Blue Lotus

Presents

Up until now I've mostly avoided blogging about gifts and souvenirs I've been given, thinking it a bit tacky or show-offy, but recently I've been in a grateful mood and wanted to share some of the bounty we've been lucky enough to receive.

A few weeks ago a very kind person, who read a confession of my love of red licorice on Facebook, sent me package of Twizzlers. It was totally unsolicited, out of the blue, and an act of kindness for which I'm extremely thankful.

The Japanese are not big on licorice, especially red licorice (with its day-glo colour, artificial "red" flavour and plastic texture, I can't imagine why), so it's almost impossible to find, and I find myself craving it more often than I'd like to admit. So this was a wonderful treat, and I'd like to say I savored it slowly, eating one piece (one twizzle?) per day, but that would be a lie: the entire package was gone within a few days. Shameful, yes, but it cured me of my cravings and I think I can last until my next visit home.

Here in Japan, such spontaneous presents are relatively rare. This is a gift-giving society, but the exchange of presents is usually done according to very specific rules and for very specific reasons. The present above was a return present, given to me by a student after I had given her a souvenir from somewhere. This gift kind of breaks the rules in that it was probably more valuable than the gift I'd given her (return presents are supposed to be about half the value of the original presents, although I think it can be more or less depending on the exact occasion).

This gift was a good example of the elaborate packaging used in Japan. I usually find all it rather wasteful, but I can't help but admire the beauty of this particular package.

Individually wrapped snacks also used to strike me as wasteful, until I discovered why it's done: Japan is very humid for much of the year, and any kind of packaged food goes soft and moldy if not eaten right away or wrapped individually.

These confections turned out to be choco-arare, or chocolate covered arare (puffed rice snacks, which are usually savory rather than sweet), in regular chocolate, matcha chocolate, white chocolate and strawberry chocolate. Choco-arare seem to be rather trendy now, but I'm afraid I wasn't crazy about these. If they were just spheres of chocolate lined with puffed rice I'd like them, but the deep-fried, sweet-soy sauce flavoured rice balls inside were too much. A shame, because I'm a big fan of sweet and salty combinations and I really wanted to like these (the way I like chocolate-covered pretzels or salted caramels).

Another sort of gift-giving is the exchange of souvenirs, which is done here a little differently than the way it is in the west. Back home a souvenir tends to be a meaningful memento of one's travels, bought either for oneself or one's close friends and family, while in Japan, omiyage (souvenirs) are only bought for others. Not that Japanese people don't shop for themselves while on vacation, it's just that those purchases are not called souvenirs.

Omiyage are almost always edible, and bought for nearly everyone: family, friends, coworkers, classmates, fellow club members, and anyone else who has been inconvenienced by (or even aware of) a traveller's absence. In the case of coworkers and classmates, individual souvenirs are not necessary, and most people buy a box of something to dole out.

The treats above were brought home from one of my group classes, where things have gotten a little bit out of control. From bottome left: sakura sembei (rice crackers flavoured with dried shrimp and preserved cherry leaves), mini sweet potato cakes (they had come wrapped in the green paper in the picture above), sakura daifuku (mochi stuffed with sakura flavoured sweet bean paste), and biwa (loquat) cake. The school owner already provides snacks and tea, and at least one student will bring something for each class. More often than not all four of them come armed with omiyage, and usually there are so many things to eat that we all end up bringing excess treats home, like the loot above.

Recently many of these omiyage are not actually from a trip (unless a trip to the nearest department store counts), and sometimes they're "recycled" omiyage from a student's family member or coworker (which is always fully disclosed and isn't considered bad manners). Of the snacks above only the sweet potato cakes and biwa cake were souviners, from Kawagoe and Chiba, respectively. Which were both day trips, just an hour or so from Tokyo. It must be a bit expensive for the students (I usually don't participate, bringing omiyage only if I've taken a real trip) but they all seem to look forward to exchanging and eating the snacks so it seems to be harmless fun. I  think a lot of offices and other work environments have a similarly constant flow of omiyage, but perhaps not to this extent.

One of my private students is a retired kindergarten teacher who travels the world, and she never fails to bring me back something. She came back from a recent trip to India with a package of Darjeeling tea and a silk scarf for me. Her generosity astounds me, as does her thoughtfulness: she really knows my taste, and this scarf is totally me.

She also knows that I am a novice tea drinker looking to expand my horizons a little, and I can't wait to try this stuff. I just have to finish up the tin of Earl Grey I'm slowly going through. And now that I think about it, after eight or so years of serving her Earl Grey (she's a tea lover herself) maybe this is a hint that she'd like a change too.

Hand-made gifts seem to be quite rare, and the two above are among the very few I've received. The are straps (meant to be hung from a cell phone or to decorate a bag or wallet) made of scrap cloth and acorn caps, and they were given to me by my landlady. We have a kind of non-stop present exchange going on that goes in cycles, usually starting out with an omiyage from somewhere and continuing with "payback" gifts back and forth, to the point that I no longer what the original omiyage that started this current cycle was. The gifts are usually not fancy: I've received a bouquet of wildflowers and home-made marmalade, and have given homemade jam and cookies and excess fruit from a box full I had received from someone else. This kind of present exchange can be a real burden to some, especially better-connected Japanese people who have a long list of people to give to. But I don't mind this set-up at all, as my landlady is the only person with whom I'm caught in an endless gift exchange with. In fact it's a great way to share when I have lots of stuff, and if it keeps our relationship healthy (especially important since she lives right next door to me), then it's a good thing.

