typhoon

its keep raining... classes are canceled because of the bad weather.

Actually i went to university this morning to take 2nd koma, but when i arrived uni, a girl talked to me n she said "classes are gonna canceled from 2nd koma."

I was really disappointed my univ's office. IT IS TOOOOOOOO LATE to inform students about class canceling!!!

Thai Curry, Green curry

Helloooooo! Now Im finally having summer holidays!!! Since then I quitted my part time job at a cakeshop and started working at a bar. It's very fun to talk with customers and make some drinks for them.

Anyway, yesterday I ate Thai curry at my home. It is very easy to ready coz all you need to prepare for this dish is just rice and chicken and pan. haha

Firstly cook chickens untill they turn their color into brown a bit and then open the Thai curry can and pour it into the pan. ;D

Right? It's very easy. haha

Actually I usually add coconut milk into it because it is too hot for me to eat only the curry. If you live around AEON in Makuhari, you can buy the curry and coconut milk there. The curry can is green one. There is a red one and I've never tried it, but I do not recommend to buy red one because I suppose it is more hot than green one.

You can also buy coconut milk. :D

This blog is not my assignment already because my semester has finished, but sometimes I wanna upload some blogs. ;) This is kinda my new hobby.

Thanx.

Gyoza Recommendation

Hi! Recently, I've been losing my energy because of the hot weather and lots of assignments... However, I charged the energy yesterday!! Do you wanna know how? The secret energy source is Gyoza. (Chinese Dumpling)

Since I was a child, I often eat dumplings because my family also likes it very much. When I was a junior high student, my family ate dumplings once a week as Dumpling party!!!! haha My parents and my sister and I ate 50 dumplings at one party so each of us ate at least 10 dumplings. ;D

We love it! Untill last year, we did not know which store has delcious dumplings, but last December, we saw a TV show which introduce delicious food and found this store.

"Manchu of Dumpling" Here is a logo.

They have some branches only in Tokyo and Saitama. Some of you might think "Oh, I can not buy them because it is too far from my home!!!" No worries!!! They have online shop! You can buy dumplings online. Here is a web-page of the store.

http://www.mansyu.co.jp/

If you wanna have lots of dumplings and you do not care about packing, I strongly recommend you to buy Dumplings for business. You'll have lots of dumplings and it is a bit cheaper. ;D I also recommend you to clean your freezer up before you order them because they are all frozen. You need some space to put those dumplings. ;)

Dumplings are very easy to cook if you buy them. Just put some sesami oil on a pan and heat them. You can enjoy various flavors if you prepare some sauce. I usually eat them with vinegar and soy sauce. It will be very fun if you invite some friends to your home and have Dumpling party!!!

If you have any question or recommendation about Dumplings, please let me know.

Candy sculpture

Hello, it is getting hot and humid each day... Summer has come eventually. haha During the summer vacation, we have lots of opportunities to go to Matsuri, festival. Matsuri is originally spiritual, religious event in Japan. People carry portable shrine on their sholders and thanked and hoped their harvest. When you go to Matsuri, you can see variety of food wagons both sides of a road. They are selling Takoyaki, Banana covered with chocolate, Okonomiyaki, drinks and so on. They are all nice, but my favorite is Candy sculpture. Do you know what it is?
They are candies which looks like animal or characters. The animals in the picture below are all made from candy.

It's just amazing, isn't it? They have various kind of shape. Some of them are animals really exist, but the others are shaping dragon, superman and famous characters. My favorite picture is the right one which has 4 sculpture and they are frogs and monkey mother and its kid and rabbit. I like their subtle color...

This is a picture of a man who is making candy sculpture. Seems skilled man... eh? I just remembered my childhood memory...

Since I was a child, I really like candy sculpture. When I go to Matsuri, I always buy it. Sometimes I can't find the candy sculpture wagon, but if there is the wagon, I buy. I like candy sculpture because they are all small and cute. Usually I couldn't eat it because of the reason. However, I once asked a man who was making candy sculpture at a festival whether I should eat the candy or not. (I think I was an elementary school student. hehe) Then, the man answered,

"It is very nice to keep the candy in your fridge, girl, but if it is possible, I would love you to eat it because those candies were born to be eaten."
After I got my home, I ate the candy. It was really sweet and I can till remember the taste. haha

Born to be eaten...

