Blue Lotus

Golden Week

I went spent the (roughly) week-long spring holiday called "Golden Week" with my parents-in-law in Osaka, and seeing as I've been back in Tokyo for a week I thought I should get around to posting about it.

My time was equally divided between playing with my niece Marya, eating enormous meals (including three buffet lunches, and if that doesn't sound exciting then you've never had a good Japanese buffet), and convalescing from yet another cold. Or whatever this thing is. Hours before I was to ride the night bus to Osaka I came down with the exact same sore throat and fatigue as I got last month (and New Years, and now), and knowing I was likely in for a bit of unpleasantness I considered canceling the whole thing and staying in Tokyo. But I figured I'd be better off being miserable around family than being miserable alone, so off I went.

I laid low for a few days, canceling my plans for a day trip to Kyoto and even going to a clinic for some meds. My first visit to a doctor in Osaka, and if that one experience is enough to go on it seems the waiting-time-to-consultation-length ratio is even worse there than in Tokyo. About a two hour wait (including the wait for meds and payment), and 90 seconds with the doctor. True, longer waits are typical during holidays, but I've never been brushed off so quickly by a doctor before.

Luckily the meds worked, which is a good thing because Marya is tireless. She had to go a park every day, and not just a dinky local park but great big special far away ones, full of playgrounds and vast spaces to run around in. She has very specific ideas about what each adult accompanying her should do, such as as who has to race her, who pushes her bike when she's not using it, and who carries the bags. Luckily she's still into the game called "you guys sit still and watch me while I do stuff", so we did get some rest occasionally.

Marya and her mom headed back to Tokyo before we did, and we were sad to see them go. Marya, on the other hand, couldn't wait to say good-bye, so excited she was about riding the "kinkanten" (shinkansen, or bullet train). To help cheer us up, Hideaki drove his parents and I to Kyoto. It wasn't the full day of sightseeing I had originally planned, but I was glad I got to go after all. After a very nice lunch (buffet #2) at the Miyako Hotel we headed to Toji Temple, home of Kyoto's iconic five-story pagoda.

It is 55 metres tall, making it not only the tallest pagoda in Japan but the tallest wooden building in Japan. But not the oldest: although the pagoda was originally built in 826, it has burned down several times over the centuries, and the current structure is a mere 364 years old.

There were some special exhibits that day, with access allowed to a few areas that are normally closed to the public. So (for a steep fee), we got to enter the normally off-limits pagoda and see the statues and paintings inside. Other buildings (the temple actually consists of several buildings) housed treasures associated with Kobo Daishi, founder of esoteric Buddhism and builder of the pagoda.

The gardens were nice too, and full of spring flowers in bloom. But most impressive was this egret, who made a splashy landing in one of the ponds and chugged down a few fish.

And finally, no trip to Osaka is complete without takoyaki (octopus dumplings) or okonomiyaki (savory pancake), so we made sure to have both for lunch. We followed with some yakisoba (fried noodles), but even with that and a big mug of beer this was probably the smallest meal we had all week. Now that we're back home we're trying to eat a bit less to try to balance things out. Not a huge problem though, at least in the takoyaki and okonomiyaki department: they just don't make it right here.

Sashimi

I'm not sure how a one-week holiday turned into a two-week absence from this blog. Maybe going on vacation disrupted the rhythm of my life and it's taking some time to get back into the swing of things. Maybe I'm suffering from a severe case of the blahs. Maybe my very mild but long-running cold is sapping all my extra energy. My best guess is a mixture of all three. But what I do know is that it's time to post something. So here we go: a recent late night snack:

Some sashimi I bought on my way home from an evening class last week (half-price due to the late hour). Clockwise from bottom left: kibinago (a small type of herring called banded blue-sprat); katsuo (skipjack tuna); aji tataki (chopped horse mackerel); and buri (yellowtail). The tsuma (garnishes) were all included with the sashimi: shredded daikon; shiso (perilla leaves); hojiso (stem of shiso buds); and grated ginger.

Sashimi is commonly sold in supermarkets here already cut up, with a few different kinds of fish packaged together complete with garnishes. I don't often buy sashimi that way, partly because my husband doesn't like it much, and partly because I can never find a selection that appeals to me (tuna and/or squid tend to be included in most assortments, and with supermarket-quality sashimi tuna and squid are really just filler). And maybe also because I do a lot of shopping at night and hours-old sashimi just seems like something to avoid.

