness when it comes to cakes and cake selection, head to the corner cafe located on Aobadori, on the left when coming from Gofukucho (somewhere around here). The abundance of the full-fruit, colorful cake and tart goodness cannot be expressed in words. There are mango slices, berries, kiwis, figs, and chestnuts glistening on top of tarts and mousses, and more variety than you can ever hope to try. Arrive with a friend and share a few (pricey) slices. A variety of teas is served in teapots and the menu is written in katakanized French, and supposedly the waiters speak it too, although I can't tell.

Green curry with fish

2009-11-23T03:01:00.003+09:00

Find it at Nam Thai restaurant just off Gofukucho in downtown Shizuoka for about 950 yen at dinner time. The rice is free. My heart is singing with joy; I have finally found a second Thai restaurant, or third Southeast Asian (as well as the cheapest of the three).

Find the Thai / Vietnamese place called Colonial Kitchen here. It's kind of pricey, but they generally make good food and their desserts are bomb.

Find another Thai place here. The chef and some of the staff speak fluent English. Lunch specials are real deals here.

Your plans for Sunday and Monday

2009-11-22T14:27:00.002+09:00

Scrumptious gyros; 500 yen; choice of garlic sauce, hot sauce or "regular" sauce

Also on the menu at the craft fair going on Aobadori (Statue Street perpendicular to Gofukacho): beer, coffee, ice cream, sweet potatoes, beef stew, pastries stuffed with cream, and live music!

2009-11-21T11:31:00.003+09:00

Try this: Crush a red chili pepper and one point of star anise. Thinly slice a turnip, season with salt, oil, then the pepper and anise and bake. It'll be only mildly spicy, with a range of peculiar and delicious flavors. The anise gives only a very faint tangy flavor, which is good enough for me because I generally dislike the pungent flavor of anise and licorice. In small amounts, it offsets the sharp bites of both the turnip and the pepper. Good for a cold day.

FYI

2009-11-19T18:12:00.003+09:00

The green colored cafe in Shizuoka JR's Asty called Leggio features cheap tea and coffee and this set of coffee (or tea) and a juicy croissant hotdog for 500 yen.

Blend coffee: 280
Latte: 320

Find it across from the Body Shop and close to the cooking studio; between the two main horizontal walkways.

Chinese comfort

2009-11-19T12:21:00.003+09:00

don't let the stylish menu fool you

About twenty minutes by JR southwest of Shizuoka, there's a gyoza shop my friend Melody swears by. It's a shop like the family kitchen, where grandma sits just behind the counter and neatly folds the pork / ginger / garlic filling into the delicate skins of these Chinese dumplings. Off to the right, mom browns their bottoms and steams them in batches. And next to her, grandpa boils the ramen for a rich bowl of soup that only costs 500 yen.

Mel likes her food sour and spicy; she pours vinegar into her noodles and dips gyoza in little sauce made from mixing the homemade spice paste, vinegar and soy sauce on the counter. For 16 dumplings, you'll pay 600 yen. 300 for 8. It's like a gift. Most people shuffle in and out, buying cooked and uncooked dumplings for home. We sat at the counter, and laughed with grandma about how she couldn't speak English. Her dumplings are amazing.

Find the place here, simply marked with a bright sign that reads: ぎょうざ (gyoza).

Black Lips Tell Stories

2009-11-14T08:17:00.005+09:00

paella

squid cooked in squid ink

Thursday night, the man who I call my Japanese father and I went to a Spanish restaurant by the ocean. The stretch of road along the water reminds me of Mexico's resort towns; there's just a beach and some hotels. All proximate vegetation has been ripped out to make room for, in Mexico's case, more hotels. Here, it's strawberry greenhouses.

I've never been to Spain, only another Spanish restaurant, and Sangria reminded me of the resorts I've been to in Mexico and the style of cultural posturing one can find especially in chain restaurants in America. It was heavy on the dramatic heavy wooden furniture, exposed wood beams, low lighting, Spanish insignia, and - most importantly - a glossy and extremely detailed menu with huge photos, American style.

The food was great. We went for a set course, at about 3000 yen each. It started with a sangria for me, 4 stuffed clams, a small carrot and raisin salad (reminded me of Russia), bread and squid served in bubbling squid ink (the delicious highlight). Then we had a potato omelet, tender and still-pinkish chicken baked with potatoes in an intense dredging of chopped garlic, followed by the stop-the-trains-This-Is-Tanya's-FIRST paella. I scraped the skillet clean of the shrimp, fish, chicken, large and small clams, squid and peppers.

We ended with crème brûlée and unusually tasty coffee. I was stuffed for 12 more hours. Maybe a course is too much for one person ...

Find the place here. Come hungry. The squid is my number one recommendation. I love flavored rice, so the seafood paella was a treat, also because I rarely eat seafood now.

There's a first time for everything

2009-11-13T20:54:00.002+09:00

Raw chicken sashimi at this izakaya in Shizuoka: Top it with wasabi and dip it in the soy sauce and you'll be sittin' pretty. Takes just like ... fish.

Taiyaki

2009-11-11T22:40:00.008+09:00

Taiyaki is a doughy fish-shaped cake, filled with red bean paste (or white bean paste, or custard, or chocolate, or chestnut cream, or ...). The name means "grilled sea bream." This variety of fish is perfectly vegetarian-safe. It's often found at yatai (food stalls) at fairs and festivals.

Like many festival foods, it's made on a special grill that folds in half. The cook pours the dough into molds on the grilling surface, then spoons red bean paste into each mold, then flips the other half of the surface with identical molds on top. Voila, beautiful fish.

I had two during Daidogei, the Street Performance Festival that comes yearly to Shizuoka at the end of October. The other cake I ate was fried. It was perfectly luscious, and the perfect reason to get excited for festivals.

Cups of Coffee

2009-11-11T21:36:00.007+09:00

in Shimizu

I love the little dark coffee shops where old men come to read newspapers and smoke, and the drinks are served in European china. Where an aging husband-and-wife duo, or just one old woman, or old man work to make the brew, boil the milk in a sauce-pan on the stove, arrange and grill the toast or sandwiches, refill the water, and make smalltalk.

When you sit at the counter, you are sitting at the counter, at a home, in a kitchen, watching the operations, leafing uninterested through the ~~girlie~~ skin magazines and manga magazines the size of phone books, staring at the cups arranged behind your humble host. The wide variety of little teacups with gold trims and ridges, tiny saucers for milk, dainty spoons, and so on.

Menus are usually simple, written exclusively in Japanese. Coffee (blend, cafe au lait, vienna coffee, maybe a cappuccino, etc.), tea, juice, toast (always) served with butter and/or jam; sandwiches (always) served sometimes with a side of salad; カレライス (Japanese curry with rice); booze in the form of hard liquor; breakfast and lunch sets; and a larger variety depending on the place.

Find one just outside Shin-Shimizu Shizutetsu train station. Walk out, turn right. Cross the narrow street and it's on your right. The owners roast and sell their own beans. Also, unaware of what a genuine cappuccino is, they sweeten and top an espresso shot with something like cream and include a cinnamon stick on the side for stirring. Sandwiches are small, but the atmosphere is great, because the sound system is monopolized by good jazz, features books on jazz and live performances (I've never been to the shows, and at least one cost over 2000 yen).