I think this sort of casual back-and-forth of presents is much more common in rural areas or more established suburban neighborhoods (where people actually know and talk to their neighbors), with excess bounty from the garden or farm plot (or from gift boxes of apples or clementines like the one I mentioned above) frequently shared.

These grapes are going back in time a while. We received them early last autumn, and although I was a little too busy to blog about them I did keep the pictures. They are from Senbikiya, a luxury fruit store that's a favourite for expensive fruit gifts. Senbikiya is the kind of place that sells those two hundred dollar melons you've probably heard about, and although these grapes are not quite in that class of luxury they cost more than I'd ever consider spending on myself. Hideaki estimates that they were about 7000 yen (about $70 US).

They were delicious, of course--at that price they'd have to be. But I think most westerners, myself included, would prefer cheap Thompsons and concords from back home: although these were incredibly sweet and juicy, one of them had seeds and both had a very bitter, tough skin that needed to be peeled. And they couldn't be peeled by just popping them into your mouth like a concord, they had to be hand-peeled, a painstaking process that kind of took the fun out of eating them.

But they were beautiful and delicious and I'm glad we were lucky enough to try them.

It seems like people just can't stop giving us fish roe, and to that I say: bring it on. This is ikura no shoyuzuke (salmon roe cured in sauce) from Hokkaido, which is known for its seafood, including salmon. It was a special treat because we usually don't get to eat ikura except for the brief period in autumn when whole sacs of fresh roe are available and we can cure our own.

This ikura was made, along with thinly sliced shiso (perilla) into ikuradon (salmon roe atop rice). Ikuradon is at once a very simple food and the height of luxury, and we relished every bite of hours.

I don't think most of the people who were nice enough to give this gifts read this blog, but even so I'd like to say thank you. May your kindness be rewarded!

Easter

I've been madly decorating eggs for the past few weeks to use for a couple of children's classes and an egg hunt with my niece. The psanky style eggs I tried didn't turn out very nicely, unfortunately, but here are a few of our regular eggs. All of the really nice ones were done by Hideaki, who turns out to be quite talented in the Easter egg decorating department.

On the weekend we visited my sister-in-law and her family for the egg hunt and more egg decorating. Mayra was so into the egg hunt that we kept re-hiding the eggs just so we could watch her find more of them. She would do this little running dance thing every time she found one, and it was extra cute when she needed to be picked up to reach an egg up high, with her little legs frantically running in the air.

Lunch was sushi, which was an Easter first for me. Delivery sushi is not always great, but this stuff was really good and we felt so lucky to have had so much good sushi recently.

Dessert was also a treat: my mother-in-law had sent our favourite cake from Osaka, from a patisserie called Madame Shinko. The place's specialty is baum brulee, a variation of baumkuchen (a layered German cake very popular in Japan) featuring a crisp layer of caramelized sugar on top. The top stayed remarkably crunchy considering the journey from Osaka, and I couldn't stop at the small piece shown below. There were also Easter cookies and plenty of chocolate Easter eggs too.

My niece Marya was a little less into the egg decorating than egg hunting, and ended up having more fun peeling the boiled eggs. But that's OK. The grown ups had plenty of fun decorating their own eggs (there were some great ones, I wish I took pictures). And maybe it was all the sugar from dessert, but she was extra sweet that day. She usually refuses to smile for the camera, preferring to make faces, but this time she let me snap away as she admired her loot. So here's a little sweetness for you to enjoy, too:

Yubeshi

This is a package of yubeshi, one of my favourite types of wagashi (Japanese sweets). Yubeshi actually comes in many forms, all of which seemingly have little in common beyond the use of rice flour and soy sauce, with several areas in northern Japan claiming a different type as its own. The kind I like is a mochi-like square flavoured with sugar and soy sauce, covered with walnuts and dusted with a mysterious substance called oburato. It comes from Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures.

This yubeshi was bought at a local supermarket and comes from Iwate. This is the first time I've bought it that way: I've mostly had it given to me as a souvenir from people who've traveled up north. I received it very occasionally for years, always really liking it and wanting to go buy more but never being able to remember what it was called. So I was never able to find it for myself until last year when I actually had a student who'd given me some earlier write down the name for me. I sent my husband on a mission to find some, and when he mentioned it at work half of his coworkers claimed it was the meibutsu (famous product) of their hometowns. They helped him locate some at a department store, and when he brought it home I knew I'd finally found the elusive treat I'd been looking for.

Top quality yubeshi from a good wagashiya (Japanese sweet shop) is a special thing. It has a slightly chewy texture, softer than mochi but elastic enough to give it good bite. The addition of soy sauce to a dessert seems odd at first, and indeed I've tried a few that were too heavy on the soy sauce and and didn't taste very nice, but restrained use of soy sauce is quite nice and goes with the walnuts well. Most yubeshi is just sweet enough to qualify as a dessert, but not overly sugary the way some Japanese sweets can be.

The sparkly stuff seen above is the oburato, a starchy substance used to encase medicine and wrap sticky sweets. It is most often found in small very thin sheets or tiny baggies, in which powdered medicine is poured before the baggie is sealed and swallowed whole (medicine is still commonly dispensed in powdered from in Japan, and wrapping it in oburato prevents you from having to taste it). A few kinds of wagashi are wrapped in these sheets or sprinkled with a flaked form of oburato; in either case the oburato is completely edible and won't affect the flavour of the food it encases as it has no taste of its own. It is a nice alternative to the powdered sugar used in the west or the rice flour more commonly used in Japan, because it doesn't make a mess and adds a pretty sparkle to whatever it's used on.