But slap a half-price sticker on a lovely selection like that above and I'm sold! This was good stuff, with the quality of the garnishes a little better than the average selection. The kibinago was a bit on the bland side and could have been fresher: it really is best eaten perfectly fresh in early summer. But the buri was fantastic, still rich with fat despite its season being over.

Best of all, Hideaki wasn't in the mood for sashimi so I had it all to myself. It was a lot of fish but I could easily have eaten more: I can never tire of good sashimi. Years ago I failed at the South Beach Diet, but if ever I can afford to eat fish like this every day I think I'll have to give it another go.

Golden Week begins

Today was Showa no Hi, the birthday of the former emperor Showa (Hirohito's posthumous name). Why exactly we celebrate his birthday I'm not sure, but this was the first of four public holidays that make up Golden Week and I'm not about to complain.

Hideaki and I made a visit to Kichijoji to run some errands and while we were there had a quick lunch at a Chinese place called Kisshousaikan. We both had lunch specials, with me getting kurozu no subuta (sweet and sour pork with black vinegar) and my husband had pork stir-fried with matchstick potatoes. Both were excellent, and the potatoes were a surprise as I'd never had them cooked that way before, and had no idea what they were when I first tried them (I hadn't heard my husband's order), thinking maybe they were zasai pickles or bamboo shoots. They were soft and giving but had a slight bit of a firm crunch left: very nice. Both our lunches came with egg drop soup, zasai, salad, rice and annin-doufu (almond jelly) with mango sauce, all of which are surprisingly good, considering they are usually afterthoughts with this kind of set lunch.

On the way home we stopped at Planetes for a treat to bring home. My raspberry tart got banged up quite a bit on bumpy ride home but Hideaki's "chocolate royal", while arriving home a bit worse for the wear, stayed mostly intact. It contained three rich layers of chocolate, plus the chocolate fans and gold leaf on top: very decadent. My tart, while not much to look at, was super and had the perfect crust. Really, it's mostly the crusts that I buy tarts for--if they just sold empty crusts I'd buy them by the dozen. Not that I mind the filling though (and besides, if I only bought the crusts I'd miss out on the raspberries, and lord knows how hard they are to find in Tokyo).

So about this Golden Week. The holidays don't all run together, so unfortunate should like my husband are back to work tomorrow for three more days until the holidays resume, but a few lucky folks like myself have the whole week off. I'm headed tomorrow to the in-laws in Osaka, where I'll hopefully be able to keep you updated with a moblog post or two.

Wishing you all a week as golden as mine!

Kisshousaikan (Japanese link)
0422-41-0628
Uchida Building 3rd Floor, Kichijouji Minami-cho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo
Open daily 11:00 to midnight (last order 11:00)

Patisserie les Planetes (Japanese link)
03-5933-1233
5-8-20 Oizumigakuen-cho Nerima-ku Tokyo (Also outlets in Omiya and select Tokyo department stores)
Open 10:00 to 7:00, closed Wednesdays

Gyu-suji dinners

A dinner for a cold spring day: mugi-gohan (barley rice); asparagus dressed with sesame sauce; sauted daikon greens with soy sauce and sesame seeds; spinach salad with carrots, cherry tomatoes and walnuts; gyu-suji to tofu no nimono: beef tendon simmered with tofu, daikon and konnyaku (devil's tognue jelly).

After a day of simmering the tendon was soft and gave up a wonderful flavour, and the next day it was simmered more and the liquid reduced to deepen the flavour and further soften the tendon. It was great on the second day, but on the third day it was even better:

Okara to kyuuri sarada (tofu lees with cucumber); leftover gyusuji to tofu no nimono; fuki (butterbur) simmered with abura-age (deep-fried tofu); asari no akadashi (red miso soup with clams); sakura-ebi gohan: rice with sakura-ebi (tiny pink shrimp) and green peas).

It's amazing how just a few hundred yen's worth of scraps kept us fed for three dinners (and a lunch or two for me). Not only the tendon, but the daikon greens (which are often thrown out) and the okara (which is given away or sold very cheaply at tofu shops, with the remainder being thrown away or used for animal feed).

八重桜

OK, I promise this will be the last cherry blossom related post this year. You're probably getting sick of seeing these flowers, since they all do kind of look the same. But somehow I never tire of sakura--even this year, with the extra long blooming season.

