WIT Life #217: David Mitchell’s Japan connection
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WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Last week I had the chance to see English author David Mitchell at Symphony Space. He appeared with several actors who read short stories he had selected as some of his favorites, and then Campbell Scott read a sample from his novel Cloud Atlas. Mitchell was alternatively humorous and self-deprecating, and he offered many insights into what had grabbed him about the short stories he had picked as well as the way he pursues his craft.
Cloud Atlas is actually composed of six interlocking novellas that span centuries and characters, and they are connected by the theme of souls being reborn in different places and times. Cloud Atlas is challenging to read at times, but really fascinating stuff so totally worth it. The movie version is being released later this week, and I’m very eager to see how much Read More
I’ll Make It Myself!: Pumpkin Spice Latte with Kabocha Purée (Bonus: Pumpkin Pie Spice Recipe)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to L.M.at jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
If every Japan food blogger is required by law to cover okonomiyaki (twice), then every food blogger in the US and Canada is required to offer a homemade version of Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.
The most popular variety has pumpkin purée rather than syrup mixed into it. Whether you live in Japan or the US, you don’t have to worrying about buying canned pumpkin before the Thanksgiving hoarders get to it or even stocking up on the orange pumpkins that seem to disappear on November 1 to make your own purée. Where there is squash, there can be “pumpkin” spice latte. No import store required.
I’ll Make It Myself: Halloween Taste-Testing: Mister Donut and Doughnut Plant
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
I distinctly remember saying last year that I wished that Mister Donut would get a pumpkin-flavored doughnut, and this year, my wish came true!
I’ll Make It Myself: Kabocha Squash Purée (Pumpkin Purée Substitute)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Trying to shift your mentality of “I can’t have it because I can’t buy it in Japan” to “I’ll make it myself!” is hard. Really hard. For example, let’s take my recent discovery of how to purée kabocha to substitute for pumpkin purée/canned pumpkin in American recipes. Kabocha and pumpkin have different textures. Pumpkin has more water content, so mashing and processing boiled or baked pumpkin (something I might have phoned my mom about in grad school) results in a texture like thick applesauce. Mashed kabocha is more like mashed potatoes.
Trying to substitute mashed kabocha for canned pumpkin does not work. This is what I was told, and it’s true. But that doesn’t mean you can’t purée it by adding water and blending.
I know, I know.
WIT Life #216: Japanese Food Frenzy
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WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
This past weekend I attended two food events where aspects of Japanese cuisine were being highlighted, the NYC Wine and Food Festival and the Japan Block Fair. At the first, sake was being promoted by the Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO), and my friend I enjoyed sampling some from the brand Momokawa. Kikkoman also had their own booth, where they were offering panko coated kara-age as well as the three different sauces of sriracha, wasabi and soy. During the Japanese news broadcast I watch every morning, Kikkoman’s kara-age commercials have become Read More
I’ll Make It Myself!: Halloween Taste-Testing: Pumpkin Pudding Kit Kats
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Last year, Kit Kat introduced special pumpkin cheesecake flavor for Halloween. Although I liked it quite a bit, I was a little confused as to why the package described pumpkin cheesecake as a “traditional Halloween food.” This year, Kit Kat opted for a new limited-time Halloween flavor, Pumpkin Pudding (パンプキンプリン).
Let’s compare:
2011:
2012:
I’ll Make It Myself!: Baba Ghanoush (Roasted Eggplant and Sesame Spread)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
I’ve covered bread here, so let’s move on to sandwich fillings, specifically pita. Hummus or falafel seem like obvious choices and are very easy to make at home if you can get the ingredients. In Ishikawa, chickpeas are mostly relegated to the import stores (and are expensive), and my first blender was a cheap plastic thing that did not like anything with a consistency harder than melted butter. Hummus, therefore, was not a food I could make consistently while living out in the country.
Fortunately, I discovered baba ghanoush after yet another incident where I had too many eggplants. This magical food solves all of the making-hummus-in-Japan problems. This eggplant-based spread uses no chickpeas, which means no special trips to the import store; eggplants are plentiful and cheap; and the soft consistency of the vegetable base means you won’t murder your blender. Instead of tahini, which is also import-store-only, we’re going to use white nerigoma, Japanese sesame paste. Tahini is a paste made of roasted sesame seeds; nerigoma is paste made with sesame seeds that haven’t been roasted, so to get a smokier flavor, we’re going to add cumin.
WIT Life #215: More Yakusho Koji greatness
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WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Looks like it’s been exactly a month since I’ve written here, and we have already entered 実りの秋・食欲の秋 (minori no aki, shokuyoku no aki) or season of harvest, season of hearty appetites. Leaves are started to turn their lovely colors and there is a nice chill in the air most mornings and nights, which makes me wish there was a nearby onsen to soak in…
On the plane on the way back from a recent European vacation I was able to catch Yakusho Koji‘s わが母の記 (waga haha no ki), or Chronical of My Mother. This film was featured in this year’s Japan Cuts, but I was not around when it screened so I was glad to have the chance to make up for it. Based on an autobiographical novel by Yasushi Inoue, it tells the story of novelist Kosaku Igami who has achieved great success, but at the price of mining his Read More
2012 Kitadaito Festival Day Two
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The 2012 Kitadaito Festival was a two-day event in September marking an important time of community inclusion and tradition. The second day of the Festival was on the 23rd and, as in years past, featured sumo competitions as a traditional Japanese offering to the kami and ancestors of the village. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out my post on day one. Below is a video showing excerpts from the day, with more information and photos farther down. Enjoy!