Unfortunately, this yubeshi wasn't great. It seems that the supermarket is not the place to buy it, so I'll have to wait until my next visit to a department store (or the next time a student makes a trip to northern Japan).

Breakfast with my Valentine

Valentine's Day is s holiday I feel slightly embarrassed about celebrating, as if I should be eschewing the corporate mandated chocolate frenzy in favour of a lifestyle in which I express my love for my husband all year round, in ways that don't involve buying things. The thing is though, I do show my love daily, and just because we've got an every-day-is-Valentine's-Day thing going on doesn't mean I have to boycott Valentine's Day. I just have a thing for holidays, especially holidays involving food, and if one day a year I celebrate my love in an official manner with chocolate, candle-lit dinners and other cliched ways, well, what's wrong with that? So I've come up with a compromise, a way to balance my dislike of made-up commercialized holidays with my love of special occasions: I go ahead and give my sweetheart chocolates, a fancy dinner and plenty of romance, but skip the store-bought stuff.

(If it seems a bit strange that it's me doing all the celebrating, you need to know that Valentine's Day is done a bit differently here in Japan. There are two differences, the first being that there are no cards, lingerie, jewelry or flowers: it's all about chocolate. The second is that it's the women who give and the men receive.)

I usually make some kind of chocolates or cookies, and this time I made an old favourite: mini mochaccinos. These are two layer chocolates with a coffee kick, very easy to make but rather impressive looking. I got the recipe ages ago, from somewhere in my mom's cookbook and magazine collection--I've long forgotten both the source and the original name (and if any of you can think of a more catchy name that "mini mochaccinos, please let me know). I think the recipe is pretty much unchanged, except for a bit more coffee flavour and the optional addition of the heart-shaped tart crust.

Unfortunately I'm not much of a baker so these crusts were store-bought (yup, I broke my own rules), but they really make these chocolates extra special. As a bonus it also makes them a bit easier to eat, as the bottom dark chocolate layer is rather soft and tends to melt faster than the firmer white chocolate, causing sticky fingers.

As you can see, the dark chocolate on the bottom, white chocolate on top and sprinkle of cinnamon makes them look a bit like cappuccinos or mochaccinos, hence the name. The addition of the tart shell adds another texture, and the combination of the three--the crisp tart, soft creamy chocolate and firm white chocolate--is so nice that I think I should learn how to make a basic tart crust, so I don't have to rely on the pre-made kind.

We're in the middle of a warm spell--it's supposed to get up to 20 today-- so I served the mini mochaccinos with coffee on our balcony, followed by breakfast. Yes, the egg is heart-shaped (done by frying the egg inside of a cookie cutter placed on a frying pan), but I did resist the urge to carve the tomatoes and strawberries into hearts. I'm not that bad. It was such a treat to eat in the sun, and I know it will get cold again but it feels like spring has arrived. Perfect weather for falling in love again.

Mini Mochaccinos

• 175 g bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 75 ml whipping cream
• 2 tsp instant espresso powder
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 125 g white chocolate, chopped
• approximately 20 small paper candy cups or 15 small tart crusts
  
• approximately 20 coffee beans
• cinnamon for dusting

In a double boiler or a bowl over a saucepan of hot water, melt the bittersweet chocolate with the cream, stirring often. In a separate bowl, dissolve the espresso powder in the vanilla, then stir into the chocolate. Pour the melted chocolate into the candy cups or tart crusts, filling halfway, refrigerate 20 minutes or until firm.

While the chocolates are cooling, clean and thoroughly dry the pot or bowl that was used to melt the chocolate. Use it to melt the white chocolate, making sure not to splash any water in the bowl: even a drop of water or other liquid will cause the chocolate to seize. When the white chocolate is melted, poor over the firmed chocolate in a slightly thinner layer.

While the white chocolate is still soft, sprinkle each mini mochaccino with cinnamon (for an extra-fine dusting put the cinnamon in a fine tea strainer, shaking gently to sprinkle), and top with a single coffee bean in the middle. Refrigerate until firm.

Nasu

This is the sad, sad, breakfast I ate two weeks ago: hash browns, Egg Mcmuffin, and an orange juice. "What's sad about this breakfast?" you might be asking. "Doesn't McDonalds offer one of the finest breakfasts in the world?" You'd be right of course, and nearly any other day of the year I'd be thrilled to have such a fine feast for my morning meal. But not on Christmas morning. 

Christmas is a normal workday in Japan, and although I'm lucky enough to have it off my husband doesn't, so rather than spend the day alone I did the same thing as I did last year: take off with my friend Emi to Nasu, a hot spring resort in Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo. The above breakfast was eaten across the street from the bus terminal in Shinjuku, and it did a good job in that it kept me full on the long bus ride up to Nasu. But it's nowhere near as good as the proper Christmas breakfasts I had growing up. 

