Food & Recipes

You might think that a recipe for toast is like a recipe for boiled water, right? But here I present you 5 ways for making your toast more interesting.

I make mine in a toaster oven but you could try a broiler if you have a slotted toaster.

Ham Cheese Pickle Toast
1 slice bread
1 slice ham
1 tsp sliced pickles (or relish)
1 slice cheese

Layer the pickles between ham and cheese, with cheese on top. Toast until cheese is bubbly. Make two, put them cheese-side together and you have a warm, not-too-greasy sandwich.

Garlic Anchovy Toast
1 slice bread, slightly stale works best
1/2 clove garlic
1/2 anchovy fillet
2 Tblsp olive oil
1 Tblsp grated Parmesan
black pepper to taste

Mince the garlic and anchovy, then mix with oil. Spread oil mixture over bread. Top with cheese. Toast until the cheese is lightly brown, but before the garlic burns. Season to taste with cracked balck pepper. A nice accompaniment to soup or pasta.

Toast with Lettuce
1 slice bread
2 leaves lettuce
1 Tblsp mayonnaise
salt to taste

The poor (dieting) man's BLT. This tastes best if you have good lettuce, but even iceberg will work. Make the toast the usual way. Spread with mayo and top with lettuce. Sprinkle with salt.

Orange Toast
1 slice bread
2-3 slices orange
1 Tblsp butter
1 Tblsp brown sugar

Peel an orange and slice into very thin round slices. Butter the bread, cover with orange slices and sprinkle with sugar. Toast until the sugar is bubbly.

Last Toast of the Evening
1 slice bread
1 Tblsp butter
1 tsp Vegemite
beer, as desired

Before beginning, drink a lot of beer; Vegemite is only good after too much. When you are ready to retire for the night, make toast the regular way being very careful not to burn yourself. Slather on butter and Vegemite. Munch before passing out.

For more toast recipes and other toast fun, see Dr. Toast's Amazing World of Toast

Here's a very simple Japanese recipe that is pretty, too. A don is a bowl of rice with stuff on top--gyuudon is the beef bowl that you can find in shopping mall food courts in the US. Soborodon is chicken and egg.

The seasoning for both the chicken and the egg mixtures is a classic mix of sake, salt and soy sauce. Many recipes use this combination and along with dashi fish stock, it gives Japanese food a distinctive flavor.

Soborodon
(serves 2)

2 servings of cooked rice, hot (about 1.5 cups)
Chicken topping:
250 grams ground chicken
1 Tblsp sake (rice wine)
1 tsp sugar
1 Tblsp soy sauce
Egg topping:
3 eggs
2 Tblsp dashi or water
1 Tblsp sake (rice wine)
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp red pickled ginger, to garnish

Over low heat, cook the ground chicken with the sake and sugar, stirring well to break the chicken into tiny crumbs. When the chicken turns white, add the soy sauce and simmer for a few minutes, until the liquid is reduced to a tablespoon's worth.

Beat the eggs well with water, sake, sugar & soy sauce. Scramble the eggs over medium low heat. Again, you want a fine grained effect, so stir well to break them up. Cook until the liquid is mostly evaporated. [NOTE: If you don't eat eggs, you can substitute a cup of plain cooked corn or peas. Frozen works great and it's really fast.]

Divide the rice into two bowls. Spread half of the rice with chicken, the other half with egg. Garnish with a teaspoon of shredded pickled ginger right in the middle.

Eringi are delicious mushrooms. They have a rich, meaty flavor that is complemented by butter. Native to China and the Mediterranean, they are relatively new to Japan.

According to the research Tod's done, they're called "Boletus of the Steppes" or "King Oyster Mushroom" in English, but I just can't image a grocery store in the US putting all that on a sign! If you see these mushrooms outside Japan, could you let me know what they're called?

This recipe makes enough for three people as a main dish served with a big green salad and bread, just as we enjoyed it on Monday.

Eringi Risotto

100 grams eringi (2-3 medium sized mushrooms), sliced
100 grams chicken, cooked & diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 leek (or onion of your choice) sliced
2 cups short grain rice (arborrio, Japanese, etc), unwashed
1/2 cup white wine
4 cups chicken stock (hot)
3 Tblsp olive oil
4 Tblsp butter
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

(If you don't have any leftover cooked chicken handy, medium dice a chicken breast, dredge in flour, saute and set aside.)