Sumo Competitions
The second day began in the morning on Sunday around 9:00. Villagers gathered again before the Daito-gu shrine. There, a Shinto priest led a ceremony blessing both the sumo ground and the people. New babies were also brought before the shrine by their parents so that the adults could ask for safe and prosperous lives for their children.
After the ceremonies were complete, the villagers settled in to watch Edo and Okinawan Sumo competitions. Although Kitadaito is in Okinawan Prefecture, it was originally settled by people from Hachijo Island, which means the traditions of the island are a unique mix of mainland Japan and Okinawa. At the Daitogusai festival, both types of sumo take place. Pre-school through junior high students take part in edo style sumo.
… Read the rest and see more photos on MoreThingsJapanese.com!.
I’ll Make It Myself: “Halloween Taste-Testing: Starbucks Japan Autumn Menu 2012”
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Starbucks Crunchy Caramel Latte and Pumpkin Muffin
One thing I love about living in Japan is trying the seasonal sweets and drinks in cafes, conbini, and grocery stores. “Seasonal food” is partially the function of the availability of the harvest, such as a café’s changing the menu from summer blueberry cake to fall fig tarts for desserts; however, part of “seasonal food” is more related to cultural perceptions of seasons and their associated foods: Pepsi’s Salty Watermelon soda and Pocky’s and other company’s mint flavors for summer probably had less to do with available ingredients and more to do with the collective consciousness of what are summer flavors; Candy Corn Oreos come from a desire for Halloween food, not from the candy corn harvest.
I love Halloween and autumn, and with more companies in Japan creating Halloween flavors or packages for their products, I’ve decided to do a series on taste-testing these products.
I’ll Make It Myself: “Spaghetti-Squash Okonomiyaki”
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
While on my squash spree last month, I picked up a spaghetti squash, which has a great name in Japanese, too: soumen kabocha (そうめんかぼちゃ), like soumen noodles, or kinshiuri (金糸瓜), “golden thread squash.” This was my first time cooking this type of squash, and I had no idea what to do with it. First, I tried eating it like spaghetti and made a tomato sauce for it. It wasn’t bad, just unimpressive, though my husband thought it was some sort of Italian-seasoned coleslaw (I don’t even) for the lentil burgers I had also made.
His mistake, while tasty, didn’t solve my problem for what to do with the rest of the squash. My searches of all the blogs, cookbooks, and cooking sites I use didn’t turn up much in the way of other recipes that I felt like eating and I didn’t have the time to hit or budget the store for more ingredients. Maybe I’d use it in a “leftovers” food like stir-fry, or–great idea #1–okonomiyaki. Without any cabbage, which I rarely have in stock, I hit on great idea #2: forget the cabbage, the squash would be the vegetable base.
I’ll Make It Myself: Kitchen Library – 9.24.2012
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Welcome, new subscribers! I seem to have jumped from 20 email subscribers to 90 over the last week. I would love it if you commented to tell me how you found this blog and what kind of content most interests you–recipes? restaurant reviews? rants? Thank you for reading!
2012 Kitadaito Festival Day 1
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Posted by Benjamin Martin, a 5th year JET in Okinawa, publisher of the blog MoreThingsJapanese.com and author of the fantasy novel Samurai Awakening (Tuttle).
Every year on September 22 and 23 Kitadaito Village celebrates its largest Festival. These dates mark the beginning of autumn. Kitadaito, also known as north Borodino island, is a place of 12sq kilometers 320 kilometers east of the Okinawan mainland. It is unique in that it was settled by residents of Hachijo Island (near Tokyo) but is part of Okinawa Prefecture. Over the past 100 years the island has become a unique chanpuru (mix) of both cultures.
After graduating from the University of Arizona, I spent three years living and teaching on Kitadaito, and returned this year after more than a year on Kumejima. It was great to re-experience old memories and make new ones as the festival has changed since my time there. Watch the accompanying video for a chance to experience a few bits from this truly unique day.
Read more about the Kitadaito Festival on Ben’s blog — MoreThingsJapanese.com
I’ll Make It Myself: Earth Café (Veg* Out in Kanazawa Series)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to L.M. at jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Earth Café (アースカフェ)
Location: Kanazawa City, Ishikawa pref.
Type: Café, Lunch
Veg Status: Completely vegan
Languages: Japanese, English (bilingual menus and staff)
To put it simply, Earth Café gets vegan food right. Despite enjoying cooking vegan food at home, I am often wary of it in restaurants. Just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s healthy– particularly in light of some of the sugar/margarine bombs out there in the world of vegan desserts. (Readers may remember this sentiment from various iterations of “13 Things Your Barista Won’t Tell You,” which floated around the internet in the late ’00s.)
I’ll Make It Myself!: How to Bake Cookies in the Oven Range and Mini Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies Recipe
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Food homesickness is the plague of not just expats but those who move from region to region– for example, Homesick Texan is a food blog about recreating Texan/TexMex cuisine in New York. The way the author writes about food memories and the problems recreating beloved foods when you can’t always find ingredients really resonates with me as a foodie and expat.
Last week, one of my friends from language school who has also moved to Japan for work commented that he would kill for a decent oatmeal raisin cookie.