The regular somei yoshino sakura have long since dropped their petals, leaving the ground carpeted in a sea of white and pink so thick in places that it looks like we've had an April snowfall.

But when the somei yoshino are on their way out, the shidare-zakura (weeping cherry blossom) come out, and when they're done it's time for the yae-zakura (double cherry blossoms).

Shidare-zakura are lovely but there are none around here, while my neighborhood abounds in yae-zakura. I've never really liked yae-zakura, since they lack the delicate simplicity of regular cherry blossoms--in fact I've always thought that trees covered in those big puffy double cherry blossoms looked rather tacky.

But it wasn't until I moved into this neighborhood that I was able to see them close up, and I discovered that what charm the trees lack when seen from afar is more than made up for by viewing the blossoms up close. They really are quite beautiful, especially when the sun shines from behind and the many petals create layers of colour.

Now the yae-zakura are gone too, but spring is in full swing and there flowers blooming all over the place. It's so lovely around here lately that I may just have to change my favourite season from summer to spring.

Out

Another round-up, this time featuring stuff I've been eating out.

Last month I had a nice coffee and book swap in Kichijoji with Ms J, a commenter on this blog. Among the many coffee shops in the area we chose a place called medewo & dine, which has an odd name but turned out to be a nice place: spacious and bright, with the tables so far apart that we didn't even notice we were in the smoking section. The lattes were good too, and came decorated with the cutest latte art I've ever seen. I thought maybe the rabbit was for Easter, but it seems to be a regular design. I hope I get the sneezing cat next time.

Earlier this month a friend and I couldn't find a cheap dinner in Shibuya, so we settled for our regular standby Tenya, a fast food chain specializing in tempura. They now have ochazuke (rice with hot tea), which is a favourite food of mine. It's quite common at izakayas or other drinking places, but not normally found at fast food type shops so I was pleased to see it on the menu. This is ume-chazuke, topped with chopped kari-kari ume (crunchy pickled plums), nori seaweed, shio-kombu (salted kelp), arare (rice puffs) and mitsuba (trefoil).

The seasonal tempura came with takenoko (bamboo shot), sakura ebi kaki-age (a large disc of tiny pink sakura shrimp with onion and mitsuba), hanpen (fish paste), green beans, and shrimp. It was good, especially the kaki-age, and not a bad deal for 970 yen.

We were in Shibuya, by the way, to work out at a fancy gym that we had a trial coupon for. Called Wow'd, it had great views: that's Shinjuku up above. The place was full of nice new equipment and thin young women in expensive outfits--I felt a bit conspicuous in the crumpled and ill-fitting gym clothes I'd found stuffed at the back of my closet. .

We tried a belly dance class (harder than I thought) and a great stretch class, and during those two hours not once did any of the other women talk to each other. The complete silence while waiting for the classes to begin was especially creepy, and if I had been alone I would have fled.

Another cheap fast food place is Ringer Hut, specializing in Nagasaki champon: stir-fried vegetables and seafood over noodles. On a recent visit I got the Nagasaki sara-udon set, with the stir-fry served on crunchy fried noodles and a side of gyoza. It's not the finest food I've ever eaten but it's tasty, filling, healthy (at least compared to a burger and fries), and very cheap: the set only cost me 680 yen.

After my disappointing Fillet-o-fish a few months back I've been on a quest for a good fish burger. At Mosburger I finally found it.

A generous fillet, properly crunchy, with a toasted bun and the right amount of sauce (just mayonnaise and onions actually). The cheese is just as unnecessary as it is on the McDonalds version, but you get a whole slice here. Strangely, there was also mustard on the bottom, which I thought would be weird but tasted alright. The fries could have been a bit crispier but were piping hot and properly soft and fluffy inside. At 590 yen for the burger, small fries and a drink, it's only slightly more expensive than McD's version. Which means there is no reason for me to ever set foot in a McDonald's again (at least after 10:30am: I still love their breakfasts).

My first official visit to Tokyo Midtown (a year after it opened-- can you tell I don't get out much?) was with Shan, another person I met through this blog (and also at the eGullet get-together earlier this month). We lined up to get into a trendy cafe, something I thought I'd never do. But this was no ordinary cafe: this was the sit-down section of the Jean-Paul Hevin chocolate boutique.