Find one near Yunoki Shizutetsu train station. Walk out, turn right, pass 7-11, cross the street. It'll be on your right. A friendly woman owns it and a breakfast set costs only 550 for a coffee and a sandwich.

Sugano Coffee

On the northwest edge of Sumpu park, you can find the adequately lit Sugano Coffee, which roasts, sells and brews its own beans, is spacious, and has a sleek modern look. I went there once and ordered coffee and a sandwich for about 700 yen. The sandwich was great, served on grainy bread. The coffee was a little watered down, but I don't always judge the place based on first impressions.

I've been to one close to Shinjuku in Tokyo, one along some road outside Hamamatsu city, one on an island along the stretch of road between Honshu and Shikoku, and one in Matsuyama in Shikoku. The concept is the same across the board; it's a taste of something wholly European, delivered in a dainty, non-heavy package by the old Japanese. These cafes are without exception great destinations for a chat.

Therapy

2009-11-07T23:12:00.000+09:00

For some reason, the cheap kaiten sushi place - Kappa Sushi - across from Higashi Shizuoka train station a couple minutes from my apartment by bike is the place I go to have deep emotional talks. Maybe finally, the late bloomer in me is turning into the high school kids in the Chicago suburbs who would hang out at Denny's at night being cheap and drinking coffee and eating scraps. You kind of ignore the food, instead focusing on the conversation and watching hypnotically as the same pieces of raw fish make the rounds, wondering whether death would be certain if at the end of the night, you were to shove one in your mouth. We're not talking gourmet here, ya dig?

Impatient

2009-11-07T23:11:00.000+09:00

Come December 23rd, I'll be on my way to Bangkok to spend about three weeks cruising through Thailand, Laos and Vietnam with my second favorite physicist (first is my dad). I'm a food tourist, so my mouth waters as I read my Lonely Planet. Street food? Yum! Coconut milk, noodles, fruits my eyes have never seen? Yum yum, mum! Intense coffee swimming in sugary milkiness? I'll stay awake alllll niiiiight looooong!

Last night, my friend and I went to a Thai place in downtown called サバーイ・ディール and located here, the comfort restaurant I know, because I had a craving. We spotted this curry on the menu, made without coconut milk, Northeastern style. Since one of my options for crossing the border to Laos is to head in that direction, I had to try it. Mmm, mmm, mmm. So spicy, so yummy, full of veggies and chicken and mixed in where these small bunches of tiny little green berries you can spot resting on the spoon in the picture. Those, dear reader, are fresh peppercorns. Yum, yum, tom yum.

Sweet Potato Ice Cream

2009-11-07T14:17:00.000+09:00

after onsen in Nishi Yaizu

Selling it out on the corner

2009-11-07T10:10:00.002+09:00

Old man selling sweet potatoes baked right in his truck at the red-light district in downtown Shizuoka; four for a 1000 yen. At a nearby park, people set up ramen shops, also out of their trucks. It's food for the drunk and those keeping warm. I haven't had the chance yet to try it, because I rarely head to the red-light district while hungry.

Find out more about the red-light district on my other blog, The Continental Drift.

2009-11-04T12:17:00.003+09:00

Read my other blog, A Continental Drift , to find out what happens to all the food scraps left after I make these foods!

Miso soup

2009-11-02T09:54:00.004+09:00

If you've never tried miso soup, the flavor is difficult to place. Miso paste is used to make the stock. The paste is made from fermented soy beans, and has a strong salty flavor. The soup is a staple of Japanese meals, and a common traditional Japanese breakfast is a bowl of soup, a bowl of rice, and some fish. Traditional dinners are similar.

When I lived in the mountains of Ikawa in September, I shared a dining hall with the other teachers, and a beaming old lady always cooked our dinners. Nearly every meal included miso soup and a bowl of rice. It was interesting to learn about Japanese food this way. Miso soup, for one, isn't always prepared the same way. In general, what makes miso soup miso soup is the stock (called dashi), made from boiling dried small sardines (niboshi), shavings of a dried fish (katsuobushi), thick slices of dry sea weed (konbu), dried shitake mushrooms, and miso paste. The dry ingredients are all removed from the broth after they have lost their flavors. To fill the soup a variety of foods is used, like thin-sliced and fried or cubed tofu, mushrooms, roots, sea weed and vegetables.

I skimped on traditional ingredients for the dashi; instead I threw in a couple other flavors to switch up the character of a soup I often see as somewhat bland. Below is my recipe.

Ingredients (for two):

about 6 Niboshi
3 pieces of finger-length konbu
1 tablespoon of miso paste
soy sauce
fish sauce
a handful of enokitake mushrooms, roots removed (they are white and straw-like)
a handful of daikon greens, chopped into inch-long pieces
half a package of firm tofu, cubed

1. In a medium sauce pan, pour 4 cups of water over the niboshi and konbu. I put the dried flavorings into a sieve because the dried foods are all discarded after they flavor the stock.

2. Bring to a boil, lower heat and continue boiling for 6 minutes.

3. Remove the fish and the seaweed.

4. Add the mushrooms. Boil for 7 minutes.

5. Add the tofu. Add the soy sauce and fish sauce to taste (I add about 3 tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 teaspoons of fish sauce). Continue cooking for a few more minutes.

6. Add the greens. Continue cooking for 2 more minutes.

7. Lower the heat as much as possible and add the miso paste to taste. Stir well. Don't allow miso to boil because the flavor will degrade. Turn off the heat after about 30 seconds. Enjoy!

PB&J

2009-10-31T22:17:00.002+09:00

Black currant jam made by my grandma's sister, over some American chunky peanut butter, on bread.

I never used to understand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when I first came to America. That didn't really happen in Russia - we don't have peanut butter. Now that I found good peanut butter here, I can make these more frequently with whatever preserves I have on hand. Currently, I'm finishing off the jar my grandma gave me in August as I was leaving Russia. Talk about comfort food.

Rice porridge

2009-10-28T16:45:00.005+09:00

I recently realized that rice porridge is a Western freak show in the eyes of the Japanese. The combination is unbelievable, unimaginable, yet delicious and easy to make, one and the same. I tell the ingredients to students and teachers to get a conversation going. Here's the recipe that requires little but rice leftovers and milk:

Combine a serving of cooked rice and just about enough milk to almost cover (about 125 ml) in a saucepan. Heat through. Drizzle with honey before eating.

Chai

2009-10-28T08:29:00.002+09:00

As if you couldn't tell from the food blog, I'm kind of intense about food. So my upstairs neighbor and I started an unofficial, non-serious feud over who makes the best chai. She uses cardamom seeds and sugar in her chai. I use honey. For an extra kick, I let the chai sit for several hours , until it looks like a cafe mocha and is almost syrupy with sweetness and spice.

To make chai, pour cold water and some milk into a sauce pan over black tea (I use Earl Grey), slices of ginger and spices. I use nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. My neighbor uses cardamom seeds and allspice, but she says you cam BAM some garam masala in there too, or whatever else you have on hand. All seasonings are added to taste.

Bring to a boil, lower the heat and boil gently. I add honey at this point. I boil for at least 5 minutes, but I think the longer, the better. Enjoy.

