Sukiyaki

I'm off and about in a few minutes...  Patchwork with Mrs. Furui to get some planned projects in motion.  My favorite day of the month!

So....  With not much to tell you about I thought I'd show one of our New Year's dinners.

Tetsu requested Sukiyaki for dinner one night.

We live in an area famous for green onions (we seem to live in an area famous for a lot of things... Apples...  Yuzu...  Yuba...  (I'll have to explain that one at a later date.)  Anyway, at least in our prefecture, Nissato Negi, the name of the green onion, is fairly well known and the onions cook up to be sweet and tender.  And after we bought a couple large bundles of green onions (one for Tetsu's mother) Tetsu wanted sukiyaki for dinner... one of the tastiest ways to enjoy the green onions.

So we had the green onions and I bought konyaku noodles, and enoki mushrooms, of course tofu and some greens called shunniku.  And of course the most important ingredient, paper thin slices of beef.

Isn't this a beautiful way to display beef slices in the supermarket?  I know... It is a bit strange to get excited about a meat display, but the black and gold styrofoam meat tray... made to look like laquerware, the artistically arranged slices... it may be trying to look like a pink flower... Well, I have to give the supermarket points for trying, even though I'm not a meat eater...  Tetsu was happy!

I have made sukiyaki for my family in the States but for some reason it tastes better at home in Japan.  I think the reason is the pot that I use!  Tetsu mother had a heavy iron pot that is specially made for sukiyaki.  Making sukiyaki in a fry pan just doesn't do it for me (though my American family doesn't complain.)  I would love to take my American family an iron sukiyaki pot, but it is extremely heavy and needs to be oiled to keep it from rusting.  It sure makes delicious sukiyaki!

You can make sukiyaki sauce with 1/3 cup soy sauce, 3 Tbsp sake or mirin, 5 Tbsp sugar, and 3/4 cup water.

Cook it all up...  if you have a burner on the table put the pot in front of everyone and add more ingredients as the family eats.

"Ittadakimasu!"  ("Chow down")

Scrappy Mountain Majesties

I've been cleaning up my computer files and trying to transfer things into my iPad.  Talk about frustration!  I really am not good with the computer and I just keep adding things and copying things and pretty soon I don't know where anything is.  After I had THOUGHT I'd organized the picture files... you know copy last year's files to an external drive... I tried to update the iPad.  This was around 6:00 in the evening but when I went to bed at 11:00 (after staring at the screens for too many hours) it was still syncing.  This morning I find things basically updated, but there still seem to be missing files.  And that is what I am trying to do this morning.

I'm going to need a coffee break pretty soon...

SO....  What I'm NOT doing but had planned to do today was make some more Scrappy Mountain Majesties blocks from Bonnie Hunter's quilt pattern instructions.  I had wanted to try this quilt in batiks and so for no other reason than I didn't have any machine piecing going on (but I have knitting and hand applique and Y-kun's blocks etc. etc.) I started cutting fabric and sewing these blocks together.  I'm going to try to keep this in a blue and green color scheme but so far I think there is too much green in there.  This will be another S~L~O~W~L~Y~ made quilt so don't expect much progress.

Especially if I have to mess with the computer files in the meantime...

UPDATE:  Yeah!  I think I did what I was trying to do!

Miscellaneous post

Let's see.  Work starts for me again today.  It has been a good vacation though I'm not sure how much I got done...

I seem to have some random pictures that I took at the end of the year and never showed.  I guess this will be a miscellaneous post today.

Here is Choco put on a stay on one of our walks.  She seems to have found something in the forest that she's wanting to go figure out.

One day when I went to the pool there was an elderly man with a craft table set up.  It was called a "parent and child" craft table but I asked if I needed a child to participate.

"No, no, you can craft by yourself."

I paid my fee and sat down with instructions for making a "bear" (that is what it is supposed to be) and just as I pulled out my glasses a little boy popped up beside my table.

"Ah!  Taniya-sensei!"

It was a boy from the kindergarten!  Oh good, now I had a child of my own to play with!

Together we made our little wood objects and had a very nice half hour together.

*****************************

At church the other day, one of the visitors brought out an album to show anyone who was interested.  The man's grandfather had been a chef at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo over 100 years ago and the family had kept some of the menus that had been printed out at that time.

These were made of heavy paper with an illustration of the ladies of the era.  I was surprised at how colorful the illustrations were.