It's like a phrase in movie or something, right? haha I think I was a little girl so the man said like that. Now I'm not a girl anymore so I think I know what he really wanted to say. If I keep the candy in fridge, I can see it whenever I like, but one day I might have to throw it away. That may be because the candy become old or something happen, but it is very wasteful so the man might ask me to eat the candy. In order to avoid candy to be thrown. ;)

I think his idea is coming from his love toward candy. (exactly "sweet memory", huh?)

I talked about candy sculpture only in Matsuri, but Candy sculpture is becoming art and one of the Japanese candy sculpture creator made this marvelous candy art below.

It's cluster amaryllis and a peacock. They are really made from candy. I've never seen this size of candy sculpture, but if I had any opportunity, I'd love to!!!!!!

I will put a link of how to make candy sculpture here so if you are interested in, check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQWr57t3BSM&feature=related

Thank you!!

TV ads in Japan

Hi, today was not very hot like last weekend. ;D
Today, I counted TV ads broadcasted on TV per an hour. I've recorded my favorite drama on Sunday so I will write about the drama briefly and report about the commercials.

The drama I am watching is "Marumo-no Okite" (Fuji-TV, channel 8). This is very famous family drama in Japan on Sunday 9:00-10:00 p.m. This is showing audiences about love among family and the kids actor are very cute. Each kids acting a sister and a brother who are both 7 years old and they are now quite famous because of their pretty appearance and actions.

Through this 1 hour drama, I watched total 10 TV ads.

I was expecting that I would see many food ads such as restaurant, fast food and juice during this 1 hour because this drama is very common among family and some kids also watch it. However, I watched only 1 commercial related to food and the product was water includes some mineral and nutrition. It was very surprising. ;( The other commercials were advertising almost about household products, detergents or air freshener.

Most of the things were related to household or sanitary products. I think this is because it is the very time that mothers finished their housework and take rest. In addition, many people already finished their supper and full before 9:00-10:00 p.m so they might not be attracted if they watch ads about food. In order to make ads more attractive, food companies might choose time to advertise their products. 9:00-10:00 p.m is family time, family gathers and watches TV so I watched lots of ads about sanitary or household products.

I also wathced a drama, Korean drama which my MOTHER likes. She begun to have interest to Korean drama quite lately and thanks to it, she learned how to REC TV program. Before she start watching the drama, she even did not know how to turn on the recorder. "What one likes, one will do best." Exactly. Anyway, the drama was about relationship between men and women, soap opera broadcasted during 14:00-15:00 p.m. :( The title of the drama is "Gyakuten-no Jou-ou" (Fuji-TV, channel 8).

I watched total 15 TV ads during 1 hour. The ads related to food was just 3 (KFC, Energy drink and Yorgurt). Other commercials were about insurance, laundry machine, brand bag, cram school, TV show's ad and so on. Again, the number of ads related to food was less than I've expected. I wondered it must be good for super market to advertise their products such as vegetables, meat and dairies because during the time lots and lots of housewives in Japan are watching TV especially soap opera. ;D

I watched TV ads per 1 hour and thought food industry might prefer to advertise their products for young generation, not mother or housewife. I think it is correct, it is efficient way to advertise to people because younger generation is much likely to go to fast food restaurant, eat snacks and drink juice. Mother and housewife much prefer information about household than fast food because households are what they are familiar with.

Through this activity, I realized how media is focus on their purpose to sell their products. People usually do not think why the TV ads they watch are broadcasted on the time, but once they notice the reason, they might start thinking about media. It is very important notice and I wanna share the idea that thinking about media and food from TV ads.

Thank you for reading!!!! ;D

What you see is what you can never eat

Hi. Recently, it is very very very deadly hot and humid in Japan. Even though it is hot, people especially adults have to face to face with computer. It is tough, isn't it? I have recommendation for those people to use this "Omu-Mouse" in order to relax. haha This seems like real Omu-rice, but it is actually "Mouse" of computer. You can plag it to USB connecter n use it as Mouse.

Today, I'd like to introduce not mouse, but Food sample. In Japan, food sample is very popular. Most of the restaurants use them to explain how the dishes look like. There are variety of food samples. Not only Japanese food, but also Italian food, Chinese food and even sweets!!!! It really looks like real food, but it is made by plastic so you can never eat them.

Here are some examples of food sample.

Takoyaki!!! (I wanna eat it when I go to Japanese traditional festival!! XD)

Japanese popular soul food! Row egg and rice! (I love to eat this with pickled plum and soy sauce.)

