A Taste Of Spring And Cherry Blossoms

While patches of snow linger on the ground and wintery plum blossoms have yet to show their faces, I have been stalking my local wagashi shop, since the New Year, in anticipation of the first culinary signs of spring.  We may be moving before Japan's peerless cherry blossoms make their fleeting appearance, but I am nonetheless determined to at least taste them.  This week, the shop finally had what I've been looking for...sakura mochi.

My local wagashi shop adds a special touch to their sakura mochi...a pink, pickled cherry blossom.  Kawaii!

Traditionally eaten on March third's Hinamatsuri, or Girls' Day, sakura mocha are made of sugar, glutinous rice flour, red bean paste, and a dash of red food coloring.  The little package is then wrapped in a pickled sakura leaf.  This perfect combination of lightly sweetened mochi and lightly sour leaf promises that spring truly is around the corner- even if the unheated hallways of my Japanese apartment are still the exact temperature as my refrigerator.  Little TF is almost as enthusiastic in her enjoyment of sakura mochi, although whether it's because she likes the taste or the pink color, I haven't quite established.

In the Kanto area, sakura mochi is most commonly made in the Tokyo-style, as seen in my above photo.  The slightly different Kansai-style sakura mochi hail from the Kyoto region, and are made with a much more lumpy rice batter.  I usually see the Tokyo-style sakura mochi, but I've also spotted the Kansai-style at my local grocery store, as well!


When I dream of Japan, years from now, I will dream of Kappabashi...summer festivals...Miyajima...takoyaki...floating cherry blossoms...and sakura mochi.

"Enjoy Mop Walking!"

I have a love/hate relationship with the flooring in my Japanese apartment. Its wood (laminate) flooring has to be vacuumed and mopped- always.  Toss in a very messy three and a half year old kid, and my floor is a never-ending time suck.  Vacuum, mop, vacuum, mop, rinse, repeat. 

My floor is tied with my sink full of dishes- that need to be hand-washed- for my most hated household chore (Japan, get with the program.  By 2013, you should be past mere dishwashers and on to personal dishwashing robots).  Having spent my childhood and early adult life in entirely carpeted homes, at first I really really hated the constant attention my smooth floor demanded of me.  Dust balls pile up, crumbs scatter, and, with two long-haired women in the place (Little TF and me), there's a lot of hair for the vacuum to deal with.  I just didn't remember my mom's wall to wall carpet getting dirty so quickly! Until I realized that....carpeted houses aren't somehow magically free of dust, crumbs, and hair.  Carpet just hides all that nasty stuff more effectively.  GROSS.  

So, onto the "love" part of my smooth flooring. Once I realized that easily spotted dirt means a more effective floor cleaning, hard wood floors (can I graduate from the laminate, someday?) became my number one requirement for any future houses.  I may have to constantly clean my floors, but at least I know they are clean!

Let's be real, though.  Mopping the floors every other day is not my idea of a good time.  And different areas of flooring are not created equal. The dining area and hallways may still be pretty good, but my kitchen floor has gotten nasty.  Break out the mop, and I might as well clean every thing.  Which I'd rather not do.  So....I might skip the mop altogether.  I'm a bad housewife, what can I say?

But if I had these fabulous, Japanese cleaning slippers?  I could mop the kitchen floor while cooking!  I could mop the floor behind the vacuum! Little TF would freak out and demand her own, ridiculously cute pair!  Maybe I could miraculously find a set big enough to fit Mr. TF's enormous man feet!  My apartment could be mopped into spotlessness at all times.  MUST. BUY. THREE. PAIRS.


I've seen cleaning slippers sold at 100 yen stores.  These particular animal slipper friends were spotted at Tokyu Hands, Machida.  They have just topped my list of what needs to come back with me to the States!


Disclaimer:  I do my best to make sure all my information is accurate.  However, details may change or I may just be flat-out wrong.  Please let me know if something needs a correction.  Thank-you!

It's Face Mask Time!

Whether you are battling allergies to unfamiliar plant life, trying to protect your foreign immune system from exotic germs, or about to visit a city with a smog problem so severe that flights are being cancelled, your local Japanese drug store has got you covered!  Just swing by and pick up a pack of face masks!  