The line wasn't really all that long, and it gave us time to figure out what we wanted as every single thing on the picture menu we were given looked fantastic. By the time we sat down I had settled on the above chocolate tart with an espresso (I'd forgotten that espressos at fancy cafes come with a little chocolate or two, so I got a bit of a chocolate overdose). It was so, so good that I won't even bother describing it, because I know I won't do justice to it. Suffice to say that whoever this Jean-Paul guy is, he knows his chocolate. It cost me 1200 yen, which could got me a lavish meal for two at any of the fast food joints above, but as special treat it was completely worth it.

medewo & dine (webpage in Japanese only)
0422-23-8208
2-13-6 Kichijoji Hocho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo
Open daily, 11:30 to 11:30 (last order 10:30)

Tenya (webpage in Japanese only)
Locations throughout the Kanto area, shop list here (in Japanese)

Ringer Hut (webpage in Japanese only)
Locations throughout the Kanto area and western Japan, shop list here (in Japanese)

MOS Burger (webpage in Japanese only, but corporate site and Singapore site in English)
Locations throughout Japan, shop list here (in Japanese)

Jean-Paul Hevin Tokyo Midtown
03-5413-3676
Tokyo Midtown Galleria 1st Floor, 9-7-4 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Open daily 11:00 to 9:00
Other locations in Japan listed here

Test drive

So this was the first meal I cooked in my new pot: kofta in tomato sauce. A pot roast or some kind of long braised dish would probably have been more appropriate but it was a weeknight and I didn't want to wait until the weekend. The dish consists of meatballs braised in a spicy tomato sauce, finished by poaching eggs right in the sauce. I used this Fragrant tomato and beef kofta recipe from Lex Culinaria, using a mixture of minced lamb (ground lamb is very hard to find here so I had to chop it up myself) and ground beef for the kofta.

It was a fairly quick recipe so I didn't expect the new pot to make much of a difference, but it really did. I was amazed at how fast the sauce reduced and how well the spices blended together: a half-hour simmer produced a sauce that tasted like it had been cooked for hours. The only problem was that it retained heat so well that I ended up cooking the eggs through, so I didn't get the runny yolk effect I'd hoped for. So I guess this pot will take a bit of getting used to.

I served it just like it was curry rice and that's exactly what my husband thought he was eating, as the spices were quite similar to a curry mix. Kofta is new to me and apparently comes in all sorts of different forms, and I'm looking forward to trying more. But this was a very nice introduction, and a great way to test out my new pot.

New toy

Look what I just bought!

Isn't she a beauty? I've long wanted an enameled cast iron pot, which here in Japan means just one thing: Le Creuset. Japanese cooking doesn't have a lot of dishes that need long simmering and none that require roasting in the oven, and when Japanese cooks make western food they mostly seem content to use the same cheap aluminum pots and pans they use for Japanese cooking. So there is not a huge selection of heavy-duty western cookware available here, and in a very niche market Le Creuset reigns supreme. So denied a chance to buy a cheaper brand, I've been forced to do without.

Until a local shop, which doesn't even normally carry Le Creuset, had a 20% off sale. With the 22cm pot--the largest size that will fit in my oven--on for 15,680 yen (for you yanks that's a 3 1/2 quart pot for about $150). A very good deal, and yet I didn't buy it right away as it's still a major expense. We only have a bit of extra money these days and a long list of things I need/want to spend it on. So I hemmed and hawed and agonized for several days. I asked my husband for guidance, but instead of forbidding or encouraging me to buy the pot, he said I could do whatever I wanted. Some help he was!

But Le Creuset rarely goes on sale in Japan, so on the last day of the sale I headed back to the store and bought it. And this morning it arrived (I had it delivered, because I didn't relish the thought of carrying it for the 50 minute walk home), looking even more lovely than I remembered.

Unfortunately, I can't understand the Japanese instructions and warnings that came in the box. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't need to be seasoned and is safe for all heat sources, but I'm just wondering if there's anything I need to know before I put it to use. So if there's anyone else out there with a Le Creuset or similar pot, any warnings or advice? And while I'm at it, do you have any favourite recipes you'd like to share?

I have a feeling this is the start of something beautiful...

Pasta and noodles

Perhaps my favourite category of food, if it can be considered a single category, is noodles and pasta. I love carbs in all forms but noodles are just extra special-- there's something comforting about them, yet the endless ways they can be cooked makes them exciting. I could eat noodles or pasta every day for the rest of my life but with the amazing variety of both the noodles themselves and the sauces (or soups, or toppings) that accompany them, I'd never ever get bored.