Wait, that's a lie: I don't remember any any childhood Christmas breakfasts. I have no idea what we ate. Did we eat? I do know that breakfast fell between the opening of the Christmas stocking presents (the warm up) and the opening of the presents under the tree (the main event), and perhaps in my gift-induced frenzy I just didn't pay much attention to the food (other than the chocolate coins and clementine in my stocking). I do remember a deadly breakfast dish that my sister made when we were older, a baked affair involving cubed bread, eggs, bacon and mounds of cheese that contained the rough equivalent to a week's worth of calories, but this being Christmas morning was really just practice for the immense quantities of carbs and grease to come. Mimosas were on hand to wash it down. "Um, you're digressing" you might say. You'd be right. But now that we're on the subject, this breakfast does kind of resemble that casserole, in deconstructionist sort of way.

We arrived in Nasu just before noon and headed to our lodgings, Hotel Epinard (at which my friend gets some kind of fabulous discount for reasons I don't fully understand, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth). Once we were settled in we set about taking pictures of ourselves in front of the tree and in the giant gingerbread house, which smelled so good inside that it was hard to stop myself from just gnawing on the wall, the way my pet guinea pig Spike used to gnaw on the wooden corners of her cage. But I don't think I'd look as cute doing it as she did, and besides there were children waiting to play in the cookie house and I didn't want to make them cry. 

We rented a car and drove to Udon Shounin Okamoto, an udon noodle restaurant, for lunch. I ordered yasai tempura udon: udon in hot broth and vegetable tempura. The udon was perfect with a slippery, chewy texture and the broth was light and subtle, more like something you'd find in Kyoto than Tochigi. The tempura was tasty and properly crisp, if a bit on the greasy side. 

And then on to dessert at Shozo Cafe, an excellent place loved as much for its interior as its scones. The cafe is full of vintage, mismatched and otherwise quirky pieces that make it feel both fashionable and homey at the same time. But it's the scones you want to see.

I'm not sure how these stack up against authentic English scones, but they sure beat the pants off of anything I've tried back home (yes, I'm referring to those giant dried out triangular monstrosities that dare to go by the name "scone" in Canada) and nearly everything I've had in Japan, and they come still warm along with very generous amounts of raspberry jam and clotted cream. And, because it's Christmas, some cute Christmas berries and holly. It's all so pretty, isn't ? I bet you're wondering how one of these scones would look smeared with the jam and cream.

Sexy, that's how. See how the jam and clotted cream are all mixed up, and the warm, soft interior of the scone is causing the cream to melt? You like that? Yeah, you like that, don't you. 

You're probably wondering "What's up with the the gratuitous, and not even very good, pictures of yourself?" I have no excuse for the previous pictures but there's a good reason for the one above: it's a Before picture. The background, I mean. (The foreground doesn't really get any better, unfortunately.) Stay tuned for the After picture.

For dinner we went to restaurant called A Cow Herd, an odd name for a restaurant but also a pretty accurate one. They specialize in kuroge wagyu (the top class of beef in Japan, a class that includes famous brands like Kobe-gyu and Matsuzaka-gyu), in particular tochigi-gyu, the local variety. I chose a steak course that started with the appetizer above: endive with crab, squid sashimi dressed with yuzu, and thin strips of seared beef wrapped around mizuna greens. It was followed by a forgettable soup, and rice, and then the main event: 

A sizzling steak. A dainty 150 grams (all I could afford) or so of sirloin from locally raised tochigi. 

The dim lighting made it hard to get a good picture, but this was one beautiful piece of meat. Cooked perfectly rare, tender enough that I barely needed my knife, and so rich and juicy that I hardly used the accompanying dips (okinawan sea salt, horseradish and soy sauce, wasabi and soy sauce, and a rich garlicky soy sauce). It was so good it made me wonder why people bother with turkey. I think I'll make wagyu steak my official Christmas dinner from now on. 

This was my dessert: ice cream wrapped in a crepe in a puddle of custard sauce. You want to see what's inside, don't you?

Vanilla ice cream and blackberries, that's what. All a bit gooey for my tastes, but it was good.

Back at the hotel we went for the onsen (hot spring), which had several different baths, including a wooden tub containing a yuzu-yu (a yuzu bath: the water bobbing with dozens of delicately scented yuzu citruses) and two rotemburo (outdoor baths, with a view of a rocky waterfall and small Japanese garden). I only stayed for a short time, since I was tired and had a big day coming up that I needed to rest for, but Emi stayed soaking until well past midnight. She had really been hoping for a White Christmas and thought that Nasu, where it snows more often than Tokyo, was a good place to find it, and because we'd had no snow all day she stubbornly sat all night in the rotemburo hoping for a snowfall.

And just before midnight snow started to fall. She got her White Christmas! I slept through it, completely unaware until the next morning when I stepped out onto the balcony for some fresh air. The feeling of snow on my bare toes is not a feeling I'm fond of though, so I didn't stay out for long. 

Later on, after Emi woke up, we went back out in more appropriate attire. And these are the After pictures. Same balcony, same view, but how different! I only wish the mountains were visible, because they would have been beautiful. 

And then I had to leave my big fancy hotel room and head to a different place in Nasu: Nasu Village, which would shortly be taken over by an English ski camp. I was there early to help set things up, and when the campers arrived on their bus from Tokyo I got to watch their delighted faces as they jumped off the bus and into the snow.

The camp lasted four days and it snowed non-stop until the next morning. The campsite itself was beautiful, but we weren't there much.

We were at Hunter Mountain, which would also have been beautiful if it weren't for all those skiers. I'm told that this wasn't particularly crowded for a Japanese ski resort, but I'm glad I wasn't skiing this time (I was worried about my back, which is mostly better but I want it to stay that way). Because if I was skiing I would would have knocked down all those people like they were bowling pins.