Fruit on the bottom

2009-10-28T08:22:00.002+09:00

Make your own fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt. How hard could it be, you ask? Just throw some fruit into a mug (pictured) and top with yogurt, you say. And you are correct. I make mine by mushing a whole fresh fig, some almonds and honey, then putting 4 or 5 tablespoons of plain yogurt on top. This morning I used a super creamy, sour-cream-resembling German Yogurt. When figs aren't in season, my fall-back is usually juicy prunes, minus the honey.

2009-10-08T00:32:00.002+09:00

My suspicions were correct. Cheesecake!

All eating ends tonight

2009-10-07T19:23:00.001+09:00

The last month of living in the mountains has been filled with amazing meals which led to overeating, like my farewell dinner: deer meat nabe, deer meatballs, bear meatballs, deer shyabu shyabu, and more, including, I suspect, a surprise cake.

Seasons and fruits

2009-10-05T08:39:00.003+09:00

I never noticed a strong preference for seasonal foods among stores or customers when I lived back in America. Sure, I made my rounds at farmer's markets, farms and orchards, but those places were rare, and in stores, the fruit and vegetable aisles looked the same year round (except for watermelon season).
In Japan, the landscape is completely different. Early fall harvests bring persimmons, figs and chestnuts, and soon we will be swimming in mikan (tangerines), then strawberries come winter. Late spring is when all the leafy and colorful vegetables add variety to a winter scene dominted by daikon (giant white radish) and pumpkin. And the prices change accordingly. Ahead of their season, figs cost twice as much as they did only a month later.
And all these foods sprout up everywhere, from the okasan-ottosan shops to the big supermarkets. I have never felt as in tune with the farmers and the weather as when I shop and cook in Japan.
One guess for the American / Japanese divide is that my home state Illinois is dominated by corn and soybean farms, produce we rarely see in the grocery store. Northwestern Michigan, on the other hand, is full of orchards, the fruit of which is a common sight in the stores.
Here, farms and orchards are at every turn. At the moment bright orange persimmons weigh down the branches of their nimble-looking trees. In spring, one could see farmers tending to their green tea bushes. Life here is a constant reminder that you are hungry.

Yesterday I did what any diligent cook confronted by a bountiful and (unusually) inexpenive harvest would do: I made preserves. I bought nine large pears; peeled, cored and cubed them, then simmered them with the zest and juice of one lemon. Next I added the half bag of sugar I had sitting around (basically, flavored to taste). The sugar dissolved, I turned up the heat for a fierce boil and stirred, waiting for the jam to have a sticky consistency when allowed to sit on a chilled plate for 30 seconds. Then I turned off the heat, let the jam peacefully sit for 15 minutes, and canned the lot of it.

Chestnuts

2009-09-29T16:59:00.002+09:00

I think chestnuts are an acquired taste. When I first tried the roasted variety, it tasted like a mush of beans, fish and chicken. I have disliked them since. Nevertheless, as is my habit, I kept eating the thing I didn't like in hopes of perhaps acquiring a taste for this hugely popular local food. Since then, I have had it in candy, chopped up in rice, and most recently an amazing variation shown in the photo. It was prepared by my school's groundskeeper, a real hunter / gatherer type. He peeled and boiled the chestnuts in water, sugar and honey for two and a half hours covered with a cloth ... all in the teachers' office of our school.

Marinating with bubbles

2009-09-14T20:51:00.006+09:00

Pork chops marinated with: white wine vinegar, Mitsuya Cider (a ridiculously sweet and bubbly soda), olive oil, garlic, ginger, canned pineapple juice and slices, dry red peppers, fresh lemon balm

I marinated one chop for an hour, and one over night. To cook, simply pluck the chop out of the marinade, slightly brown on each side for about 30 seconds, then pour marinade over it and simmer on very low for about 10 minutes. Mmm - mmm tender. I served it over rice, and topped all that with the marinade.

The carbonation idea came from my neighbor, who tells me various Asian groups use soda, like Sprite or Coke, in combination with condiments like soy sauce to give foods a sweetness.

Found!

2009-09-08T12:37:00.002+09:00

Wasabi ice cream

Try the half vanilla half wasabi waffle cone for 250 yen at the wasabi specialty shop on Gofukucho next to Parco. It's just a hint, enough to intrigue, but without any of the wake-the-dead pungency.

The Red Scare

2009-08-30T20:42:00.007+09:00

In America, beets are infamously unpopular, up there with prunes, even though delicious beet chips are a common sight. In Russia, beets are all the rage. There's the infamous borscht, a soup which gets its color from the roots. Russians seem to mostly use boiled beets for salads; whether grated and served over herring, boiled potatoes and carrots, mayo and eggs (with possibly more toppings) to make a delicious dish called "Herring in a Fur Coat"; or cubed and mixed with other boiled vegetables and mayo. My mom loved to mix boiled and grated beets with walnuts and garlic and olive oil, or just to boil them, dice them and serve them like you would cut fresh vegetables ... only with mayo. (Mayo is a big thing in Russia).

So to me, the beet was never exactly a vegetable; it was always a staple of some traditional Russian foods that rarely existed outside that delicious realm. Last week was the first time I bought beets, clueless about what to do with them. So I started thinking, and decided that beets needed to shed their greater-than-life stature in my eyes and just become another root vegetable like a turnip, a carrot or a potato. Simple. Now what to do with them.

I was inspired by the blogger and food stylist Béa of La Tartine Gourmande. She wrote about a beet risotto, and I thought: "Hey, that's weird," and decided to go with it. And by "it" I mean mixing beets with a base - like rice - to give it color and flavor. Lacking ingredients to make a broth for risotto and all riced-out after partaking in many quick meals of onigiri this weekend, I went with one of my favorite pulses, the infallible and always delicious lentil. Here's a recipe for a side of lentils with beets (or a main course if you eat like I do). The only thing I changed from the the pictured dish is adding vinegar to the beets, because I think my own final result was not acidic enough. The almonds are inspired by my mom's beet and walnut salad. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 large beet
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
Fresh thyme
About 3 servings of lentils
Vinegar
Butter
A handful of almonds

Procedure:

1. Boil the beet until a small knife can easily pierce through to the middle. Set aside.

2. Crush and mince the garlic. Chop half the onion.

3. Melt about 2 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan. Cook the garlic and onion with fresh thyme until slightly softened.

4. Rinse the lentils and add to the saucepan. Stir to coat and cook for another couple of minutes. Then cover with water and boil covered until very soft. Don't let the water dry out. Alternatively, if water remains when the lentils are cooked, uncover and keep cooking until only a little is left.

5. Chop up the other half of the onion. Crush the almonds. (I kept them in a plastic bag and hit them with the end of a handle of a large knife).

6. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan. Add the onion and more thyme. Cook until softened.

7. Peel and dice the beets. Add to the pan. Add about a tablespoon of vinegar, salt to taste and the crushed almonds. Cover, and cook on medium low, stirring occasionally. Cook for about 10 minutes.

8. Add the beets to the lentils. Bon appetit!

Found! (finally)

2009-08-25T00:26:00.002+09:00

Finally, a store is stocking something aside from Skippy and the Japanese "peanut jellies". You can now buy this 9 ounce jar of American butter made from Virginia peanuts and sea salt. No sugar. No preservatives. Nothing. Newly available at Kaldi (at the Asty shopping center by Shizuoka JR station) for just under 500 yen.