Recently I have indeed been eating noodles or pasta every day, or at least almost every day. Mostly it's stuff I've blogged before (like tomato-based sauces or simple spaghetti with eggs) so I don't bother taking a picture, but here are a few I thought I'd share:

This is kamo-nanban soba (soba noodles with duck and long onions), one of my favourite soba dishes. I often order it at soba restaurants but have never made it before as duck can be hard to find and tends to be pricey. But when I saw a single duck breast on sale recently I knew it was time to make my first attempt.

The broth turned out perfectly, with a rich ducky flavour and thick slippery texture. The duck itself was less successful: although I'd sliced the breast thinly, the pieces were rather tough, so I postponed the meal until the next evening. But the long simmer and overnight sit in the fridge that usually manages to tenderize the toughest cut of meat failed to help the duck-- it went from hard and chewy to slightly less hard and stringy-- and almost flavourless to boot. But the broth, having absorbed all of the duck's flavour, was fantastic so I can't complain too much.

I was afraid something like this would happen, as when I was checking out recipes online I noticed that they all called for ai-gamo (which I believe is a kind of hybrid duck), but what I had bought was hon-gamo (true duck). So next time I'll try it with ai-gamo and see if I can't get both tasty broth and tasty duck.

A bit about the name "kamo nanban soba": kamo (or gamo when used in a compound word) means "duck", and nanban means "southern barbarian". I assumed the dish is so named because visiting barbarians (the name nanban was used for foreign traders of entering Japan from the south, especially Southeast Asians and Europeans) introduced the practice of eating duck to the Japanese, to whom meat was officially forbidden until relatively recently. But while searching for a recipe online I discovered one site that claims that negi (long onions) were called "nanba" or "nanban" in the Edo era, and a dish called nanban soba, consisting of negi and soba in hot broth, was popular.

It sounds a bit dubious, since the word "nanban" is already used to name a few dishes originally introduced or inspired by foreigners (like the escovitch inspired nanban-zuke). But then again, the two other "nanban" soba dishes, tori-nanban soba (soba with chicken) and kare-nanban soba (soba with curry broth) are chock-full of negi. So who knows. I'm probably the only one intrigued by food etymology mysteries like this anyway.

Next up is fusilli with asari clams. I believe the classic pastas for vongole sauce are linguine and spaghetti, but somehow I love it with fusilli (heck, I love any sauce with fusilli).

Clams are in season now, and while I love them enough to never tire of them, it's nice to occasionally have a break from my two favourite ways to eat them (which are the pasta above, and steamed with sake). So here is asari udon (udon noodles with asari clams). It is really just udon noodles topped with my regular steamed clams (the clams are steamed in sake, then splashed with soy sauce, a small pat of butter and finely chopped negi) with just a little more liquid than usual. But a small change makes a completely new dish, and now my clam repertoire has expanded.

Still blooming

The cherry blossom season is remarkably long this year, and although I was stuck at home with a cold while the blooms were at their peak, there were still a few left to see when I recovered. Sadly my camera is acting up, yet again: it won't focus in regular pictures, and the middle of the frame is blurry as you can see above. My lens is clean the camera continues to work fine for close-ups, so I'm not sure what's going on. I guess I'll have to send it in for more repairs. Or is it finally time to buy a new camera?

Many of the cherry trees at our local park are not regular somei yoshino (the most widely planted variety of sakura), but a fruit-bearing type that bloom a little bit later and produce tart little wild cherries in June. They have more colour than somei yoshino and also have a bit of a fragrance, but because they bloom at the same time as their leaves sprout they are a wee bit less impressive. Still, a cherry blossom is a cherry blossom, and a park full of these is plenty beautiful.

But even though the sakura are almost gone doesn't mean they can't be celebrated. This is Japan, and there's always something to buy. This sake is produced by a local merchant's association just for this season and is called "Ooizumi", which is the same name as our neighborhood but switches the kanji around-- the first character is replaced by the kanji for "sakura".

I think it is brewed elsewhere but the bottle says it's made with local underground spring water. I didn't know we even had local spring water, but I've always wondered why our neighborhood was called what it was: Ooizumigakuen means something like "university campus of the big spring", yet there are no universities here and I've never seen a spring, big or little. But I guess somewhere around here there's a spring, or a well leading to a spring. And now half of the mystery is solved.