The number of masks per pack may vary- look for a number display near the top.  On the pack of kids' masks, the number in the top, right-hand corner indicates that this package contains three masks.

Japanese product labeling is usually so blatantly gendered that reading skills are completely unnecessary- here, pink and medium-sized masks are for women, while the blue and large-sized masks are for men.  Of course, the kid-sized masks are the smallest of all!

I looked for the masks with the highest and most prominently displayed percentages, assuming that the higher the number, the more efficacious the mask.  An email with this photo, sent to my Japanese friend, confirmed my hunch.  These masks are the most highly rated for pollen/germ/pollution protection.  We are ready for any air-borne hazards that Asia can throw at us!

Side note:  One of my students told me that there is an allergy in Japan that literally translates to "China Dirt Allergy."  As in, China has deforested so much of their country that the exposed earth is blowing to Japan and clogging up people's sinuses.  Oh, and it blows all the way to the States, too.  Which is...ummmm...good for people who like to ski in the Sierra Nevadas?


Disclaimer:  I do my best to make sure all my information is accurate.  However, details may change or I may just be flat-out wrong.  Please let me know if something needs a correction.  Thank-you!

Almost As Good As Chicken Soup.

Mr. TF and I spent the entirety of last weekend coughing, shivering, sniffling, and wallowing in the general misery that is the common cold.  Our Caucasian immune systems were meant to stay on the other side of the world, so this delightful common cold was made a bit un-common with the additions of muscle aches and fevers.  Little TF spent the weekend keeping as much distance between her and her disgustingly ill parents, as possible.  It was an excellent strategy...she's not sick, yet (knock on wood)!

Of course, I turned to chicken soup (with homemade stock!) to combat the germs, along with chamomile tea and fresh lemon.  When I ran out of chamomile tea, I immediately turned to this jar of citrusy goodness- my yuzu honey tea from this past autumn's visit to Korea Town.  Sweet and soothing, I drank so many steaming mugs of yuzu honey tea that my jar is now almost empty.  Curious about what home remedies the Japanese use to combat colds, I texted my friend, "We've got chicken soup...what do the Japanese have?"  She texted back, "Porridge and yuzu honey tea."  

Porridge, I decided to take a pass on.  Yuzu honey tea, I was already doing!  The citrusy goodness was hard at work, soothing my hoarse throat, clearing my stuffy nose, and warming my feverish chills.  Perhaps there is a little Japanese in me, at last?



Big jars of this yuzu tea can be found in the grocery stores that stuff Tokyo's Korea Town, and even (rumor has it), Costco!  Made In Japan yuzu-flavored honey can also be found in Japanese stores (I've purchased it from a gourmet honey store in Kawagoe).  The Japanese type of yuzu honey can be added to hot water as well, but it doesn't have the delicious chunks of preserved yuzu that the Korean version has. If you are back in the States, this website sells chunky yuzu honey tea by the jar!  I had trouble finding it via Google search until I noticed a blurb on another website and changed my search parameters to "honey citron tea."  Ta da!  Korean yuzu honey!  I'm so excited that I will still be able to get my fix after our return to the States. Common colds, beware!

Disclaimer:  I do my best to make sure all my information is accurate.  However, details may change or I may just be flat-out wrong.  Please let me know if something needs a correction.  Thank-you!

Look What I Found!

So do you remember my post from a few weeks ago, about my latest, exciting bento box find- a little washable hand towelette and squee-worthy bumble bee container of cuteness?  Tonight, I was wandering through a favorite bento blog when I discovered this gem of a website: en.Bento&co.com.  Shipping all over the world, from Japan, you can get your bento fix no matter where you live!  This ridiculously adorable bumble bee towelette container can now be yours!  

You know you want this little guy...

Bonus! Since Bento&co's stuff is all made in Japan, it's guaranteed to be BPA-free, because Japan is more on top of toxic plastics than Americans are and banned BPA in the 90's.  Someone stop me from ordering all the cute animal bento boxes for Little TF....

Japanese Grocery Store: Winter Produce!

I love January!  