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the olive oil and 2 Tblsp butter (reserve the rest for later). Saute the eringi, leek and garlic until soft and the eringi turn a lovely caramel color. Add the rice and mix well to coat with oil. Cook slightly, but do not brown the rice. Splash in the wine to cool things down. Allow the wine to evaporate.

1/2 cup at a time, add the stock. Allow each addition to be absorbed by the rice before adding the next--it should take about 3 minutes per 1/2 cup of stock. This is the "risotto method" that gives the dish its name. When you get halfway through the stock, add the chicken. Check the rice for doneness after the 7th addition. The rice should be firm but not crunchy when it's done, so be ready to adjust with more or less stock as necessary.

Turn off the heat and mix in the remaining butter and the cheese. Sprinkle with black pepper and serve immediately.

As I wrote in a previous entry, Japan's nutritional guidelines specify 30 different foods a day.

If you eat a traditional Japanese diet, this isn't too hard to do. A classic Japanese meal is a variety of small servings: a simmered dish with carrot, diakon, taro, konnyaku; grilled fish served with ginger; pickled cabbage and cucumbers, a slice or two of sashimi, a salad of hijiki and beans; miso soup with clams; and of course, rice. Right there, you've got 14 foods out of the way!

But if you eat a more Western diet, getting up to 30 is really a challenge. Western portions are bigger and there are fewer dishes per meal. Steak, potato, cooked vegetable, bread, butter. That's only 5...maybe six if you eat the parsley garnish.

But the companies that make bento for convenience stores have hit upon a great idea. The "10 Things" food. It started out with salads. Today I bought a "10 Things" sandwich. It was pretty good for a conbini sando.

What was in it?

1. brown rice bread
2. chicken
3. hijiki
4. corn
5. carrot
6. soy beans
7. lettuce
8. greens
9. milk solids
10. mayonnaise

So that, combined with my fruits-and-vegetable juice (7 vegetables and 4 fruits), a container of yogurt and some raisins brings me up to 23 foods for today. 24 if coffee counts as a food.

All I need to do to reach the quota is remember to eat the garnish at dinner tonight...

This recipe comes via the next door neighbor of an ex-boyfriend. I never met his neighbor, but her recipe is one of my stand-bys. It's nearly a meal in itself but I usually serve it with soup or a salad.

This recipe thrives on almost any adjustment you want to make to the recipe: double the garlic, reduce the butter, use whatever cheese you have on hand. But do be generous with the parsley, especially if you opt for more butter or cheese!

Crazy Bread
1 loaf French bread
1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 stick butter or margarine
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 cup shredded cheese

Slice the loaf in half lengthwise. Melt the butter and stir in garlic. Spread garlic butter on bread. Pile on the parsley, sprinkle with lemon juice and top with cheese. Broil until the cheese bubbles and browns. Cut into slices and serve.

Tucked inside a box shipped back from the US, two cookbooks. In honor of this windfall, I present a recipe from "Cooking Thai Food in American Kitchens" by Malulee Pinsuvana. I've never made anything from this 1976 cookbook, but I bought it in Thailand and it's in Thai and English, so how bad can it be?

Ms. Pinsuvana describes the dish, "Roast chicken, Northeastern style is a speciality found in a row of restaurants behind the famous Rajdumnern Boxing stadium where all Tourists go to see Thai boxing matches. It is so identified that when you refer to this dish you call it "Boxing Stadium roast chicken," just as famous as Kentucky fried chicken, I suppose."

Cabbage Salad, Roast Chicken

Roasted Chicken
1 young chicken, cut into 4 pieces
3 cloves garlic
1 slice ginger root
1 teaspoon minced corriander root
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 Tblsp vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt

Pound together the garlic, ginger, pepper, salt and corriander root. Add oil and marinate chicken for 1-2 hours. Bake in a 375 F oven for 30-40 minutes. Serve with cabbage salad.