I bought this sakura anpan at a local bakery. Anpan is a popular snack consisting of a bun filled with anko (sweet red bean paste); this sakura version is topped with a preserved cherry blossom.

Inside, instead of the regular dark red anko it stuffed with shiro-an (white bean paste) mixed with preserved cherry blossoms. The blossoms turn the shiro-an a lovely shade of pink, and add a pleasant salty floral flavour.

And of course, the traditional two-toed cherry blossom viewing socks. Actually, I think those are ume (Japanese apricot blossoms), but close enough.

So there you have it. There is not a single holiday or seasonal even that doesn't involve commercial products for sale, so if you happen to miss the cherry blossoms themselves, don't worry. There's still plenty of stuff to buy.

eGullet get together

On Friday I met up with five other members of eGullet, an online food site with a very active forum. This was only the second time the Tokyo-based members had organized a get together and because I'd missed the first I was really glad to have been able to make it this time.

We ate lunch at Sasanoyuki, a famed tofu shop in Uguisudani that for 317 years has operated not only as a restaurant but as an official supplier to the Imperial Family. With such a pedigree you'd expect the place to be expensive, but the prices are surprisingly affordable, with courses running from 2000 yen to 6500 yen. All but one of us went with the cheapest option, which was this:

From bottom right: two dishes of ankake-doufu (tofu in a thick, sweet soy-based sauce garnished with mustard); a simmered dish of sweet black beans, koya-doufu (spongy freeze-dried tofu), and koma-toufu (a special kind of tofu that has been previously boiled to produce air bubbles); goma-doufu (sesame tofu); ganmodoki (deep fried tofu dumpling); momen-doufu (cotton tofu) with a dip of soy sauce, thinly sliced long onion and grated ginger; and a little dish of edamame-doufu (tofu made with fresh green soybeans), takenoko (bamboo shoot), ikura (salmon roe) with uni (sea urchin) sauce.

The meal finished with pickles and uzumi-doufu, which is a variation of ochazuke (rice with hot tea). Rice was topped with tofu resembling soboro (flavoured minced meat) and thinly sliced fuki (butterbur), and finished with thin strips of nori seaweed and hot dashi (Japanese stock). The 2600 yen course was the same, with one additional dish and dessert.

Next we took the subway to Ginza and had dessert at the Pierre Marcolini Cafe. The place is divided into two take-out shops and two sit-down cafes offering the famed Belgian chocolatier's chocolates and ice creams. We had wanted to sit in the chocolate cafe but ended up in the ice cream cafe as that was the only place our group would fit. I was hardly disappointed at loved my dessert: a scoop each of banana and caramel ice cream, topped with a chocolate decoration (which wilted by the time I got around to taking the picture) and two crunchy caramel decorations. This is not the kind of dessert I need to make a habit of, as it cost about 1300 yen. But for a special treat I'd gladly go back, and maybe even wait in line for the chocolate cafe.

Sasanoyuki (Japanese/English)
03-3873-1145
2-15-10 Negishi, Taito-ku, Tokyo
Open 11:30 to 9:15 Tuesday to Sunday (holiday Mondays are open, Tuesdays following holiday Mondays are closed)

Pierre Marcolini (Japanese only)
03-5537-2047
5-5-8 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Open Monday to Saturday 11:00 to 8:00 (last order 7:30), Sundays and holidays 11:00 to 7:00 (last order 6:30)

Butter

In February I tried to buy unsalted butter for cookies, and when all my local supermarkets were sold out I wasn't surprised: it was just before Valentine's Day, a time when virtually every female in the country was busy making sweet treats for their sweethearts. I was able to make do with regular butter but later I became a bit puzzled. Not only did unsalted butter never return to supermarket shelves, but regular butter soon disappeared as well. I shop at irregular hours so I just assumed that I was unlucky or that butter had recently been featured on a health-related TV show (a sure-fire way to cause a product to sell out nation wide) and would soon reappear.

But it didn't, and only recently did I find out that there is a butter shortage in Japan. It's really hard to believe: we're not at war, the economy hasn't crashed, and dairy cows aren't being wiped out by disease or severe weather. But then again this is Japan, where agricultural management follows a mysterious set of rules created by senile wombats from the 5th dimension. Or at least that's what I suspect. I remember a few years back when massive amounts of produce was destroyed because prices were getting too cheap, only to have shortages and sky-high prices a few months later. Anyone else remember those 800 yen cabbages?