On the last day, when the snow had finally stopped, we had a snowman contest. My favorite was the one above, which had sunglasses and a bald head (as opposed to the full head of hair found on regular snowmen?) in tribute to a bald-headed, sunglass wearing camp counselor. 

This is the snowman my team made, with no help from me. It comes with a bonus Rudolph on the side, but they were careful to point out that the snowman was not Santa. That would have been copying, as another team had already done a Santa and Rudoph pair.

And when camp was over I returned to Tokyo, where it was warm and sunny and snowless and the next day I was in Osaka celebrating the New Year. Christmas hardly even happened, and the year was over too soon.

There's always time for dessert

I've been as busy as a beaver recently, with no time to do or eat anything interesting (let alone blog about it). But somehow I've been able to find the time for some very nice desserts. I think it might be time to re-examine my claim that I'm not much of a dessert person.

I was late to hop on the macaron bandwagon, partly because the dayglo-bright colours of the ones I saw on other blogs were a turn-off, and partly because I had them confused with macaroons. I'm not even quite sure what macaroons are, but I'm pretty sure I hate them, so it wasn't until a student brought a box of macarons to share with a class last year that I actually tried one and realized that they are the best dessert in the entire world. It turns out that I'm not a big fan of the fruity colourful ones: it's the dull brownish ones that are the best. Especially caramel. Above is my most recent macaron purchase: chocolate, cafe au lait, pistachio and caramel.

This is the pistachio up close. It was actually my least favourite of the bunch. (I've just realized that if I want something pistachio flavoured, pistachio ice cream is a better choice. Or pistachios.)

And here's the chocolate: my second favourite flavour. These came from Henri Charpentier, who makes the best macarons I've tried so far. Every macaron fan in the world seems to be on an obsessive hunt for the best ones, and everyone seems to have different criteria. But in terms of crust texture, sweetness level, filling-to-crust ratio and overall flavour Henri Charpentier is the champion.

I don't eat macarons often, but that's more to do with the fact that they don't sell macarons out here in the suburbs than any concerns about my health. In fact, macarons are practically a diet food: they're tiny and frightfully expensive, so it's hard to over-indulge. They also weigh next to nothing, and really: how could something composed of roughly 95% air be bad for you?

I've posted about Planetes, a nearby cake shop, before. On a recent visit there were no cakes or tarts that caught my eye (I really am not much of a cake person) so I went with a handful of snowball cookies and two chocolates. The snowballs, my favourite cookies in the world, were wonderful.

I ended up giving the chocolate on the top, called "caramel noir" to my husband as it was gooier than I expected, but the praline cream on the bottom was lovely.

My husband got something with layers of soft creamy goo that I wanted nothing to do with.

It was pretty though, especially the bubbles in the first layer after the chocolate top was taken off.

Finally, some dessert actually made at home: apple crisp. The top has a mixture of apples and those lovely Italian plums which have long disappeared from the market (I think this was back in October). The tartness of the plums was a perfect foil for the sweet Japanese apples. 

For my husband, who is not into tartness, I skipped the plums and mixed the apples with a little of the dulce de leche I made last month, and dotted some more on top. This was decadent and delicious, and although I preferred the first crisp I can happily make do with this until the plums come back again next year.

Dulce de leche

Living in Japan as I do, I can only watch from afar as food trends sweep North America. They rarely make it here, and I find myself variously wishing they would (beets, chipotle peppers, Pink Berry style frozen yogurt, Fair Trade goods) and hoping that they never will (cupcakes). But some trends pass right by without me ever getting wind of them, and that almost happened with dulce de leche, a caramel-like delicacy that everyone seems to know about except me. It was only from a Japanese blog (via a couple of Japan-based English language blogs) that I found about about it, and I'm so glad I did.

There are a number of ways to make it, but the method introduced in the above-mentioned blog is the most appealing due its amazing simplicity: you simply boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for a few hours. Although the condensed milk manufacturers and other official food people warn not to do it, as there is a risk of the can exploding, it seems that is still the method of choice for home cooks, especially in South America, where dulce de leche originated. And after doing a little research it seems that following proper procedure will prevent a sticky explosion.

All you do is take a can of condensed milk (not evaporated milk: it must be sweetened), remove the paper label if there is one, put it in a deep pot and cover well with water. Don't open the can, and make sure there are at least a few inches of water covering it. Then cover the pot with a lid and boil for two to four hours, checking periodically to make sure the water level stays above the can (if it gets near add more water). Two hours of boiling will get you a thinner, saucier texture, and four hours will result in a more solid texture. When the time is up, remove the can with tongs and let it cool for several hours--do not open while it's hot. That's it! Those who are worriedabout letting the water get too low can use a pressure cooker, which completely eliminates the risk of explosion, or search online for a "safe" recipe (which basically involves cooking milk and sugar--or the contents of a can of condensed milk--over a double boiler--where's the fun in that?).

I made some yesterday morning, boiling for four hours. That may seem like a long time but I had the morning off and in the kitchen anyway making jam, so letting a pot boil took no extra effort at all. I hadn't fully researched and didn't know the boiling time varied so much, so I went for the full four hours (I was actually hoping the longer cooking time would result in aricher, more caramelly flavour, but apparently that's not how it works).