Hints

2009-08-08T05:56:00.002+09:00

... and, oh, there's just like the faintest soupçon of like asparagus and just a flutter of a, like a, nutty Edam cheese...
-Miles, from the movie Sideways

I'm now in St. Petersburg, Russia with my friend and we bought a bottle of Shiraz, called Slap Shot, 2003, from South Australia. Shiraz is a spicy red wine and this one was recommended to us at a non-snooty liquor shop selling Kalashnikov-, submarine- and ship-shaped bottles of vodka, across the river from the Hermitage. The wine is dry and really hits the middle of the tongue with the spice.

FYI: Riesling is my favorite all-time wine. I just can never remember its name.

Observing the feeding frenzy in the European homosapien

2009-07-29T18:52:00.001+09:00

While traveling back to Chicago over winter break, I was stuck in Narita's Terminal 2 eating flavorless udon. The place looked barren and the selection was lacking.
This time as I leave Tokyo for Moscow, I am impressed by terminal one: cafes, reasonably priced sushi, bagels,etc. I went a bit overboard and got this mega flavorful bowl of sesame ramen with a side of rice topped with pieces of meat. nom nom nom. Two women on my left, though, accompanied identical sets with some creamy looking drinks. Wow. ファイト！*

*"Faito" from the English "Fight". It roughly means "Go get 'em！

Gourmet notes from the classroom

2009-07-09T08:23:00.003+09:00

Student writes:

GREENHOUSE MELON
Greenhouse melon is popular in Shizuoka city. I think that
you should eat melon with uncured ham. It`s very delicious.

Used for drinking or for cleaning？

2009-07-05T14:47:00.001+09:00

found in several liquor sections around town

Coffee Time. Now what?

2009-06-25T16:23:00.006+09:00

Seven alternatives to Starbucks and Tully's in downtown Shizuoka
for those moments when you want to feel like you left your home country

1. Cafe Belle Equipe (pictured) - 2nd floor; by CoCo Curry by Center; website

Recommendation: cake and drink set (800 yen). Pies, tarts, pastries and the like are primarily made by my friend, Kumi. It was a surprise to run into her there, but now I have a guaranty on the quality. I ordered the sweet potato tart, with a perfect crust, a not-too-sweet soft sweet potato base, a thin layer of rich sweetened condensed milk topped with caramelized walnuts and almonds.

Atmosphere: Cute, cute, cute. It's dainty and not meant for lounging. But it's perfect for a relaxing break with a view of the street below. The cafe just opened this month.

2. Cielo Azul Cafe - 3rd floor; across the street from CoCo Curry by Center, behind the hip hop clothing shop

Recommendation: ginger green tea (about 600 yen). I wrote about it on this blog before here; namely it was a very memorable cup of tea served with a spoonful of cream on top and ginger slices on the bottom of the cup. Unfortunately this cafe doesn't have an espresso machine, but the menu features many varieties of tea, drip coffee, desserts and food. The cake set costs about 925 yen.

Atmosphere: Naturey, woody, cutesy, but not dainty. Quiet and small. Get a window seat.

3. There was a cafe amid the bars in the red-light district that served the best chai. The guy concentrated on the boiling milk on the stove as the tea absorbed its flavors. Not a rush-rush place, it was on the second floor, filled with a variety of books on things like architecture, comics, etc. It resembled one of those great living rooms, with a sunken couch, a large window, mood lighting, smoke, a bar and the aura like you were in your friend's home. It closed this winter.

4. IFNi Coffe Store - southwest of downtown (map)

Recommendation: matcha latte (650 yen). I wrote about it on this blog before here. Basically it serves the best matcha latte I've ever had, and the guys who run this place put a lot of effort into every drink they make. If it was closer, I'd probably spend a bulk of my time there, because it stays open until midnight. The cafe also has a bar, serves coffee, and even features one of my favorites, the affogato (vanilla ice cream topped with a shot of espresso).

Atmosphere: small cafe, gallery and thing-a-majig design shop. Grungy. The kitchen / cash register is cramped and I'm surprised anything as awe-inspiring as the matcha latte gets created there. The furniture is minimal, the place is wooden, and the bathroom is scary.

5. Tonya - a block down from Don Quixote, here

Recommendation: everything. Tonya roasts its own coffee right behind the cash register. They make the full gamut of drinks, from lattes to drip coffee, to chai, to smoothies and they even serve shaved ice. I come for the lattes, which cost about 350 for the medium. They serve satisfying pastries like croissants filled with bean paste and maple-filled rolls, and sell a delicious coffee-flavored porter for about 400 yen (more here.)

Atmosphere: a cluttered shop, which sells everything not nailed down to the floor, from coffee presses, to filters, to a wide variety of coffee waiting to be roasted, teas, desserts, mugs, plates, sugar, even a water cooler. Most of the time the music is loud and obnoxious (J-pop). There are long narrow tables against all the windows, and four tables outside (you don't escape the music there either). But there's little room to spread out. Outside is your best bet, unless someone's lighting up. As a cafe, it's simple and bare boned. But the quality and price of the brew more than makes up for the atmosphere.

6. Macou's Bagel - on Gofukacho, here

Recommendations: This is one of my favorite all-around cafes. They serve delicious cappuccinos (about 480 yen), a fluffy cloud of a matcha latte (although the matcha powder isn't thoroughly mixed and frothed and so by far not as good as IFNi's, it's still a treat), and have probably at least a dozen different bagels, which they can sell to go or serve with a wide variety of sandwich arrangements. The classic smoked salmon bagel is ... well, classic. Try all the sandwiches. They also have large delicious salads, soups, thin and crunchy fries, and waffles and honey toast as if out of a dream. The only option on the menu I look skeptically at is the honey toast served with fries. I have never had it and I never will.

Atmosphere: simple unpretentious cafe. It's very busy during lunch on the weekends, although you can get a seat relatively quickly. On these busy days, waiting for food bought to-go will take longer than if you were to sit down, order it and eat it.

Honorable mention: St. Mark's (aka Choco Cro). This cafe has delicious pastries (namely, the namesake croissants), tasty milk tea, and good coffee (although it often times makes me jumpy). But the atmosphere is generally a victim of poor planning in the colder months. The basement is stuffy and hot. The main floor is beautiful but reserved for the smokers, who always take full advantage of the air. When the weather warms up and the staff unshutters the place, a patio table is a fun spot to sit outside and people-watch.

Udon made perfect

2009-06-19T19:58:00.003+09:00

Udon noodles are pretty boring on their own. And if you can't make a flavorful broth for a soup, they don't really feel like they're worth eating at all at home, especially when there are other noodle varieties, like soba, which taste great on their own and go well with a splash of soy sauce. Udon noodles are fat and slippery; they don't pair well with thin sauces or mild soups. They need buttery heaviness. Today, I struck gold with a peanut sauce; buttery heaviness is served.