Even on the inside of the menu, the background was beautifully printed.  There was a program for the evening music on one side.  Someone there named George Washington Jr....  Was that a common name at the time?  I like that insert at the bottom saying "Drink TANSAN Choicest of all choice waters".  Tansan is "soda water" in Japanese.  I wonder why that wasn't translated into English as all the rest.


April 9th, 1912.  Almost 102 years old.  It was interesting to see the illustrations and interesting to see what was considered elegant dining at the time. 

Gung-ho.

I missed posting yesterday because after church Tetsu and I spent some time at the swimming pool.  Yes!  TETSU and I!

I have been going to the pool for years now.  It is a very nice pool with huge windows looking out on a forest.  It is 25 meters long and there is a sauna and a jacuzzi and an onsen bathing area for after a swim.  Mostly there are older people there, and most of them chat and drift around and around the edges of the pool. The pool isn't very deep; only about to chest level; and as there are no lanes for swimming, most patrons get their exercise by walking.  There are a few of us die-hards that insist on swimming down the middle of the pool or dodging walkers but it really isn't a pool for lap swimming.  On Saturdays and Sundays there can be a lot of children splashing and playing around but I didn't go often on the weekends... I spent time with Tetsu...

There was a time when Tetsu and I became evening members and both of us made friends and enjoyed socializing more than exercising.  After a couple years Tetsu got tired of the socializing and quit going to the pool.  I kept thinking he'd start in again and I lapsed in my exercise for about six months until I gave up waiting and joined the day membership plan (costs twice as much!).  For nearly two years I've swum laps in the pool twice a week.  I do not particularly like swimming.

My cold downed me for a month in November, a relapse came after one trip to the pool. 

"This dang pool is doing my health more harm than good!"

I've never lost any weight.  I've developed Athlete's foot.  I would rather be using my time sewing.  I came to the decision at the end of the year that I would drop my membership from February.

And then Tetsu pipes up during the New Year holidays...

"My blood tests haven't been so great recently.  The best it ever was, was when I went to the pool.  I think I'll join again."

Just when I was planning to quit!  Oh well...

On Friday we went to the pool together and Tetsu paid his membership fee.  We swam for an hour and a half.  An HOUR AND A HALF!  I'm usually an-in-there-and-out-of-there-in-thirty-minutes swimmer.  And Tetsu doesn't really swim.  He looks more like a barge breaking up a frozen ocean.  He plows ahead leaving a wake behind him that sets everyone else to bobbing.

And once Tetsu starts something he becomes very gung-ho.

Saturday  --  "What time shall we go to the pool today?  I want to exercise for at least two hours."

"Fine.  I'll swim for a half hour and read a book in the lobby afterwards."

Sunday --  "Let's go to the pool directly after church.  It is so great that the pool is close by.  I think we should go every Saturday and Sunday and I'm going to try to go on Thursdays too.  I wonder if I can go on Tuesday at least once a month.  My goal is to lose 10 pounds this year!  If I go to the pool 200 times and exercise two hours a time think of what great shape I'll be in."

"That's wonderful.  I can continue reading my book."

Tetsu has forgotten that when we were at the pool together a couple of years ago he didn't lose any weight either.  He has also forgotten the reasons why he quit the time before.  And he has forgotten why he dragged his feet so long when I asked him to come back with me. But heaven forbid I put a damper on his enthusiasm.  Maybe I'll lose some weight too keeping up with his schedule?  Enthusiasm can be catching.

Happy swimming (or barging).
 

New Year's outing

Tetsu and I went out onsen hunting yesterday and ended up a few hours away in a small hot spring facility.  Tetsu is the onsen connoisseur and I just go along and hope to find some place to read a book after a bath. 

"A brand new onsen!  What fun!"

We took off our shoes and put them in a locker.  We paid our fee (about $7 per person) and arranged to meet back in two hours at the resting/eating area.  Bye Tetsu.  See you in a couple hours.

In the changing room there were more lockers to hold clothing and lots of mirrors and amenities (face cream, hair treatment sprays etc.) to try out.  In the bathing area there were lots of faucets with individual showers and little stools to sit on while you wash.  A pretty typical onsen.  BUT look!

In honor of the New Years, the in-room bath was filled with floating apples!  There must have been a hundred apples bobbing in the hot water.  A slight fruity aroma in the air.

Outside, there were three more bathing areas and one bath hidden behind rocks and crags was filled roses!  Hmmm!  I felt like an egyptian princess or something with hundreds and hundreds of roses and rose petals of all colors drifting up to my shoulders and swirling around as I moved.  Every so often I'd pick up a rose and give it a sniff.  The white roses had the most fragrance.  The tight pink ones were the most beautiful.  I spent much longer in the bath than I usually do and went back and forth from apples to roses.  Too bad I couldn't take pictures (other guests you know...)