Even curry with fried pork can be made with candle! (Who does doubt it is fake? haha)

There are lots and lots of food imitation products in Japan. Sometimes we can find erasers which look like food and also straps with imitation sweets. Some girls even decorate their cell phones with imitation food or sweets and others makes it with themselves. I heard there are some kits that people can make imitation food by themselves. I've never tried it though because I'm not good at delicate work. haha

Anyway, in Japan, you can find large amount of food that you can never eat. Most of the restaurants usually display the food sample in front of them, but be careful. Sometimes they use real food as their sample of their menu. When I was a little, I touched a curry rice in front of a restaurant because I had thought it is fake, but it was not. It was real curry rice and my finger got the curry. OMG

You can see how imitation fried Shrimp is made with plastic. Click below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BceWzb6BMg&feature=related

What I ate and where I visited

Hello! I visited Nasu, Tochigi with my friends last weekend. We ate lots of delicious foods so today I'd like to write what I ate and how was it. ;D It was first time for me to visit Nasu. It took 3 or 4 hours to get there by car. When we arrived at Nasu, it was around noon so we decided to have lunch. We found a Korean restaurant so we entered the restaurant. I ate Bibinbap served in a very hot stone bowl.

It was awsome! It contains Korean laver, egg, kimchee, leafy green vegetable and bean sprouts. It was not so spicy, but very tasty! I was carried away by a sudden impulse of visiting Korea!
After we ate lunch, we hung around near our pension and I bought a cheese cake at The cheese garden for my dessert on that night! hehe
Around 16:oo, we started BBQ!!!!!! yeah-----!!!! Lots of meat and vegetables! ;D I really thought BBQ is the best way to eat meat and vegetables!!!!! I love it!!

We also ate fish! We bought the fishes at a super market, but it was fresh and very tasty! We ate it with salt or soy sauce. It was marvelous, really.

We ate lots of delicious meat, vegetables, fish and drunk. haha I was full, but I could eat cheese cake because it is cheese cake!!! My lovely cheese cake... The cheese cake I bought this time is called "Go yo-tei cheese cake". It means "Imperial Villa cheese cake". The cheese cake was actually offering to the emperor. In Nasu, the emperor has a cottage so you can see many souvenirs which are related to the emperor or the crest.

It was delicious, but... disclose my real intention, the cheese cake I introduced on this blog before is much better because the cheese cake I ate was rich, but not as rich as the cheese cake in Kyoto. (If you are interested in the best cheesecake I introduced, look back my blog below. ;)

We drunk and drunk and drunk...

The night grew late...

Goooooooooood morning! We had to leave the pension untill 10:00 so we woke up at 8:00 and ate (haha) our breakfast. Toast and egg fried easy-over and lettuce and also as side dish, sausage and sauted dish of vegetable and meat (because we left some vegetables and meat last night). We ate our breakfast outside and it was refreshing. ;D

We cleaned up the pension and got ready to leave Nasu. Before we really leave there we hung around again and went to a trick art mansion. (You can enjoy many trick arts there.) We were excited and enjoyed it very much. We walked a lot and became hungry again!!! haha

It takes 3 or 4 hours again to get back to Chiba so we decided to find a restaurant on the way to get back. One of my friends said he wants to eat Udon so we decided to eat it and found Soba-restaurant.

I ordered Udon with sauce which includes walnut and Miso. I was expecting that the sauce is sweet, but it was not much. However, the Udon was chewy and wonderful flavor.

Sigh... I miss my days in Nasu... ah... No more BBQ in front of me, but assignments. woooooo...

However, after I overcame this semester I can have many trips and parties!!! I have to survive!!!!!! Thank you for reading my blog! ;D

One day as a vegan

Hello, here is a hungry Nana! :D
Today, I experienced a day as a vegan! It was challenging for me because I can not eat egg, cheese and milk for 24 hours! OMG...
I will write about my whole day as a vegan here.

9:30 wake up
Today I did not have any class exept 5th Koma so I woke up late. ;D hehe (Usually I wake up at 6:00.)

10:00 brunch

Today's first mission was emerged... First, I tried to eat bread as usual because it is using wheat and I thought, Oh, I can eat bread! ;D haha It's easy♪ Then I checked the ingredients list. I was struck by lightning. Oh, no no no... This is including egg. I can not eat this... mmm... Then I pondered what I can eat today. After all, I made a Udon with Japanese green onion. I really wanted to use the Japanese sauce which dip Udon, or "Mentsuyu", but it contains bonito so instead of it, I made special Udon sauce with Soysauce and Sugar and water.

14:00

Before I leave my home, I ate an Orange for my little snack.

16:30

I ate fruits cup at my university and took a class.

20:00

I got back to my home. My family knew I am challenging to be a vegan so bought me a boiled corn. ;D It was very sweet and tasty!