Warm vegetable oil on very low heat in a large pan and toss in a hot pepper.
Meanwhile chop up a couple cloves of garlic and a sizable knob of ginger, and slice up half a medium onion. Add everything to the oil and saute until soft.
Cube an eggplant, add to the oil, raise the heat to medium low, add a pinch of salt and cover.
Meanwhile, wash a couple bunches of garlic grass and chop up. Set aside.
Wash a bunch of spinach leaves thoroughly. Set aside.
Boil water in a sauce pan and add a serving of dry udon noodles. Lower the heat and boil on medium to medium high for 5 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water.
When the eggplant is cooked through (has softened but hasn't become mushy), add the greens and cook for a couple minutes until they begin to wilt.
To make the sauce, for one serving thoroughly mix about half a teaspoon of peanut sauce with between one and two tablespoons of soy sauce.
Add the noodles to pan, increase the heat and mix the noodles with the vegetables. Cook for a minute.
Transfer the mixture to a serving dish, drizzle the sauce on top, and mix everything thoroughly.

I accompanied my dinner with a porter called Pipeline made with Hawaiian Kona Coffee from Tonya Coffee a block away from Don Quixote in downtown Shizuoka. The bottles are now on sale for about 400 yen a piece. The beer is amazing. Smooth, slightly sweet, and slightly smoky at the end.

The day that ended with a donut

2009-06-19T00:41:00.003+09:00

Read about an all-you-can-eat Indian place in Roppongi, a tapas bar by Tokyo Station and about a long day full of bureaucracy and fun on my other blog.

Umeshu!!!!

2009-06-18T00:03:00.007+09:00

Or, How to enjoy making one of the most wonderful alcohols in Japan:

Or, How to celebrate when plums are in season:

drinking umeshu while making umeshu

Supplies:

4-liter glass jar with air-tight lid (sterilized ... or half-assedly cleaned)
1 kilo of fresh ume (plums)
1 kilo of rock sugar
1800 ml of shochu or white liquor (35% alcohol, sold in especially labeled packs decorated with images of fruit one could use, like lychee)

Procedure:

1. Buy yourself some alcohol to celebrate.
2. Throw in crackers and ice cream into the mix.
3. Now you're ready to begin.
4. Wash and dry the ume.

5. Using toothpicks, pick out the stems and any remaining black bits and ends (or they'll be floating in your drink when you open it ... like mine will be. Shucks.) Poke several holes in each fruit.
6. Cover the bottom of the jar with ume. Pour a layer of sugar on top. Then layer more ume. Then more sugar. And so on.
7. Cover with the alcohol.
8. Seal the lid and wait.

While at the liquor store last night (by Ottowacho station, with the huge man on the roof drinking a beer), I was treated to some delicious plum wine by the owner. When I asked him how long it was aged, he said five years. Keep in mind that I've heard times ranging from one to six months. So do what's best. I know I won't be able to keep my hands off my stuff for longer than a couple months.

Tricky Beans

2009-06-16T00:53:00.003+09:00

These are the four bags of beans and peas in my pantry. On the right, yellow split peas and green lentils. On the left, white beans and black-eyed peas ... at least that's what I thought. Today, I found out both were different varieties of the soy bean (the green variety are kurakake and the white are just plain soybeans ... although I'm still a bit lost in translation because of the adjectives used to describe the names). That explains their cooking times (the longest of all beans)!

Beans and peas are a little tricky to cook yet delicious (especially the lentil; you can't go wrong!) For cooking times, cooking methods and some tips and perspectives on questions like when to add salt (during or after cooking; adding salt during cooking increases cooking time because it doesn't allow the beans to absorb water, some people claim), check out the Central Bean Co. and this vegan site.

For me, a broth made flavorful with onions, garlic, fresh herbs, a bay leaf, butter (or fatty pieces of pork) and salt is enough to make the bean and lentil into a serious meal that makes me feel like an adult. Lentils are also great for curries.

Pizza on the second floor

2009-06-15T23:25:00.001+09:00

For a phenomenal lunch, head to the pizzeria on the second floor of Parco with a phenomenal friend. For 1300 yen, you get a choice of one of the day's pastas or bubbly thin-crust pizzas (recommended); a drink bar of juices (apple, grapefruit, orange), hot coffee and tea, and cold teas (the peach-flavored tea actually tastes like peach!); salad bar featuring all-you-can-eat focaccia; and all-you-can eat desserts (today, there was grapefruit jello, custard, brownies, cream-puffs and fresh mini-donuts).

Rip out a coupon available from time to time in advertising mags (like Hot Pepper) and ladies can eat for 1000! And this place beats out the pizzeria in Dream Plaza in Shimizu, which has small overpriced pizzas and other entries and serves the food in a parody of an Italian setting. The place above Parco is modern and classic, with dark wood furnishings, deep brown wicker chairs, walls of wine bottles, and a beautiful rounded pizza oven at the entrance.

Condiment Nostalgia

2009-06-11T22:57:00.003+09:00

If you live in Japan, you'll invariably have to make some dietary sacrifices. Already expensive cheeses and olives will cost even more. Seasonal fruit will be the only affordable fruit. It'll no longer make too much sense to buy olive oil when you're cooking more regionally appropriate dishes. Same goes for avocados and flour. Instead, rice will flow like wine (in 10 months, I've gone through two 5-kilo bags of rice), sushi will be incredibly fresh, and wild pig meat will be just an hour's drive into the mountains.

The thing I do miss though is peanut butter, nuts and jams. As long as I eat bread for breakfast and as a snack, my taste buds will yearn for delicious condiments. Today, I made a surprising discovery in Shimizu's Dream Plaza at a home goods store called Nest. Short on good chocolate, it still stocked plenty of jams (the red-lidded Bonne Maman jars, this one is black currant) and had this wonderful jar of almonds in honey from Ireland. For just under 300 yen each, the jars in my hands somehow made me feel closer to home.

Rambutan does the mambo

2009-05-31T02:14:00.001+09:00

Rambutan are hairy 500-yen sized fruit encased in reddish hairy shells. News to me! Before I bought this can, I knew not of such a food, more closely resembling a sea creature. The syrup's smell and flavor reminded me of canned sweet corn. The look and feel of the pitted fruit reminded me of the hollowed smooth white heads of squid and crunchy pearl onions. The flavor was sweet, "tropically" fruity and fresh, yet with a hint of sweet corn and resembling the sliminess of lychee (and most other canned fruit) as well as lychee's unmemorable sweet taste.

Tropical fruit is rare and, relative to American prices, expensive here. Take for example the coconuts - I've only seen these in Tokyo markets - and coconut milk. This can cost about 400 yen.

I smell curry

2009-05-31T01:00:00.000+09:00

For a bit - or a lot - of Viking Indian curry ("viking" means all you can eat), try a little place in Shizuoka with an elephant on the sign by Route 1. I literally gorged myself on four kinds of curry (the variety was a bit boring, but satisfying. It's a place for eating, not discovering) and fresh-baked naan. There was also some fresh salad, rice, fried nibbles and a mango dessert in the mix, but I came for the curries and the naan. A Saturday lunch attracted about half Japanese and half south Asian diners. The Viking goes for about 1000 yen. Throw in a drink for about 200 more; this is a great option because the drinks - like the mango lassi and spiced milk tea - are delicious and not garden variety.