And last night we tried it for dessert. I let Hideaki have the honour of opening the can, and because he didn't know a thing about it he was shocked to see the color. And although I was expecting it, I was surprised too: it really was a caramel colour. 

We each took a tiny spoonful to taste, and ending up digging in several more times. The flavour was wonderful and the only thing that stopped us from eating the whole can was the texture--a little too firm, reminding me of the icky fake gelatin-thickened pudding we get back home. This type of dulce de leche is definitely meant to be used as a spread or in cooking, and next time I will try a shorter boiling time to get a softer texture.

But the taste was beautiful, and spread over a lightly toasted baguette it was divine. Spread over a lightly toasted baguette and then re-toasted until the edges got a bit bubbly: well, I tend to run out of adjectives when trying to describe really good food, so I won't even attempt it. But I'm pretty sure I had my first mouth orgasm. It was that good.

Dulce de leche, I don't know where you've been all my life, but now that you're with me I'm a happy girl.   

JapanSoc it!

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

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

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 (non-macro) pictures, with the middle of the frame especially blurry as you can see above. My lens is clean and 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. It's good to know that we actually have underground springwater here, because I've always wondered why our neighborhood was called what it was: Ooizumigakuen means something like "university campus of the big spring". And yet there are no universities here and I've never seen a spring, big or little. But in advertisements for this sake I've found out that the Shirakogawa, a local stream, has underground sources. So now half of the mystery is solved, and maybe someday I'll find out where the secret university is hidden.

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 event in Japan 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)

Easter

This morning I grabbed my trusty glue gun and put together a quick present for my niece Marya: a basket of chicks.

I had originally planned to give her some pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs) but it's been so long since I've done them that all the eggs I made ended up being practice eggs, either cracked or not good enough to give away. Maybe I'll have better luck next year.

Hideaki and I met his sister and her family for brunch at Roti, a restaurant in Roppongi. I ordered eggs benedict, because someone had to-- it wouldn't be a proper brunch without them. The other grown-ups ordered steak and eggs, a burger and fries, and a spinach and feta omelet.

Marya had the fluffiest pancakes ever, of which she took two bites before moving on to her dad's fries and four bananas from the breakfast bar. We were all happy to help finish off her pancakes, not that our own food wasn't excellent: it turns out Roti does a very nice brunch, and since Tokyo is sadly lacking in brunch places we'll definitely be back.

They also do desserts well too, and this blackberry crumble was good enough to keep us away from the nearby Stone Cold Creamery which we'd originally planned to visit for dessert.

Then it was back to Marya's place where we spent a few hours decorating eggs. We were all concentrating on our eggs so hard that there are no pictures of us at work, just the finished eggs.

Then it was time to play. Which of course means watch Marya play, but unlike last time she deigned to let us help put together the train tracks, and Hideaki was even allowed to touch the train a few times. Progress is definitely being made, and in a few years we may actually get to push the train around for a lap or two. It's such a cool train track set that we joked about buying a separate one for the adults so we could play too, but I'm guessing Marya wouldn't stand for that.

Then we all went out for a dinner of soba, a nice way to soothe our tummies after such rich food for brunch. I had tsuke-toro soba, which were cold buckwheat noodles with a dip made of soy-based sauce, grated yam, raw egg and and nori seaweed.

We were then given a bag of Easter goodies and sent on our way, and when we got home we had some of them for dessert:

Hot crossed buns! I didn't think it was possible to find them, but apparently the bakery Andersen carried them for a few weeks before Easter, or at least they did at the Aoyama branch. Thank you sister-in-law!

Valentine's Day goodies

No romantic dinner for Valentine's Day yesterday, as I had a late class. Instead, dessert:

On the right are the double-chocolate walnut cookies I made for my husband for Valentine's Day (there is just no way an amateur photographer like me can make them look good in a picture, but trust me they taste far better than they look). On the left is a little something my husband brought home.

They aren't for me though. Valentine's Day in Japan is a bit different than in other parts of the world: women give gifts to men, and the gifts are almost always chocolates or chocolate-related sweets. Giftees are not limited to romantic partners or beloved male family members but are can also be male classmates and colleagues. These coworker gifts have become so common that they are pretty much expected and are now jokingly referred to as giri choco, literally "obligation chocolates". Many women resent being pressured into forking out money on treats for all the guys at the office knowing that when White Day (March 14th, the day when men are supposed to give something sweet back to the ladies) comes around few of the men will bother to return the favour.

With my husband working from home until recently, he hasn't received these giri choco in years so I've kind of forgotten about them. So when I came home from work Thursday night and saw a cute little box of chocolates on the kitchen table, my first reaction naturally was "Wow! My very first ever Valentine's Day present from Hideaki!"

Luckily I realized what they were before I said anything, sparing the poor dear any embarrassment. It turns out the chocolates are from a boss and very delicious (he graciously allowed me to try some). And then he heaped praise on my cookies, having scarfed down five of them in place of a proper dinner. I certainly am lucky to have such a generous and appreciative husband.

Maybe next month from now I'll get my very first ever White Day present...

Almost ready for Christmas

Now that I'm fairly confident I'll have Christmas dinner under control, it's time for baking. I don't make cookies or other sweet things very often as I have little willpower (not to mention I work at home and have nobody to pass out cookies to) I'll happily finish off an entire batch in a few days, with predictable results (guilt, a disappointed husband wondering where all the cookies went, guilt again, weight gain, more guilt). But Christmas is a great excuse to bake, because there are more people around to share with and besides, what would the holidays be like without tonnes of cookies?