Cabbage Salad
1 cup cabbage, finely chopped
2 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup carrots, finely grated
1 teaspoon lime peel
1 Tblsp dry shrimp, crushed
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 Tblsp lime juice
2-3 hot chili peppers, crushed

Mix vegetables together, season with garlic salt, lime peel and sugar. Top with crushed chili and dry shrimp.

Recipe Thursday presents fish with a tropical flavor because it's mango season here in Tokyo. Tod invented this recipe two years ago and we've been making variations on it ever since.

Sea Bass with Mango Chutney
serves 4

4 sea bass (suzuki) fillets
1 onion, minced
2 small mangoes, chopped
1.5 cups (300 g) pineapple, chopped
1 inch (3 cm) fresh ginger, grated
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
2 teaspoons green peppercorns in liquid
2.5 cups water

In wide saucepan, bring 1 cup water to boil. Add onion and ginger. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Add mango and pineapple and simmer for 15 minutes, adding water as necessary to keep the sauce wet. Add red pepper, then lay the fish fillets on top. Cook until the fish is flaky, turning once. Toss in peppercorns and serve.

Variations: leave the pineapple out; substitute toasted pinenuts for peppercorns; substitute snow peas for red pepper; increase red pepper. For a drier sauce, sautee the vegetables and fruit instead of cooking in water.

This is one of my favorite party foods. I don't know if I like it becasue it tastes so good or because it's one of those rare grey foods. Serve it spread on rounds of toasted (or not) french bread. It's best made the day before so the flavors mellow a bit.

Basil Tapenade

1 cup pitted black olives
1 cup fresh basil
4 anchovy fillets
2 garlic cloves
1 Tblsp lemon juice
1/2 cup mayonnaise

Blend everything except the mayo in a food processor (I use my Bamix blender). The consistency should be even and spreadable, but a little bit lumpy. Add in the mayonnaise by hand. Allow to sit for at least few hours before serving.

There are three birthdays within a week in my family. In honor of this festive occasion, Recipe Thursday features cake. I love dense cakes with fruit in between the layers, so that's what we're serving up today. Don't forget the candles!

3-Layer Birthday Cake

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 cups flour
4 egg yolks, beaten
4 egg whites
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F/175c. Grease and flour three 9 inch round cake pans. Cream the butter and 1 cup of the sugar in a large bowl, then add beaten egg yolks. Sift dry ingredients. Add to butter mixture alternating with milk. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then add 1 cup sugar. Fold into cake batter. Pour into pans. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Decorating options
Kristen's favorite: Between the layers, spread your favorite "all fruit" jam. Sprinkle top with powdered sugar.
Elegant: Roll out marzipan or almond paste for between the layers. Coat with chocolate glaze and top with whole almonds.
Fresh: Arrange sliced strawberries and whipped cream between the layers; top with piped whipped cream and whole strawberries--eat immediately.
Dainty: Spread lemon-flavored buttercream between the layers. Ice with rose-flavored buttercream and top with fresh or candied flowers.
Zou's choice: Spread the layers with buttercream icing and peanut butter. Ice the top and sides with chocolate buttercream and decorate with peanut brittle.

Meet the winners in the 2003 Sausage Masquerade! These lovelies beat out their competition, earning a place in tonight's frying pan.

Winner, most elegant costume: All-around-meat. Bacon wrapped, black pepper sausages. You could pretend it's a filet mignon, or just add pancakes, toast, juice and a big bowl of cereal for a complete, balanced breakfast.

Winner, best disguise: Sausage legs. Finely ground meat paste, spiked with cheese and pierced with a chicken bone. The new other white meat?? Or, perhaps, Fred and Barney's Corndog-on-a-Stick.

Through an unscientific survey of friends, I have concluded that my entire generation uniformly hates liver. Yet our parents like it, and so did their parents.

Isn't that strange?

"Maybe not so strange," Tod posited. Liver's full of iron, vitamins A & D, the entire panthoen of B, plus bits of elegantly named components that give us bright eyes and glossy coats.

Our parents and grandparents liked liver because their bodies craved that nutrition. That's the same reason some people eat clay and dirt.