To find this place, exit from the North exit of the Shizuoka JR station. Approach Route 1, turn left, and walk straight for 15 - 20 minutes. The restaraunt will be on your left, next to the road, close to the tracks. The tall brown sign has a picture of an elephant.

Unusual flavors

2009-05-27T12:11:00.001+09:00

Kit Kat in Japan comes with a variety of flavored creams, like macha, blueberry, custard and even lemon vinegar pictured above. I'm not a fan. The taste is unnatural, unlike good ol' simple chocolate.

A different kind of beer

2009-05-10T00:28:00.004+09:00

When I go to restaurants anywhere in Japan, I drink "nama biru." It's just whatever beer there's at the place. It's nothing special. It comes out of a mystery bottle. It tastes fine. It's beer. Sometimes I notice the large beer ads outside the restaurant and discover the origins. Most times, I don't care. I come for the food. Except today, when I went to a brewery in Numazu.

About an hour away from Shizuoka by JR train and then about a 20 minute walk toward the fish market, there's Baird Beer, started by an American man, who has a Japanese wife and four daughters. Unusually for Japan and, especially, for a bar, he sanctioned the place to be non smoking, for the sake of his daughters. And he started it in Numazu for the good water from the melting snows of Mount Fuji and the cheap location of Numazu port.

The brews are about 700 per glass, or 7000 for a stamp card; you pay for ten beers and get two free. The brews change frequently; I went with a guy who saw new beers on the list from his trip here three days ago. The descriptions and names are in English and include quaint little tales about his friends and family. My first beer had a taste of the yuzu fruit; it was light and perfect. The various other beers I tried during the afternoon - ales, stouts, whatever - were true to their wordy descriptions. They were delicious and a needed break from nama biru.

Although I didn't try it, the regular I went with recommended the bar food.

A celebration of Kyoto

2009-05-08T00:52:00.004+09:00

fried hot dog and egg on a stick

The model for these travel posts is Megean, who is making her way through Japan. It's her first time here, and she is visiting me. On our last day in Kyoto, we found ourselves in Arashiyama, charmed by monkeys and the food. Our lunch was a collections of fried goods, goods on sticks, and sweets. It was really a celebration of this river-side, carney part of the city.

dango (mochi, or rice cakes, on a stick)

best ice cream ever, sakura mochi, with a slightly grainy texture somewhat like tapioca pudding. sold on the north side of the bridge, right by the intersection, on the north east side

steamed Chinese bun with shrimp filling

croquette with ground beef (delicious, sold on the left side when walking down the main street to the bridge from a stall advertising that they're the best in town - an unsubstantiated claim, I'm sure)

bancha; kakigori (shaved ice) with macha syrup, sweetened condensed milk, mochi, anko (red bean paste), and macha ice cream; hot anko soup with toasted mochi squares

These are two very popular, old-school Japanese desserts. The kakigori is especially popular in the hot summer months. It's also my favorite Japanese dessert.

Ice cream with a view

2009-05-08T00:41:00.002+09:00

At the Floating Garden Observatory in Osaka, the cafe serves this macha parfait - little more than vanilla soft serve with corn flakes and macha-dusted cake - for 400 yen. Parfait it isn't, but perhaps it's some of the tastiest soft serve, because it reminds me of sweetened condensed milk. Find the observatory here.

Delectables in Nara

2009-05-03T23:29:00.002+09:00

The next stop was Nara. Nara park is a great place to watch and pet (but not roast) deer. What is on the menu, however, is countless yatai, or food stalls, selling everything from cotton candy to bean jam-stuffed pancakes. Yatai are a great Japanese tradition which I love for their variety. At most events, one can find everything from fries and hot dogs on sticks to cobs of corn, dough balls filled with octopus, grilled squid and candied strawberries.

We looped around the park, and headed back to the station through the old Naramachi district where we found a charming restaurant called Ashibi just off a shopping street. Promoting itself as the place to hold weddings, the restaurant has two parts, an in-door seating area and an outdoor patio, with an algae-loving pond with koi tying the two sections together. The traditional Japanese sets were very affordable, especially in such a scenic location. We split this 1000-yen set of udon soup, 2 onigiri and pickled vegetables. The udon was some of the most flavorful I had ever had. The soup came with mountain vegetables, mushrooms and an incredibly flavorful, sweet fried triangle of tofu. Our glasses of Asahi beer cost 350 yen each.

Along the newer larger shopping street called Sanjodori, we found this stall, which sold still-warm senbei in about half a dozen flavors like chilly pepper, Japanese basil and nori, as well as fresh green mochi, stuffed with anko and dredged with soy bean flour (about 130 yen each for senbei and mochi). No wonder we stopped by the shop twice in one day.

A strange bowl of soba

2009-05-02T21:45:00.004+09:00

hand-made buckwheat noodles at a soba restaurant in the basement of the Kyoto Hotel Okura

This unusual soba came swimming in a hot broth topped with a frothy mix of whipped eggs and natto, as well as various pieces of tempura. The taste was difficult to place, and my friend who ordered the dish and I decided that whoever invented this dish was just tossing things together he had under hand. The okonomiyaki of soba, if you will.

The restaurant was surprisingly affordable, considering the location; this dish cost 1100, and my cold soba with tempura on the side cost 1380. A dish of cold soba with dipping sauce cost 900. And by the kitchen, in a glass-walled room, a chef rolls out the dough and hand-cuts and noodles.

Chanko Chunky

2009-04-30T18:12:00.002+09:00

According to my Japan guidebook, sumo wrestlers eat one meal during the day. It is a large stew called chanko-nabe (or a hot pot of meats, vegetables and fish boiled in broth). The senior wrestlers get the first pick and the lower ranking wrestlers get what's left. They train in "stables," so I find this animal treatment believable.

Restaurants in the Ryogoku District of Tokyo (read my other blog for more info) actually serve chanko cuisine for the non-sumo people of the world. They're located around the beyas (the training stables), perhaps to tempt the wrestlers, and many are clustered by the Ryogoku JR station, where my friend and I had lunch. Another mission accomplished - eat like a sumo wrestler.

We split this 880 yen lunch set (fish and meatball chanko with soy sauce broth, raw tofu, rice, pickled vegetabes, cooked bean sprouts with tofu and bacon) plus a beer for me and a mango juice for my friend in a second-floor restaurant by the station decorated with a giant hand print and called "Chanko Dining." Our waitress was our attentive mother and the food was delicious and incredibly filling.

Ainu Cuisine

2009-04-29T23:12:00.005+09:00

Ainu were the native people of Hokkaido island who were conquered and "assimilated" by the Japanese after 1860. Fortunately, parts of Ainu culture remain in places like Rera Cise, an Ainu restaurant in Tokyo (a walk away from the Nakano JR station here).

The food menu is divided into eight parts with a set of dishes in each section:

deer, fish, pumpkin, salmon, wild garlic grass, pumpkin, rice and noodles, and salads and soups

We ordered:

an amazing soup with the garlic grass and eggs.
deer meat (below). It came as cold as cold cuts, smokey and dense. Not exceptional. But now I can say I tried deer.

delicious fried potato/mochi and pumpkin/mochi cakes. simply priceless
a thin soup called Oha made with salmon, potatoes, carrots and daikon. I wonder if it's a coincidence that there is a Russian fish-based soup call Uha. It was an OK soup, not very flavorful. The salmon was tasty, but there were only 3 or 4 small pieces in a large bowl

It was a mission for me to find the place and try the deer. I don't think I'll come back; the food was good, some even wonderful, but not phenomenal. I can't wait until I go back to Sapporo to perhaps try something closer to the Ainu homeland.