A: My birthday is in January.  I'll be accepting gifts all month! 

B: My favorite Japanese fruits are in season! 

Although, now that I think about it, I love June and peaches....October and kyoho grapes...November and fuyu persimmons...most months have delicious fruit, actually.  Winter fruit, though, makes me especially happy- cheerful, growing things are a good reminder, as I shiver in my Japanese refrigerator apartment, that winter here is not actually as severe as it feels.  So, what's new at my local grocery store?

Yuzu!

I learned about yuzu when we moved to Japan.  This aromatic Asian citrus is much more hardy than its distant Florida relatives, as it ripens in cold December and can tolerate below-freezing temperatures. Arriving in Japan, from China, around one thousand years ago, yuzu is a popular flavoring in many Japanese dishes, and it even makes an appearance in the traditional, Japanese bath.  On the night of the winter solstice, bathing in a tub filled with bobbing yuzu is supposed to bring one good health.

My neighbors have yuzu trees in their gardens, and catching sight of the bright yellow orbs always perk me up on a chilly, grey day!  In addition to being pretty, yuzu are also delicious.  More of a seasoning than a snack (like a lemon), I used some yuzu peel in a cabbage dish last week, and I'm planning on using the rest to make my favorite winter drink- yuzu tea.  Yuzu, with its rough, mottled surface, can sometimes look a bit like an orange, so I always sniff one to make sure I'm buying the right fruit.  Yuzu have an intense scent, and smell, to me, like someone crossed a grapefruit with a pine tree.  It's a sharp, clean smell. I'm already scouting online greenhouses for a supplier of yuzu trees, because my American garden is going to need one!

Kumquats!

I love cute, little kumquats, and their Japanese name- kikan.  The name for mandarin oranges, in Japanese, is mikan.  In kikan, the mi of mikan is switched to ki, which is written with the character for "gold."  Cute fruit and cute name!  Kawaii!  I eat kumquats like candy, slicing them in half to squeeze out the seeds, and then popping both tiny halves in my mouth.  Their skin is very thin and edible, and the taste is very sweet and tart.  I also like to thinly slice them and toss them on a salad with a balsamic vinegar dressing.  Delicious!

Strawberries!

You haven't had a strawberry until you've had a Japanese strawberry.

I say this as someone whose mother who dragged her children to Michigan strawberry fields to squat and pick for hours, in the beating sun, because it was "fun."  I've eaten more freshly picked strawberries from the vine than I care to remember.  I don't know if it's because Japanese strawberries ripen in  winter, or if it's because they are grown on raised beds and never touch the ground, but Japanese strawberries are incredibly, almost supernaturally sweet.  And, bonus: the raised beds mean no more bending and squatting to pick them (I love you, Mom).

I will buy a pack every time I go to the grocery store, from now until we move in March.  We just can't get enough strawberries!  I always set some aside for Mr. TF, and then Little TF and I gobble down the rest of the pack as soon as I can get them washed.  Poor Mr. TF still doesn't get to enjoy many strawberries when he gets home from work; somehow, Little TF wheedles most of them away while he eats them. I guess he should probably go buy his own.

Strawberries are especially popular with Japanese women, as their high vitamin C content is said to beautify the skin.  Another great reason to eat Japanese strawberries (as if I needed another one)!  Strawberries are probably the most expensive of my favorite winter fruits, but my local grocery store still sells them relatively cheaply, which is a relief.  Little TF's and my strawberry-eating habit is serious!  We now also like to eat them the way you will if you pick at a Japanese green house- by dipping them into a can of sweetened, condensed milk. Oishii!


Disclaimer:  I do my best to make sure all my information is accurate.  However, details may change or I may just be flat-out wrong.  Please let me know if something needs a correction.  Thank-you!

Today's Photo! (Snow Monkeys)

It's snow monkey time in Nagano...

Jigokudani- Hell's Valley- is the home of Japan's famous snow monkeys.
This little guy's spa treatment was so relaxing that I was able to get super close!

Disclaimer:  I do my best to make sure all my information is accurate.  However, details may change or I may just be flat-out wrong.  Please let me know if something needs a correction.  Thank-you!