But my body doesn't crave liver or dirt because my vitamins and minerals come via supplements. And not just vitamin pills. I get my vitamins thanks to food manufacturers (and they do it becasue of the military, according to this January 2003 John Hopkins University report.)

• Iodized salt (1924).
• Vitamin D milk (1932).
• Fortified breakfast cereal (1933). Try this nifty experiment.
• Enriched bread (1941).
• Calcium-added orange juice (1987).
• Vitamin A enriched rice (1999).
• Thiamine enriched beer?? (tba)

Maybe liver's looking better than it used to.

Since tomorrow is the spring equinox, Recipe Thursday focuses on food to celebrate the equal length of night and day. In our house, that means the official start of grilling season--even when it's really too cold outside to do it.

Grilled Mushroom and Pepper Sandwiches with Herbed Mayonnaise

for grilling
mushrooms, portabello or shiitake
red bell peppers, sliced into wedges
olive oil
basalmic vinegar
salt and pepper
crusty rolls, or lengths of French bread

Destem the mushrooms and brush any dirt off. Do not wash mushrooms in water. If you're using large portabellos, cut them into quarters so they fit on your bread. Brush the mushrooms and peppers with oil, vinegar and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Allow to sit at least 15 minutes and up to 8 hours, covered in the fridge.

Before grilling, dampen the mushrooms with oil again, if necessary. You may want to arrange the vegetables on a mesh rack to keep them from falling through the grill.

Split the rolls and toast them on the grill just before serving. Slather with herbed mayonnaise (below) and tuck in the grilled vegetables.

for mayonnaise
2 egg yolks
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 - 2 cups salad oil
scant 1/4 c vinegar or lemon juice, chillled
1/4 c fresh taragon, chopped
1/4 c fresh basil, chopped
crushed black pepper, to taste

Whisk (or use an electric mixer on low speed) the egg yolks and salt until pale yellow and a little frothy. While still whisking, slowly pour a thin stream of oil into the eggs. Beat faster as the mixture emulsifies (turns creamy). It should be starting to look like mayonnaise now, but don't stop beating yet. Add the vinegar or lemon juice slowly while beating--taste to get the right level of tang. Finally add in the chopped herbs and black pepper. Refrigerate and use within a week.

Starting today and continuing until I get tired of it: Recipe Thursdays at Media Tinker. Food's another thing I tinker with. Maybe you'll enjoy trying some of the things I like to cook.

To start off this series, I'm going to give you one of my favorite foods: pickles! I've always been a sucker for pickles (ask my mother about my childhood naughtiness of sneaking things off the relish plate before our big family dinners) and Japanese pickles are the best. We're not talking garlic dills or sweet gherkins here; Japan's pickles come in a wide range of vegetables and pickling methods. Even fish is pickled.

I took a pickling class at a few years ago and it was one of the most enjoyable and useful classes I've attended. I can make all sorts of Japanese pickles now.

The easiest one is a "quick pickle" made of cabbage, cucumber and carrot. It's a great way to use up the odds and ends of your salad things and it's very flexible in terms of time and ingredients. Go ahead an experiment a bit!

Quick Japanese Pickles

1/4 Chinese cabbage, sliced thin (round head cabbage works, too)
1 Japanese cucumber (the narrow kind), sliced into thin rounds
1/2 carrot, sliced into thin rounds
Salt - about 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon for every cup of sliced vegetables
2 inch slice of dried kombu (seaweed)
Optional seasoning herb: myoga, shiso, dried red pepper, basil, lemon peel, black pepper, basil

Mix the sliced vegetables together with the salt in a large bowl. Allow to sit for five minutes, then gently press the wilting vegetables to release the water and bitterness. The vegetables will feel wet and will reduce in volume. Drain the liquid (often slightly foamy and tan colored) from the bowl.

Now you need to put the kombu underneath and weigh down the vegetables for at least an hour. I have a nifty "pickle press" with a spring loaded lid and another with a screw-down plunger, but you can use a bowl with a plate on top and cans stacked on the plate. I've done it that way plenty of times and it works fine.

You can leave the pickles pressing for as long as a full day, so you can start your pickles in the morning before work, or even right after tonight's dinner. I ususally forget to do them until just before I want to eat them, so mine usually only get an hour of pressing. More pressing makes them more...limply crisp.