Above is an attempt to create a somewhat healthy holiday snack: chocolate dipped pretzels (and almonds too). I used Ghirardelli's 60% cocoa chocolate chips, and regular pretzels, both bought in huge bags at Costco, and considering that pretzels are low-fat and dark chocolate is chock-full of anti-oxidants, this is practically a health food. Super easy to make, too: just melt chocolate in a double boiler, add pretzels, mixed to coat, lay them on waxed paper and set them in a cold room (or the fridge if you are lucky enough to have central heating). Almonds are the same, but should be toasted and cooled first.

And here are the traditional Christmas cookies: gingerbread and sugar cookies, made with my sister-in-law and niece last week. The sugar cookies were flavoured with lemon and mandarin peel and taste just wonderful, but turned out a bit soft-- probably due to a mixture of my baking inexperience and the different flour used in Japan. The citrus sugar cookie recipe can be found on Epicurious here.

Quite frankly the cookies tasted a lot better before the icing went on. I've never liked icing but it's easy to forget that fact, especially when you're following an icing recipe that calls for 6 cups of icing sugar. Yes, we halved it, but we still had tonnes leftover so we ended up over-decorating the cookies. Oh well, they do look cute, or at least some of them do. You may notice that we didn't just stick to traditional gingerbread boys and girls: there's a dachshund accessories Tokyo-style, a bikini girl that looks an awful lot like I did on the beach this summer (big, pale and doughy), her toned and tanned companion (which doesn't look like anything at all I've seen on a beach recently, but a girl can fantasize can't she?) and a three-eyed alien visitor in a silver space suit.

I'm hoping to get a few more batches of cookies in, and desperately wishing I had a real oven so I could make my Mom's famous forgotten cookies, which are little meringues with chocolate chips and walnuts and are cooked by leaving them in a hot, but just turned off, oven all night. I really have to nip this kind wishful thinking in the bud, because there are just so many things from home I'll never be able to recreate here, and if I start pining I'll turn homesick in no time...

More birthday eating

Recovered from his cold, Hideaki made my real birthday dinner tonight. A few weeks late but worth the delay:

• Shio-aji yaki-soba (fried noodles flavoured with salt rather than the usual sauce) with pork, cabbage, carrot and white shimeji mushrooms, topped with katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and aonori seaweed flakes
• Egg-drop corn soup
• An ice-cold can of Ebisu beer

My perfect birthday meal. But that's not all: he included a bouquet of flowers in the deal, as well as dessert:

A chocolate cake from Planetes, our local cake shop. I'm not a big cake person, but if there's no whipped cream or custard or other gooey stuff I'll happily eat it. This is quite a small cake, but rich and chocolatey enough that a little piece is plenty satisfying.

Fresh figs

Fresh figs are rather new to me. I've been enjoying them in tarts for a few years, but it wasn't until last year that I actually bought and ate a whole one raw. It was a revelation, and made me wonder why it took so long to try them.

Perhaps it's because I grew up in Canada, where figs don't grow. I'd never even seen a fresh fig until I came to Japan, had no idea what they looked like. Although I occasionally encountered dried figs growing up, they were mostly in the form of Fig Newtons, which for some reason were never in the house. The only place I could eat them was at school, where I'd have to a trade for them. And since my mother so seldom packed cookies or other trade-able goodies, Fig Newtons were a rare treat. How I envied those kids whose parents regularly packed Fig Newtons in their lunches! The only kids I envied more were those who brought packets of Jell-O powder for dessert, dipping a spit-moistened finger in the package and pulling it out, dusted with a colourful coating of sweet, sweet powder. They'd then stick their finger in their mouth and suck all the sweet Jell-O goodness off, with an expression of pure bliss.

Now that I look back I can't help but think that sending ones kids off to school with a package of Jell-O is verging on child abuse, and I no longer resent my Mom for not doing so. But I'm not sure if I'm ready to forgive her for failing to supply me with Fig Newtons.

So I have many figless years to make up for, and now that I know that fresh ones are even better than dried, Japan seems to be the perfect place. Domestic figs are in season for a relatively long time in early autumn (thanks to Japan's long North-South configuration) and are no more expensive than any other fruit of the season. Not knowing what to do with them was what prevented me from buying them for so long, but last year so many food blogs featured fresh figs that I was inspired to try them. I just ate them all raw, not wanting to screw anything up. Baby steps.

This year I knew it was time to take it to the next level. I started simply:

Fresh figs roasted with Gorgonzola and pecans. No sauce, although I did drizzle a few with honey. These were lovely, although walnuts would have been nicer. Sadly my husband, a fan of neither figs nor Gorgonzola, had to leave the room while I ate.

Next I poached them whole in a sweetish Riesling, with honey, vanilla, lemon peel and cinnamon. After letting sit in the poaching juices for a day, this was just heavenly. And it was even better the next day, paired with a scoop of vanilla ice cream:

For the sauce, I just removed the cinnamon, vanilla and lemon peel from the poaching juices and reduced it to a syrup. It turned a very pretty colour and was so delicious that I'll double the poaching liquid next time, just so I can make extra syrup.

Figs are still in the markets, so I think I'll have time to cook with figs once more this season. Any ideas?

Planetes

I haven't splurged on a special treat for a while, but when Hideaki landed a new job (he starts next month!) I knew it was time. So I headed to our favourite local cake shop, Planetes, and picked up a few tasty items.