I ate rice and simmered and seasoned potatoes and vegetables for my dish. ;) It was very delicious. I wanted to eat pickled plum, but I could not again because it was containing Honey. Ohhhhhhhh... What a stressfull!!!! haha

Through a day as a vegan, I realized how I am free. Usually I am not conscious about my food habit, but I found I am very relying on Eggs and food which include animal products. It is very difficult to find food out of my house. I can cook at my home, but in outside there is no choice, but salad. Even the salad and the seasoning sometimes includes meat such as chicken and bacon. I was really tired of checking ingredients on the backside of package. In addition, there are large amount of temptation by smell of meat like KFC, the Golden arches... sigh

Looking back the whole day, I was always thinking about food. It was like sickness! haha

This is because I all of a sudden changed my lifestyle up side down, but it is natural! I cannot live without meat and animal products because I grew up in non-vegetable society. I neither have exact faith and reason to be a vegan. It depends to be a vegetarian and it might be good thing, but I found that there should be a clear reason and environment for being a vegetarian, especially vegan.

Oh, I may dream I am eating meat tonight... What a carnivorous I am...

What is this?

Gooooood morning! :D It'll be hot today... :( It's humid and lots of homeworks... My passion toward study sometimes fall like rain, but cheer up! only 1 or 2 months left! ;D

Anyway, today I'd like to introduce you a unique dish. It is "Japanese Potato Cake" Yeah-----!!! haha
Actually this is like "gnocchi", or "Nyokki" in Japanese. However, I tried to cook it with Japanese way so "Japanese style gnocchi!"

Ingredients: (Serves 1 or 2)
*2 Potatoes (I chose May queen this time.)
*Potato starch, or Katakuriko (Usually gnocchi contains cheese, but I used potato starch instead of cheese.)
*A sauce in which to dip soba/ Mentsuyu
*Sugar
*Sweet sake for seasoning

How to cook?
First of all, pare potatoes and cut them into small pieces so that it is more easy to mash.
Secondly, put cut potatoes into Silicon steamer and nuke it for 4 minutes.

After that, mash those potatoes! This is my favorite part! :D

When you mashed potatoes enough, add a tablespoonful of Potato Starch and let's start handicraft!!!!!!! Wash your hands and knead dough. (Please please please wash your hand before you start kneading in order to avoid food poisoning such as O-157.)

Then, pluck a bit of the kneaded potato and make a small oval, or like a red blood corpuscle like the picture below. :)

These are the seasonings. From left side, Sugar, Japanese sause which dip soba and sweet sake.

Ok--! We have now come to the most exciting part of the cooking!!!! Let's saute and simmer them with a pan. ;D

Put a teaspoonful of oil (I chose sesame oil to stimulate the appetite! ) and saute them.

Browned the oval potatoes and put all seasonings. (Sweet Sake, Sugar and sauce. If you like sweet one, you can put 2 or 3 teaspoonfuls of sugar. ;) *When you put some seasonings, be careful!!!! Please make the heat weak not to burn. Sugar is easily burned black! :(

Simmer them for a while and HAPPY-------------! Dish up the potatoes and let's EAT!

This is my cooking show for today. :D

Thank you for reading the recipe and try it when you have time. If you have any question about the recipe or me? haha Please leave a comment here.

Thank you! ;D

Welcome to Arabic Restaurant.

Hello-----! Today, I'd love to introduce a middle east restaurant in Tokyo.
The restaurant's name is ZAKURO. It's in Nippori near Dan-Dan stairs. Here is the map.

大きな地図で見る
A man who is from middle east is running this resutaurant. In the restaurant, there is no desk and chair. Everybody eat supper sitting on the floor. It seemed like real middle east style! :D Also there are many kinds of drawings and picutures and hip scarves of bellydance! I was really excited because I belong to bellydance club in the university. :) I love middle east culture especially the dance. Well, take a look of the pictures at the resutaurant!

This is the interior of the restaurant. When you enter the restaurant, you have to take your shoes off. :D

Here is the drawings. They are traditional arts. In the middle of the picuture, there is a stick. Can you see? between the drawings. On the stick, Arabic was written. It was very nice design.