If you want to add a seasoning herb, do it about 15 minutes before you serve the pickles. Toss the sliced/chopped/cracked herb in with the pickels and put the weights back on. You're going for subtle here, a little goes a long way with these pickles, I've found.

To serve, rinse the pickles in cold water, squeezing tightly in your hands to drain and make a little mound of pickle on the plate. A drizzle of soy sauce is nice but not necessary.

This product caught my eye the other day. I must have been hungry for junk food. Or maybe it was fond memories of morning-after pizza for breakfast that drove me to buy it.

Pizza was always best if it had been unrefrigerated overnight, which gave it sort of an "aged" flavor and dehydrated the cut edges of the crust so they turned inwards towards the center of the slice. The cheese separated from the crust a bit, giving the sauce a bit of air and extra viscosity. Mmmmm.

But these Morning Pizza treats were refrigerated and well sealed in plastic. No food poisoning roulette this morning. I decided to eat one myself and save one for Tod.

After popping one into the toaster oven, I reminisced about another morning pizza--"breakfast pizza" from back in the days when I worked at UBS.

Downstairs in the arcade of the building was a little bakery that had all kinds of pastries. My friend and colleague, Seth, and I used to procrasinate from our morning tasks and go down to get breakfast pizza--an oblong piece of dough slathered with toppings and backed. My favoriate was the potato salad one. But there were also breakfast pizzas with corn and vegetables, with shrimp, and even one that was sort of cheese pizza-ish. I can still taste the onion one--slightly sweet but savory at the same time. Greasy and fattening but a good antidote for office stress and too much coffee.

Unfortunately, the Morning Pizza cannot hold a candle to breakfast pizza. This was a pretty indifferent, bland bit of bread with a thin coat of orangish sauce, some rubbery cheese, and a thin slice of salami on top. Next time, I'll make my own or head over to Otemachi for the real stuff

We like salad. Here's one we made up, going back and forth with ingredient suggestions, as we were shopping.

Cress and Walnut Salad
1 bunch cress, trimmed
1 stalk celery, cut into 3 cm x 1 cm sticks
1/2 c walnuts, crushed
30 g (1 oz) feta cheese, in 1 cm cubes
1 large orange
2 T olive oil
1 T white wine vengar
salt & pepper to taste

Juice the orange; add oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Reserve the larger bits of the crushed walnuts and add the small fragments to the dressing. Allow to sit for about 15 minutes.

Toss together the cress, celery and larger chunks of walnuts. Top with feta and spoon dressing over all. Makes four small salads.

Tonight, due to lack of shopping motivation(it's windy, wet and showing out there!), we're eating a pantry favorite--pasta putanesca. It's a standby that's warm, filling and made entirely out of stuff in the pantry. No fresh ingredients required.

Here's how I make it, in case you're looking for something to cook tonight.

Kristen's Putanesca

1 can whole Italian (plum) tomatoes
4 or 5 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 teaspoon capers, smashed up a bit
2 tablespoons black olives, sliced or chopped
2 tablespoons green olives, sliced or chopped
minced garlic (as much as you like, the more the better in my opinion!)
1 teaspoon olive oil
red pepper flakes to taste

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the garlic and anchovies. Cook until the anchovies are a soft paste. Drop in the olives and capers then add the tomatoes, squeezing them through your fingers to break them up. (Fun!) Pour in the remaining liquid from the tomato can. Allow to cook until the liquid is reduced, but not too thick. In the classic tradition, the sauce should be the consistency to lightly coat the back of a spoon. Red pepper flakes add some zing--especially important if you didn't use much garlic. Put them in while the liquid is reducing. Sometimes I leave them out. The recipe is very forgivin so you can vary the quantities of just about everything above to suit your tastes.

Serve over pasta of your choice--penne is good, or a nice thick spaghetti. Make enough for me and Tod to be bloated, or for four people to eat normal amounts accompanied with salad and bread. If you have salad and bread in the pantry. ;-)

Last night, Jenn, Helen & I went to a Japanese restaurant that opened just a few weeks ago. It is a teppanyaki restaurant--called hibachi in this neck of the woods--the sort of place I've never been to in Japan. I'm sure they exist, but maybe only for an expense account budget.