Here's a rose petal that I swiped on my way out.

After lunch and a nap for Tetsu we headed off to another destination arriving after dark.  Where are we going?

Even looking at the pictures can you tell what this is?  It is a waterfall that is slowly freezing in the winter.  It had been colorfully lit up for the holidays.  It was actually quite a tall waterfall but you sure can't tell from my pictures can you?

 Oh well.  Take my word for it.  It was frozen.

 And we were cold.

It sure is difficult to take nighttime pictures.  I don't understand the camera settings at all.  The deep blue color is partially because of the colored spotlights but still...

The visits to the onsen and the waterfall were very nice.  The photography leaves something to be desired...

Japanese calendars

I thought I'd explain a bit about Japanese calendars since we are beginning the new year.  The other day Tetsu's mother asked us to bring her a couple calendars as "you have more contacts than I do."  What she means is that more stores and services give us calendars as she doesn't get out and about.  And it's true, I had about 10 calendars from various organizations... the gas company, the car dealer, the vet, the insurance company, the pharmacist, the roofer... not to mention a beautiful Christian calendar that my friend Kaoru-san gave me.

Not only are Japanese calendars marked with the Japanese holidays they also have the good luck and bad luck days marked on them.  This is the most important information for Tetsu's mother.

"Oh dear... January has three bad luck days..."

So here is one of the calendars up on my wall.  Did you know that Japan has two ways of keeping track of dates?  This year is 2014 but the traditional way of counting off the years is by the emperor's reign.  The present emperor's era is called Heisei and he has reigned for 26 years, thus this year is also called Heisei 26.

This gets confusing (for me) because documents will ask for family member birth dates and I'll have to remember that I was born in the Showa Era year 30,  Takumi was born in Showa 60, but Leiya, four years later, was born in Heisei 1... because a new emperor had been crowned.  Is that confusing just for me?

Ask my mother-in-law when she was born and she'll say... Taisho 13.  This gives ME no information at all.. 

"Let's see... the Taisho emperor reigned for 15 years.  The Showa emperor reigned for 63 years...  And the Heisei emperor is in his 26th year... So Obaachan is...?

Wait, wait, I can compute this....  2 years were left in the Taisho reign.....  Plus 63 years of Showa... that's 65 years.  Plus 26 years of Heisei... that's 91.  But the first and last years of the eras overlap so that's minus some more years...Obaachan will be 90 years old this year."

"More or less." says Tetsu.

"More or less?"

"Because sometimes the years didn't overlap... I don't know why."

Just having this conversation with Tetsu for the last 10 minutes has proven to me that the traditional calendar system is confusing to Japanese too!

The only positive thing about the traditional calendar is that when I tell you I was born in Showa 30 most of my blog friends will have no idea how old I'll be this year.  So there!
 

New Year morning walk

It is already January 2nd in Japan... and Tetsu is off to work today.  Poor man.  He gets more vacation later this week.

Choco and I went looking for the sunrise early yesterday morning.  (Tetsu had stayed up late watching boxing on TV.  I went to bed at 9:30 as usual.  Such a party pooper.)  

While we were walking, Choco and I rescued a dog!  Well, the dog came racing across a street barking at us.  The street wasn't busy at 6:30 but there were a few cars out and the dog didn't seem very street-smart.  

"Hmm.  Do I know this dog?"

From the direction that the dog had come, we went back across the street and I accompanied the dog back to his yard.  (No fence.)

"He's just going to come back out in the street if I don't tie him up or wake up his family...  Is it too early to wake up his family?"

Instead I snuck around the house and into the back yard (no, in Japan there is no danger of getting shot at) and found the broken dog collar.

"Yep, this is the right house."

It took me awhile to lure the dog into his dog house and then I slammed the door and wrapped the leash around the door.  Locked the poor thing in his house!  (I went back later in the day to let the owners know why their dog had been mysteriously interred in the doghouse.  They later brought me dried persimmons.)  Yeah!  Saved a dog!  If it had been Choco I would have wanted someone to do the same...  Tetsu thought I should have woken the family up.

 Choco and I got to the rice fields just as the New Year's sun was peaking over the hilltops.

"Good morning, sun!  Happy New Year!"

 A cold, but beautiful New Year's morning.

Even the weeds were waiting for the morning warmth.

It's going to be a good year!