So that's how it works.

I mentioned before that I was going through some old photos from when I first came to Japan. While doing that, I came across pictures from a bit of a fiasco that my friend Marthe and I had. She and I had bought some egg molds and tried using them. Unfortunately we had no idea how to use them. At all. And my Japanese at that time was really bad, so we just guessed.  

We thought we needed to crack the egg open into the mold and then boil it. It seemed strange, but we couldn't come up with an other idea. There was no picture of the actual result, but Marthe's face said it all....

 Some years later, I came across molds again and with my developed Japanese reading skills, I decided to try again. (Let's be clear, my Japanese skills aren't amazing, but they were nearly non-existent when I first got here.)

 This time I boiled the egg, and after peeling the shell, I stuck it in the mold. Then I closed the mold and stuck it in the fridge. A little bit later, I went back, opened the mold, and...

 Success! 

Marthe, you should come back and try again now!

Biting off more than I can chew: Nerikiri

o I got the wild idea to make nerikiri and shiro-an from scratch as a thank you gift the other day. Word of wisdom for you - if you get this urge, punch yourself in the face. It'll be less trouble and less of a mess. Between mashing beans and cooking water out of the goo and then trying to roll it into some shape, you're going to be spending a few hours on this. YouTube and the internet in general was my teacher and it did as well as it could. But patience is not a strong suit. Neither is general dexterity of my hands. I ended up being able to watch three movies while I boiled, smashed, squeezed, and rolled my sticky mess. I'm not sure if it came out how it was supposed to. It came out as I expected. Acceptable but embarrassingly bad.

Now all that complaining aside,

• Did I have fun? Yes.
• Would I do it again? Not by myself. 
• Would I do it with friends or in a workshop? In a heartbeat. 
• Was it well received and appreciated? I think so. 
• Was it worth it? Definitely.

Sakura #3

 

Yay! Another yummy delight!










This time is was a simple castella cake piece. It was really sweet and reminded me of the Starbucks chiffon cake. But without the icing, of course. The texture was a bit buttery and less airy too. Given a choice, I'd go with chiffon cake, but this was great too.

Sakura delight #2

Well, like I said yesterday, it's the season of the sakura-flavored goods. Today I stopped by a shop that carried souvenirs from different areas in Japan and found 桜八つ橋(sakura yatsuhashi)! Yatsuhashi are the typical souvenir item from Kyoto. They come in all sorts of flavors - cinnamon, strawberry, chocolate and banana, etc. There's usually seasonal ones as well. When I visited Kyoto it was the fall so I found persimmon yatsuhashi then.

Anyway. These were sakura! Sakura and anko (sweet red bean paste) go really well together. The sakura flavor is subtle but noticeable. And in general, I like the texture of yatsuhashi, so I was a happy camper.

Yum!!

Sakura season has begun!

I love this season in Japan. There's so many delicious sakura-flavored snacks. It is one of my all time favorite things!

Today I went to Starbucks to meet with someone and they've started selling their sakura goods. They've got sweets and drinks. I want to pace myself a bit, so today I went with the sakura chiffon cafe. It is really sweet! The pink cake and white icing look great together. And the preserved sakura flower on top? Pure delight! I'm looking forward to next time for one of the drinks!