I felt strangely out of place and homesick. The restaurant was pretending to be Japanese and it was close, but it wasn't quite right. The decor was inspired by Japan, but the wainscotting and dentil molding didn't quite work. There was entirely too much space between tables. The food was delicious, but it wasn't Japanese, though it had a Japanese style. The quantity alone pegged it as not Japanese--my meal was piled high on platter the size of an LP.

On top of that, I was the only person in the restaurant who could speak Japanese. I found this out because our waiter asked me if I'd lived in Japan (maybe he overheard me telling Helen about Japanese things or wondered why I asked him what brand the sake was) and confided that all the staff were Chinese.

One week down, three weeks 'til I can go home. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying my trip. It's great to see everyone and I'm amused by America. But I miss home. Tod, darling, could you please bring me some mochi, senbei, and Lemon Water in your suitcase? Onegai shimasu

Tokyo has more restaurants per capita than most major cities. Home kitchens are small and there are lots of overworked single people who just want an easy, quick bite to eat after a long day of work. With so many restaurants, statistically speaking you know there are going to be some exceptionally good ones. And some really bad ones, too.

Tonight we visited a really good one. A little Indian restaurant tucked around the corner from the main drag in Yotsuya. (Little India Yotsuya 1-1-6 B1F, for those of you in town). This little gem has three Indian chefs running the show and there were dishes on the menu we'd never seen anywhere, including a potato-spinach croquette and a paneer curry in onion gravy. Yum!

Unlike some of our lucky stumbles (out of the rain, usually) Little India was not a chance find. Their business card was tacked up on the restroom wall at Ampresso. Tod took note. And I'm awfully glad he did. Dinner was delicious.

Years ago we devised a scale to evaluate a foodstuff compared to its original. We called it the Philly Cheesesteak Continuum because there is only one place to get a true Philly Cheesesteak (a long sandwich of Amoroso's crusty bread filled with fried beef, optional onions, and topped with cheese)--Philadelphia where this sandwich was invented in 1930.

The farther you get from Philadelphia, the less true to the original. Somewhere North of Camden, NJ, they stop using fresh steak and use Steak-Um frozen beef slices. In Chicago they call it the Italian Beef and though you can see a resemblance to the Philly Cheesesteak, they use seasoned beef, hot and sweet peppers and no cheese. Maybe in California they use whole grain bread, organic beef and soy cheese. On the moon, it's probably rocks and dust topped with green cheese.

All of this backstory is to explain the weird breakfast I had today. I stopped into a Vie de France cafe for a quick bite before running errands this morning. Vie de France has all kinds of lovely pastries pretending to be French, but we all know there are no bean jam doughnuts in France. They also carry savory baked goods like Vienna sausage rolls and curry doughnuts. This alone puts them pretty far along the continuum from French cafes.

But today's piece de weirdness was the Fish Dog I found among the savory baked goods. The Fish Dog is a split bun filled with fingers of crispy, breaded, fried fish topped with creamed mushrooms and cheese, then broiled to brown the cheese. It was quite tasty, but if I were to notch it down a level in quality, I'd end up with a white-trash American delight: a hot dog bun with fish sticks, cream of mushroom soup and pizza cheese.

If the Fish Dog was meant to be kin to a hot dog, it is far, far down the continuum. Then again, Fish Dog might be a Vie de France original--at the start of the continuum-- and all others are simply imitations.

With a stomach bug going around my friends in the US right now, I thought I'd post a recipe for the Japanese equivalent of chicken soup--okayu (o-kah-you). It's a very simple rice porridge. It makes a great breakfast even if you're not sick.

::With raw rice
270 ml/1.25 cups short grained rice
3 l/ 3 quarts water
1/3 t salt
- Bring water to boil, add rice and salt. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes. The rice should be very soft and the water mostly but not entirely absorbed. Think "watery oatmeal."