"Tofu milk" ice cream

2009-04-29T22:07:00.001+09:00

in Asakusa

More tofu than soymilk flavored. Who knew that tofu was even a flavor？

Simple

2009-04-27T17:29:00.004+09:00

A year ago, I interviewed a chef in a well-known restaurant called Ko Fusion in Champaign, Illinois. He was telling me about vegetables like a fine, almost grain-like asparagus he was using in the kitchen. Much of the produce was locally grown and served seasonally. He talked about cooking the vegetables as if he was in love, a purist; only barely dressed up in sauces, if at all, the vegetables should be minimally cooked, just enough to bring out their best flavors.

Today, I followed his advice. I used some young carrots I bought still with their lush green leaves attached; it was as if their leaves were the protectors of the carrot flavor because they tasted like a carrot should (and only cost about 150 yen for about half a dozen at Shizutetsu). I sauteed them over medium low heat with only olive oil and salt. As they browned on the sides I added slices of eggplant, a large onion cut into eight large pie-sections, two minced cloves of garlic, more salt and more olive oil. I continued sauteing until the eggplant was cooked.

In retrospect I should've undercooked the carrots, to leave them crunchy. Perhaps 5 or 7 minutes precooking would have been better than the more than 10 than I did.

The result was rich, sweet and unbelievably delicious for something so simple. The onions were still firm and the eggplants almost melted in my mouth. The carrots were surely the show stoppers: perfectly beautiful and incredibly flavorful.

Lunch on a beautiful day

2009-04-27T17:11:00.007+09:00

I'm discovering - or perhaps rediscovering - the pleasures of packing a lunch and having a picnic, however small. After teaching today, I went to Sumpu Park and found a bench by a performance hall in its front courtyard. The pigeons and I enjoyed my delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with a young carrot still attached to its leaves and a large apple.

The bread was baked with cheese. The blackcurrant jelly included no corn syrup (as is common in America). And the peanut butter was made in front of me at the Sushi Expo yesterday (a failure that included long lines, very little sushi for the size of the event, and did a better job of providing the patrons with stands selling delicious local beer, chicken kebabs, fresh peanut butter, sweet and juicy apples and other off the farm and off the field goodies).

Lunch took only a few minutes to make, unlike last time when I went overboard and took an hour on a workday morning. But the draw now - the weather - is changing me, making me want to work for my food. What is it about good weather that makes us feel guilty about spending moments indoors?

Sushi Alert!

2009-04-21T16:38:00.004+09:00

This Saturday and Sunday, Shizuoka will host a Worldwide Sushi Expo at the Granship building by the Higashi Shizuoka JR station. From 10am - 5pm on both days, I bet you can expect to fill yourself silly with sushi. Or at least here's hoping. Entry is free. See you there!

Easter Eggs

2009-04-19T23:45:00.004+09:00

Back in Mother Russia, Easter is widely celebrated according to the Eastern Orthodox Calendar. This year it fell on April 19th. I hosted a junior high school student from the last school where I worked and together we went to the local Eastern Orthodox Church (surprisingly no service was being held), then went home to color eggs and make pancakes.

To color eggs without dyes and with minimum kitchen supplies like the Eastern Europeans do, follow these instructions:

Supplies

white eggs
large pieces of red or yellow onion skin (go to your local grocery store and either ask for the skin or creepily pick it out of the bin like I did)
pretty leaves such as those from parsley or anything you can find outside on a walk (optional)
some clean pantyhose, or large tea bags and rubber bands
pot for boiling the eggs

Instructions

Wet the eggs and the tea bags to make the onion skins stick.
Place a leaf on one egg (if using).
Wrap egg in several layers of onion skin. Using more skin will produce richer colors.
Carefully place the egg into the bag so it wont move around (the bag must securely hold the skin against the egg) and close with a rubber band.
Repeat for each of your eggs.
Boil. I boiled my eggs for about 15 minutes and got a rather pale color. But then again, I wanted to actually eat the eggs, so I didn't want to cook them for an hour. Experiment according to your wishes.

I didn't wrap the onion perfectly and got this charming speckled coloration. If you wrap the onion skin around the leaf and egg very tightly and boil the egg long enough, the leaf will leave a pretty impression on the eggs.

A fun game to play: battle it out with the eggs! My guest and I took one egg each and on 3 bumped the tips together. If your tip breaks, you lose. I won every time. Pictured is the super egg. Enjoy the eggs with plenty of salt.

Creamy Dreamy Memories

2009-04-12T01:19:00.003+09:00

When I was a kid, like every kid, I loved sweets, and two favorites were strawberries (especially when mixed with sugar) and sweetened condensed milk. Mmmmm. I'd eat both by the spoonfuls. The milk was rich, sugary, and tasted like nothing else, except, perhaps, the best creamy dessert melting in your mouth. Ever.

Now it's strawberry season in Japan, and the Japanese - probably sensing that I'm in the country - sell the sweetened condensed milk in an easy-to-use tube right by the strawberries at the grocery store!

In this area, strawberries grow in green houses, primarily concentrated on the coast right by Shimizu. You can buy them from stalls as you drive by or you can go strawberry picking, which seems to be a common activity. For a bit of money, you can eat all the strawberries your belly can handle and take some home with you at the end. My supervisor also informed me that some places will give you a cup of cream to dip your berries. I went once (no cream though) for only 1000 yen and felt like a kid in a candy store, sniffing the fresh leaves, spying the algae growths on the ground, browsing the bunches of berries welcoming me, trying to select wisely among the largest of the strawberries, which ones I should stuff in my mouth and which get the honor to come home with me.

Those were all benihoppe experiences, benihoppe being the large sweet variety. There's also a smaller watery variety called akihike, but who needs that when fresh benihoppe and condensed sweet milk are just a short trip away?

"Japanese mothers love their children very much."

2009-04-08T22:54:00.003+09:00

Home-made bento at the school picnic today

Like the store-bought kind, the bento made by moms every morning are composed of several different side and main dishes. The kitchen is traditionally woman's land here, so how women are able to make these elaborate lunches for their kids is beyond me. Like a teacher told me, perhaps it's all about love ... and duty.

My lunch was a sandwhich from two pork patties, layered with mozzarella and eggplant, with a side of baked potatoes and an apple. Making all that from scratch this morning took an hour ... I think too hard about my meals. Perhaps I should just stick to buying my lunch at school. I sit next to a teacher who thinks a lot about the food he eats, so I'll be learning as I eat the cheap meals made with vegetables from China.

Panic

2009-04-07T16:12:00.001+09:00

The realization that tomorrow I will need to bring my own lunch makes me scrabble to put together a shopping list and think of healthy yet relatively simple food combiations.
I have never before made school lunch. Portable food is a new frontier. If I mess up, will I starve？！ Logically, probably no. But anything can happen here ...
Stay tuned.