When I visited the restaurant, it was very hot like summer and the owner turned on an electric fan. Then I heard wonderful sounds... Can you guess what it was? I hear this sound very often while I practice bellydancing. In front of the fan, a hip scarf was decorated and it was blowing softly because of the breeze. Here is the picture of a hip scarf. This is mine and there are some kinds of hip scarves, but this black one is my favorite. :D haha

Let's get back to the restaurant information. ;) It was before the noon so I ate lunch there. I ate lunch set called "just hungry course",or "Futsu-ni onaka suita course". The courses had interesting name such as "Starving course" and "bit hungry course". You can choose main dish from lamb, chicken, vegetables or beans. I chose chiken. :D As we learned at a class, they do not use pork to eat and there is a small column about "Halal" on their web-page.

Here is the dish I ate. ;D It was delicious! I was worry about the tast if it were too spicy or unique, but my anxious was nonsense. The taste was really mild and very very very nice and the chicken was so tender.

At the restaurant, they sometimes have bellydance performance. If you are interested in, check the web site. I will put the address here later. After all, it cost 600 yen. Only 600 yen, but they

serve enough amount of dish! I do recommend you to visit the restaurant. The owner is very nice, unique, passionate and funny man around 50. haha! His age is just my guess though...

Oh, there was a big alpaca's doll so I took a pic with it. hehe ;) It was cute.

Here is the link to the resutaurant ZAKURO. If you have time, visit and check some information about the restaurant.

http://zakuro.oops.jp/menu/menu.htm

Thank you! :D

chicken and eggs

Hellooooooo! I've introduced Egg shell art last time, but I'd like to introduce you one of the famous Japanese dishes with eggs. It is Chicken and eggs bowl. Japanese call it "Oyako-don". Well, actually I'm a kind of lazy person so I will cook it with magical sauce... hehe

Ingredients:(Serves 2)
2 Eggs (beat them in advance)
Japanese soup stock (called "Dashi" I often use this because it fixes taste.)
Chicken (Cut them into mouthful size)
2 Onions (Cut them into slice)
(Sugar----if you like sweetened one, it's better to put some)

*Magical sauce* (In the middle of picture above.)
a sauce in witch to dip soba! (It's called "Soba-Tsuyu" in Japanese. This sauce is including soy sauce, a little bit sugar and things I need to cook Japanese dish so I like it! I often use this when I cook food boiled and seasoned. )

How to cook?
1st step: put a little oil and saute until brown.

2nd step: Add onions and heat them like this.

3rd step: Add a teaspoonful Japanese soup stock and mix them.
(When I was cooking this, I'm not sure why, but I was carried away by a sudden impulse and added a Peanut butter instead of sugar... haha The peanut butter is made in Japan and it's quite sweet and no chunk. It's not like Skippy)

4th step: Add magical sauce and simmer for a while.

5th step: Turn the gas a little bit down and add beated eggs and simmer for seconds.
(When you put eggs, try to put them slowly and like draw a circle. @@@@@)

MISSION COMPLEEEEEEEEEEEETE!!!!!!
Put what you cooked onto white rice and let's say "Readyyyyyyy!!!" :) If you tried this, please let me know how it was and if you have any question about this recipe, also leave a comment here. I will reply you ASAP. :)
I learned this recipe from my mother. She is quite smart and know how she can cook dishes easily and quickly. I am now training myself to be a good someone's wife and a mother like her.

Food or Art

Heyyyyyy!! Listen to my grumble!! Recently, large amount of assignments are killing me. I think I need to hang out somewhere! Take me away someone!! haha Anyway, let's start one of my hobby. ;) It is important for human beings to eat vegetables because they contains minerals and vitamins. Salad is one of the good way to take in nourishment. I like Salad and here is a picture of salad I ate today.

Egg, cucumber, ham and potherb mustard.
It was delicious! Today's blog, I will forcus on just Egg. Egg? We can see egg whenever and wherever. Egg is quite common food in our lives and it is famous for easily digestible food. People often eat it with ham, sausage or a slice of bread in the morning. However, on the other hand, Egg is beautiful, artistic and limitness. Here is the evidence for it...

The Eiffel Tower!

A beautiful carrage!

Jewelry box

Egg shell art
These are all made from Egg shell. It is so beautiful isn't it? Egg shell is usually junk. People through it away because they never think it becomes one of the art. Some people may not think so because they have Easter day, but I think most of Japanese people do not recognize Egg's possibility. When I found this art, I thought "There might be another thing that I can eat and also create something".
Egg shell art is very nice anyway! I'd love to try it! Japanese, especially girls love to decorate things such as phones, mirrors, nails and even an electric dictionary so I believe they can make marvelous egg shell art if they try it...mmm...

Does anybody wanna try this? If you do, let me know! Now I am looking for an Egg Shell Artist who works with me!!!
Thank you. :D