::With cooked rice
190 ml/.75 cup short grained rice (cooked)
1.3 l/5.5 cups water
1/3 t salt
- Bring the water to a boil, add salt and rice, cook for about 15 minutes. The rice should be very soft and the water mostly but not entirely absorbed. Think "watery oatmeal."

If you want a flavored broth, you can add some miso to the water as it cooks, or use chicken stock. You can add spinach or other vegetables and okayu's always nice garnished with an umeboshi, scallions, bean sprouts, grated ginger, bits of cooked meat or fish, or strips of fried tofu. For some bland protein, pour in a beaten egg to form egg threads.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to shop in a bustling, old-fashioned Tokyo shopping district?

The Shimaura Discount Chocolate Shop webpage will give you a taste (including a very loud WAV file) of what it's like to stand in front of their stall in the alleys of Ameyoko near Ueno station.

Frenetic showmen, they work as a team--one man on a platform, surrounded by candy, takes handsful of chocolate bars, boxed candies and seasonal treats and holds them aloft then thrusts them into a plastic bag held up overhead by his assistant on teh ground. 4000 yen's worth of candy for only 1000 yen! Not a bad deal. It's chocolate that's almost reach it's sell-by date or overruns of special promotions.

They've been featured on TV and in print and for good reason. They not only give you candy, they give you a performance, too.

We stumbled across Shimaura a few years ago at the New Year and visited it again this week. You might like to see it for yourself if you're in town, or virtually if you're not.

After sleeping in a bit and taking are of household chores, it was about 2:30 yesterday afternoon when I got around to thinking about breakfast. Even with our odd schedule, 2:30 is pretty late. So I decided to skip breakfast and lunch and head straight for dinner.

At 3:30 we were sitting down to a nice crispy rosti, fresh green peas, chicken smothered in carmelised onions, and a salad. By 4:30 dinner was done and the kitchen cleaned. It was like a Sunday dinner at Grandmoms' house.*

(* in case you are wondering, the apostrophe is in the correct place there--my grandmothers shared an apartment for over 20 years.)

Normally, Tod & I dine at a Continental hour--somewhere between 8:00 and 10:00 pm. After dinner, my energy has ebbed and the day is over for me. I might do a little work on my back-burner projects, catch up on personal e-mail, play on the 'Net, or I might just rest.

So when we decided to go out after dinner yesterday to buy a new coffee maker, it seemed like a midnight excursion. But it was only 6:00. We shopped, rented two movies, returned home before 8 and spent the rest of the night on caffeinated entertainment. And went to bed at about 1:30!

At this time of year, half of Tokyo's population is suffering from bonenkai hangovers. Unlike American holidays, where overeating is the festive indulgence, here in Japan we have overdrinking--nomisugiru.

There is an entire industry of hangover cures. Genki drinks full of caffeine and nicotine, mineral and ionic drinks to replensish lost liquids and salts, and scads of vitamin and herb supplements.

One remedy which I am ready to swear by is ucon, turmeric in English. Last night at the Kajiro's bonenkai, I had entirely too much 80 proof sake. Fortunately for me, I won a bag of Ucon Kuro Tou, brown sugar and turmeric candy. It is the weirdest stuff--very sweet but bitter, and the texture is like fudge that's crystalized--but a few chunks of it last night kept me from feeling too horrible today.

I handed it around at the party, and everyone was chiming in about ucon's tonic properties. Good for the liver. Keeps you healthy. I added "nomisugitara..." (when you drink too much...) and everyone laughed.

Like cough drops, Ucon Kuro Tou's medicine that's actually pretty tasty in its weird way. So I'm munching on some now as I type this. My liver will soon be singing my praises or asking for beer.

Semi-related to my recent discussion about taking too many (prescription) drugs as we get older, I read this on Reuters today:

"Studies in yeast, rodents and other organisms have found that drastically cutting calories extends life span, and researchers are striving to find out how that happens. The hope is that human drugs may be developed to mimic that effect, without having to eat less."

As a Tod laughed "In other news, scientists are busy researching how to spend even more money after you've used up all the money you had before."

Sure I am not the only one who thinks this is insane...

Holy cow, it's Thanksgiving in the US. I forgot until a friend e-mailed me a happy thanksgiving message this morning.