Spring

2009-04-06T14:26:00.005+09:00

The cherry blossoms are still in bloom and this weekend was the cherry blossom festival, when people gathered in parks to do hanami, or cherry viewing. You get some alcohol, gather some friends and have a picnic. Supposedly if you're a foreigner, you'll get much free booze from Japanese people who see you doing hanami.

Unfortunately for the picnickers, it rained during parts of this weekend. Today though was perfect and people had lunch in the park. The blossoms have been out for a week, but there are still people out taking close-up photos of the flowers. I'd just look at last year's ...

I didn't have the chance to do hanami (yet), but I took a long leisurely walk home from school today through the park and bought myself a Haagen-Dazs ice cream at Shizuoka JR station. Perhaps unorthodox in a country where soft-serve ice cream is much more popular than the unpackaged hand-rolled kind and where people generally don't eat on the go, there's nothing better than eating slowly melting ice cream on a warm day.

Feast

2009-04-06T14:13:00.003+09:00

Dinner at Joyce's place last week: chicken stuffed with cheddar and apples sauteed in white wine (for the meat-eaters); egg rolls stuffed with cheese and apples (for the vegetarian); salad from lettuce, onions and Caesar dressing; buttery toast; wine and beer (not shown). Cooking parties are heavenly.

Forget Japanese Curry

2009-04-06T14:00:00.005+09:00

Sure, "Kare Raisu" maybe cheap and common, but why would you want a flavorless bowl of meh when you could have rich Indian curry with Basmati rice, or naan (plain, cheese, garlic) or chapati cooked in a tandoor (clay oven), for about 700 yen. And it's fast food to boot in Shimizu's Dream Plaza.

It's Sakura Time!

2009-03-30T22:53:00.002+09:00

Come end of March and Shizuoka wakes up from a dreary sleep made cozy by winter foods like oden. Now is the time for the infamous sakura, or cherry blossoms. Blooming cherry trees infest backyards, mountain sides and parks. Real and fake cherry blossom branches are TV super stars also used as decoration in cafes (like one I saw in Ginza in Tokyo) and shops.

In stores, cherry blossoms are sold salted and whole (and added to tea with sort of unfortunate results), as tea, as flavoring for candy, and, as seen above, as jam (found in Shizutetsu for approx 600 yen for 180 grams). The jam is a lemony suspension of sakura petals in a jelly-like consistency. It's very fragrant. I think it'd go nice with some barely flavored white tea. Hm ... where to find such a thing here?

Eggs

2009-03-30T11:00:00.006+09:00

Close to Lake Ashi in Hakone on the east side of Fuji, reached by cable car, there is a hellish sight. There is a mountain side spewing sulfuric vapors and rivers running murky down the rocks. People feverishly stuff black-shelled eggs into their mouths as their bodies are bathed with eggy sulphuric puffs escaping the earth. Despite their strange appearance (and despite the fact that everything starts to taste like egg for a while), the eggs are nice snacks as you make your way in the cable car to hot springs resorts. Their shells turn black after they're boiled in the sulphuric water that rushes down the mountain. Here are my parents. They enjoyed their eggs with copious amounts of salt.

Where the food tastes good

2009-03-26T16:14:00.002+09:00

Sampling hostels is somewhat like sampling foods, beers, wines and chocolates. You search for a character, for the surprises, avoid the obvious flops (bed bugs, ewww), go on recommendations. And sometimes you even find a good hostel that actually also caters to your taste buds, a kind of a metaphorical orgy in this case.

Sakura Hotel in Ikebukuro was my first taste of such a hostel. It was clean, it featured dorm rooms and individuals rooms (dorm for me, individual rooms for my parents) and had a 24-hour cafe that featured more than 60 kinds of beer from all over the world (450 a-piece or 3 for 1200) along with other drinks like sake. I wouldn't recommend the unfiltered sake pictured above; it tasted more yogurty than anything - bleh. But the beer selection was amazing.

The place also offered a full menu, from salads (pictured is a tuna and bacon salad) to pizzas (simple and satisfying), fries, pastas. During the 6 days I stayed there (and felt like a dorm supervisor because I was there the longest), the special was a luscious coconut nabe for two for 1500. Surely the place is not the height of gourmet, but it's good enough to skip a night out on the town and instead unwind for dinner in your sweat pants with some friends (or, in my case, parents for most of the stay).

MCD in JP

2009-03-26T15:26:00.005+09:00

Today, I finally tried Japanese McDonald's. Sure it's an international chain, but different laws and prices and customs and crops all over the world theoretically should influence menus and tastes. I'm reading the book Omnivore's Dilemma, where author Michael Pollan explores several different meals, showing where the food comes from, the chains it goes through, the energy we use to produce said food. The first section is about the industrial American meal, largely dependent on cheap American corn.

The example Pollan uses is the McDonald's meal eaten on the go. The Coke is mostly corn, because it's sweetened with corn syrup, which is also used in shakes, in sugars in condiments, etc. The beef / chicken / even fish are all corn fed animals grown in factory farms made possible by cheap corn feed. Fries are fried in corn or soybean oil (soybeans being the second more prominent crop in America) depending on the prices of both. Corn is also used to make everyday materials like plastics, additives like citric acid, and the fuel ethanol used in your car.

So Americans are mostly eating corn in a McDonald's meal. Other countries use cane sugar to sweeten, different oils to fry and different foods to feed your future burger, like grass. If you don't think otherwise identical foods taste different in other countries, try some chips. The simple saturation of a foreign oil on a piece of potato will open your eyes.

Anyway, even though the shrimp burger was tempting - and perhaps the better choice to try the uniqueness of McDonald's in Japan - I went with a simple wimpy cheeseburger, fries and orange juice (I really don't care for carbonated drinks). The fries were good (although not salty enough), plentiful and not different from the last time I tasted them in the States; but the burger tasted like nothing, mushy cardboard perhaps. I've never been impressed with McDonald's before and there was no noticeable difference between American McDonald's worth the 390 yen I paid for this junk meal. Perhaps I should give it another chance ... in India. Japan is too Americanized for my taste sometimes.

Salvation on a stick

2009-03-26T14:56:00.003+09:00

I like tasting different kinds of ice cream abroad and when it's locally made. Russia has great ice cream, even though as it moves toward big commercial favorites like Snickers it loses its simple full-fat richness. I'm a big fan of the anko (red bean paste)-filled bars in Japan. It's the regional answer to jams.

Bento

2009-03-17T20:16:00.002+09:00

deluxe bento with fried shrimp, fried tofu, coroque, omelet, shumai (Chinese pork dumpling), asparagus wrapped in bacon; this is obviously an international mix of foods

bento with salmon, cabbage, some pickled, potato salad and fried meat and potato

bento with sesame pork and pickles

These are pretty typical store-bought bentos. Rice takes about half the space in the box, and the rest is partitioned for a variety of strong-flavored bits and pieces, with usually one prominent meat or fish element.

A teacher yesterday was talking to me about how Chinese people don't understand the concept of the bento, which can be only slightly warm by the time it is delivered to work, is opened at lunch by a student or is bought in the store. Chinese meals, on the other hand, are freshly made and served hot. The Japanese, she said, favor the distinctive strong flavors in their meal more than the freshness.

I get a kick out of the variety; I'd never be able to stitch together my own lunch to bring to work with so many different flavors.