Above is mine (I think it was called something like poire a la lavendre). It is mousse with pear, red currant, and pistachio, flavoured with lavender. The lavender was very subtle and more of a fragrance than a flavour, and while I'm normally not a bit mousse fan I really enjoyed this.

Below is Hideaki's treat: puff pastry filled with vanilla custard, candied chesnuts and whipped cream, topped with chesnut cream.

端午の節句

The 5th day of the 5th month is Tango no Sekku (the Boys' Festival), also known as Kodomo no Hi (Childrens' Day), a day families all over Japan celebrate their male children. It is a national holiday, usually marking the end of a week-long string of holidays called Golden Week.

Since we don't have children, we don't need to follow traditions like hanging koi-nobori (carp streamers) outside or displaying a kabuto (samurai helmet) in our living room. But I figured I'd show my appreciation for the boy of the house by bringing up a little treat.

The lines for the traditional chimaki (sweet mochi wrapped in bamboo leaves) and kashiwa-mochi (sweet mochi wrapped in an oak leaf) were long, so I bought some cute fish-shaped sweets instead.

These simple wagashi (Japanese sweets) were made of a thin, pancake-like wrap folded over a piece of sweet mochi (sticky rice cake) and stamped with eyes and scales. They are supposed to look like koinobori, and this is the only time of year they are sold (although you can find similar sweets shaped like different fish throughout the year). They were delicious and we weren't satisfied with just three to share. Three each would be better-- remind me next year.

Happy Easter!

Look what the Easter Bunny brought! These are the classiest Easter chocolates I've ever received, and I'm surprised to see how sophisticated the Easter Bunny has become. This is a far cry from the giant chocolate bunnies with those creepy yellow candy eyes, or those awful tooth-achingly sweet Cadbury creme eggs (I do miss the commercials with the clucking rabbits though-- do they still run those?).

Another surprise: it turns out that the Easter Bunny is 80cm tall and looks just like my niece Marya. Not at all bunny-like, but much cuter than I imagined.

Easter is not really celebrated in Japan, and because we're all too busy to cook an Easter feast at home Hideaki and I met Marya and her parents at the Tokyo Hilton, one of the few places in town to offer an Easter brunch. It actually wasn't very Eastery at all, with no ham or lamb or any kind of special Easter food at all except for hot cross buns. Those were really yummy (I don't remember ever eating them back home), and the food was OK, but the best part was watching Marya. She was far less interested in the food than in hanging out in the play area with the other kids. Little flirt that she is, she got on especially well with an older blond boy, who gallantly shared his cup of popcorn with her. It was very cute to watch and neither of them seemed to notice or care that they spoke different languages and looked quite different from each other. It's amazing how young children are so oblivious to that stuff.

I, on the other hand, am not oblivious at all, and freely discriminate based on colour. And I am no fan of white chocolate, so the milk chocolate chick on the left is all mine...

ひな祭り

Today we celebrated Hina Matsuri (Hina Doll Festival) with Marya and her family. On Hina Matsuri, families with girls will display a special set of dolls, serve special food, and generally celebrate having girls. I forgot to take a picture of the lovely pair of dolls that were displayed, but Marya is a bit of a doll herself so I think you'll forgive me.

Here she is trying to decide what to eat first, among a selection of arare (sweet rice crackers) and cookies. Atsuko, Marya's mom, made the cookies: they are shaped like sakura (cherry blossoms) and have three differently coloured layers, like hishimochi (another traditional sweet with pink, white and green layers). Atsuko, being health conscious, avoids artificial dies so the colours are much softer than they would normally be, but the cookies were still beautiful and very tasty.

There are plenty of foods associated with Hina Matsuri. Aside from the arare and hishimochi mentioned above, there is amazake (a sweet sake with fermented rice, served hot), chirashizushi (scattered sushi), ushio-jiru (clam soup) and sakura-mochi (rice cake filled with sweet azuki bean paste, wrapped in a cherry leaf). And we had them all, except for the hishimochi and chirashizushi!

We hung out and played for a while, and Marya showed us her new bike. She hasn't quite got the pedaling down yet, but she's quite the speed demon!

For dinner we mostly avoided Hina Matsuri food, instead eating fun stuff that Marya, who's just 2, can eat. We had a salad of thinly sliced daikon, kaiware-na (daikon sprouts), bacon, and mushrooms; kara-age (fried chicken); chawan-mushi (savory egg custard); and sekihan (rice with red beans).

There was also ushi-jiru, with clams, namafu (wheat gluten cakes) shaped like ume (Japanese apricot blossom) and mitsuba (trefoil). It was all delicious, and all made by Atsuko, who must have been working for days to prepare everything.

For dessert there was home-made sakura-mochi, topped with a salted sakura blossom. The store-bought kind is usually bright pink, but I really prefer this softer dusty-pink colour, which Atsuko made with a natural die.

Finally we finished with pomegranates. I haven't had one in years so it was a real treat-- especially since we had them Iranian style. They came with plastic bags and straws, and we had to seal up our pomegranate in a bag and squeeze it for several minutes, without breaking the skin. When the insides were crushed, we stuck a straw through the bag and into the pomegranate and drank. There was a surprising amount of sweet juice in there, but even after we were done we tried squeezing some more to get as much out of it as we could. No idea if this is actually how it's done in Iran, but it was fun and really delicious.