Today at the gym, MJ was noting that there are no food-based holidays in Japan. Some of the holidays have special foods, but there are no gorge-yourself family banquets. Even the most elaborate holiday food in Japan--New Year's osechi--is pretty minimal and even healthy!

Tonight we're having take-away bento for dinner. Tod's on a deadline and I'm not inclined to cook.

"Whole squids are kinda squicky," says Tod after we attended a fish cooking class at A Taste of Culture.

We started with very fresh whole squid, cleaned them, stuffed them with their own legs and some rice, then simmered them for an hour. They turned a lovely red color and softened into the most delicious, chewy treat.

But cleaning squid is not for the squeamish. Today's class wasn't too much of a problem for me, as I had ample practice when I worked in an Italian restaurant ten years ago. As lowest prep cook on the totem pole, I got to clean at least five jillion partially frozen, still defrosting squid for calamari.

But poor Tod got stuck with a rather large squid that was quite attached to its innards. The ink sac broke, the guts refused to drop out, the legs were recalcitrant--but he somehow managed to pull the cartilege quill out before the rest came free.

Elizabeth sent us home after class with our completed "ika meshi" squids plus a spare, uncooked squid, so tomorrow I'll make a spicy Indonesian squid sautee for dinner. Mmmmm.

The past week has been an early blast of winter--chilly wind, even a hint of snow in the air, though none's actually fallen. Everyone is predicting a cold one this year.

On the streets, the fashionable are wearing velvet blazers or light jackets and have wrapped incongruously thick and bulky scarves around their necks. I see this every winter and I wonder if there is a Japanese superstition about keeping your neck well bundled.

I don't have a scarf, but today I dug out my fuzzy slippers and tossed my lap blanket over my legs as I sat in the office. My fingers are chilly, but I'm not willing to turn on the heat so early in the season. After all, it's still 14 degrees (57F), hardly icy by anyone's standards.

The sun is setting now. Tonight I'll warm myself with some oden or maybe just lots of nice, steamy tea.

The first couple of years we lived in Japan, everyone on my holiday gift list got yukata, silly Japanese foods, washi books and other tidbits from the land of the rising sun. Then I realised that they probably didn't want them and the effort to purchase, pack and ship them really wasn't appreciated.

So now I send food from catalogs.

When I was a kid, I used to think that the food baskets from Harry & David and Omaha Steaks were extremely lame, though I admit to liking the little sausages. Now I realise how truly great these gifts are (at least for the gift giver). Everyone eats!

So if you're on my gift list, now's your chance to weigh in: fruit or meat for you this year?

A report issued by the Japan Food Service Association says that restaurant sales from April through September slumped 6.6% compared to the same period a year ago. They blame it on people staying home for the World Cup and during the summer rainy season, but I don't buy that.

I think it's another indication that the economy is not recovering and that people are being more frugal.

To back me up, there are also these reports this week: air conditioner shipments were down 10.1% (blamed on the cool summer weather--felt sweltering as usual to me); Matsuzakaya department store announced its profits were 16.6% lower than last year; and Tokyo's consumer price index fell again for the 37th month in a row--down another 0.8%.

An entire endcap display at our supermarket is devoted to healthy juices. There's quite a variety and I was captivated by the interesting combinations. Soy-sesame-brown rice. Apple-sweet potato. And myriad fruit and vegetable mixes. Even at 200 yen a pop, I had to get some.

The apple-sweet potato drink was a happy surprise. It was bright magenta and tasted like a really good autumn dessert. Sweet potatoes contain SOD, a super anti-oxidant, and this drink has 1,000 IU (way more than the recommended daily dose) so my skin should be glowing with fresh health very soon.

The soy-sesame-rice drink was not good. Enough said.

Two cans of mixed juices appealed to the artist in me: Orange Yellow Fruits and Vegetables, and Yellow Substantial Fruits and Vegetables. They were mainly the same juice, one with celery and one with pumpkin. Tasty and easy to drink. Perhaps the most striking thing about them was the English on the label:
. Contains various micronutrients and well balanced roughage. A pack of flavory juice just squeezed from fresh vegetables and fruits.

I should drink "flavory juice" every day.