Anyway, last week we finally ran out of butter, and at the supermarket I got an idea. Most other milk products were still widely available, including cream. And I remembered when I was in kindergarten we made butter by pouring cream into glass jars and shaking the hell out of them. I don't remember much from that age, but I do remember that I loved making butter. It was fun and I found the transformation of liquid cream to solid butter just fascinating. I also loved the taste: we ate it on saltine crackers and I thought it was the most delicious thing I'd ever had, and butter on crackers remained a favourite snack throughout my childhood. A few years later I was hooked on the Little House in the Prairie books and again became fascinated by Laura Wilder's description of Ma churning cream into butter, pioneer-style. So butter making is something I've always wanted to try again.

And I finally had a good excuse to do it. So today I made up my mind to buy cream and make butter, and set out to the supermarket. And wouldn't you know it, they were fully stocked with butter, for the first time in months. Not to be deterred, I bought both a stick of butter and a 200 ml carton (the only available size) of heavy cream.

I meant to use a glass jar so I could see what was going on inside, but after testing the cheapo jar I'd bought at the 100 yen shop I realized it wasn't fully leak proof. So I just shook the cream right in its own carton, and less than 45 minutes later I had butter.

It was a very pale colour and rather mild tasting-- apparently the cream can be cultured first to make a fuller flavour, so I might do that next time. Still it was sweet and buttery enough to be totally worth the effort, and was very nice on a toasted English muffin with tomatoes and an egg.

If you'd like to try making butter, the fastest way is with a mixer: Cooking for Engineers has good directions. But if you're like me and are attracted to more low-tech ways of doing things, then this is how to shake cream into butter.

You'll need:

• small carton of heavy cream (the heavier the better, and make sure there are no thickeners or whipping agents added)
• large metal clip
• clean marble or large bead
• salt, optional

Open the carton and pour a few tablespoons out to make some air space. This is a good time to make yourself a nice big cup of coffee, as it will help you use up the poured-off cream and will also give you the energy you'll need for all the shaking. Drop in the marble, close the carton and seal it with the clip.

Start shaking. After 15 minutes or so you won't feel the marble moving around, and you'll know you've reached the whipped cream stage. Go ahead and have a look, and you might as well have a taste too. From this point you will need to shake quite vigorously. It won't feel like much is happening in there, but after several more minutes you'll suddenly feel liquid sloshing around again. That's the buttermilk separating from the butter curds, and you just need to keep shaking for another minute or so until the curds merge together.

It should look like this, with the curds formed into a ball. You now have butter, but there is just a bit more work left. Pour off the buttermilk and reserve for another use. To clean the butter, pour a little cold water into the carton, close and shake for half a minute. Open and drain off the water, repeat twice.

Your butter is now ready. If you want salted butter, add a pinch of salt and give it a few more shakes to mix it. You can keep shaking to get whipped butter, but your arms are probably sore enough so all you have to do now is make yourself some toast, slather it with your freshly made butter, and enjoy.

The butter can be kept in the carton-- just re-seal it with the metal clip and keep it in the fridge. Like store-bought butter, you'll need to use it up quickly if it's unsalted. But if you've just emerged from a butter famine like I have, that shouldn't be a problem.

Sakura

On my way home from the doctor's office on Tuesday I took a slight detour and walked through the park. The sakura (cherry blossoms) were still mostly intact, despite the recent windy and rainy weather, and seeing them really cheered me up.

I probably should have hurried home, since it was a chilly day with an even chillier wind, but I dawdled a bit and took some pictures. I'll be damned if a stupid cold is going to keep me away from the blossoms.

There are several streets in the neighborhood lined on each side with large cherry trees, creating what's known in Japan as a "sakura tunnel". It really is a beautiful sight to see, but unfortunately at that time of day the traffic prevented me from taking any pictures that did the tunnels justice. I'm sure by the time I'm well enough to make it out again all the trees will have dropped their petals, so for this year these pictures will have to do. Luckily Tokyo's flower parade doesn't end with sakura, so there are plenty of blossoms on their way and I don't intend to miss them.

I hope that you're staying healthy and enjoying whatever nature's spectacles are underway in your part of the world!

Antibiotics for a cold

The sakura (cherry blossoms) were at their peak on