AVOCADO, my love.

A! VO! CA! DOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I love avocado sooooooooooo much and I think many people especially girls like it. Most avocados are raised in Mexico. Do you know that it is fruit? It’s not a vegetable! It contains about 16% of fat, but the most of the fat is unsaturated fatty acid, so we do not have worry about a high blood cholesterol level. It has a lot of Vitamin E. Hmm… I think we should enjoy eating it more and more.
So, how do you usually eat it? Many people in Japan eat it raw with soy sauce, right? Well, we should know varieties of how to eat avocado.


1. Slice of Raw Avocado with Soy Sauce



This is probably the most common way to eat avocado in Japan. The taste of avocado is quite similar to fatty tuna (Toro), and that is why people try to eat avocado in the same way as fatty tuna. We can call it “Sashimi of Avocado.”


2. Tempura of Avocado



Have you ever tried Tempura of Avocado? I have never tried it before. I heard that its feel in the mouth is like Tempura of potato. It sounds good, isn’t it?


3. Avocado Pizza



At many pizza restaurants and pizza delivery store, we can find such pizza. Some pizza have avocado on it, and others have avocado sauce on it. Both types are really tasty.


4. Avocado Salad



Recently we can find salad which has avocado at everywhere. The one I ate at a restaurant had lettuce, sliced cucumber and onion, tofu, tomato, shrimp and avocado. I really liked it.


5. Avocado Dip



I really like it and frequently make it. It just need small cut of onion, mayonnaise and a bit of chicken stock powder. We can make it just by mixing all the ingredients. Easy huh? We can dip cracker, boiled shrimp, vegetables… well, anything!


6. Avocado Hamburger



When I go to hamburger shop, I order it all the time. What I like about it is not only the taste, but also the voluminous appearance!


7. Bowl of Avocado Tuna and Rice



This is really good in summer. The weather is really hot and our appetite decreases, so the easiness of making and eating it helps a lot. I want this menu at cafeteria of my university!


8. Avocado Spaghetti



We can make creamy avocado sauce or can slice raw avocado and put it on the spaghetti with other food such as shrimp and mushroom. The taste is good whether it is cooked or raw.


9. California Roll



One day I ate it at a sushi bar, I was like “oh my god! This is so delicious!” and I started making it at home as well. Soy sauce and a bit of mayonnaise is a key to make it good.


10. Avocado Pancake



We just need to add cut avocado into the pancake dough. We can eat it as sweet pancake by eating with maple syrup and can eat it as salty one by eating with mayonnaise or some dressing. It’s going to be perfect for breakfast!


11. Avocado Shake



I drank it in Indonesia. It is popular there and the taste is sooooo wonderful! There is chocolate in it, but we can still enjoy the taste of avocado. That was the first time for me to try sweet taste avocado, and I did not find it strange. It was a perfect drink for girls who love avocado. I hope some coffee shop in Japan will have avocado shake.


12. Avocado Ice cream



I have never tried it! Do you think the taste is good? Avocado itself does not have a strong taste, so it’s a little bit hard for me to imagine what the taste is like. I am going to make it in this summer!


13. Avocado Pudding



What a healthy pudding! Its color reminds me of Green tea pudding. It must be creamy and of course yummy! But I have never found it anywhere. Can we buy it somewhere? Do we have to make it in order to eat?


14. Avocado Cookie



Instead of butter, we can use avocado to make cookies. It must be healthier than normal cookies which need butter. Good for people who want to lose weight! (It’s me! hehe…)


15. Avocado Cheese Cake



Oh My God! This is what I have never imagined! I thought that avocado can be used for dessert, but never thought that it could be cheese cake. So, it means, I should definitely try it! We should not forget that avocado is fruit. We can use it for any kind of dessert!


On the internet, we can find many recipes of Avocado meals. So please go and find your favorite one! → http://cookpad.com/category/1271


Enjoy your Avocado Days!

Interesting Table Manners

Do you know that there are more than 190 countries all over the world? Each country has its own culture and that’s why traveling and experiencing different cultures is so exciting. The time when I can easily experience different cultures is the moment I eat local food at local restaurants. The food itself, of course, is the interesting thing to experience, but there is another thing which I really really like to experience: table manners.
Each country has its own food culture and table manners or rules. Sometimes we get surprised by unique and unbelievable table manners of different food culture. That is so interesting! Taking this opportunity, I would like to introduce some interesting table manners of Japan, China and Korea by comparing other countries’ table manners.

1. Japan
We, Japanese people, usually use chopsticks. Foreigners who live in the countries where people don’t use chopsticks get struggled with using them, and they tend to think that Japanese people are clever to use such difficult sticks. In fact, Japanese people can use it but most of them can not use them perfectly or properly, and they do not know all the rules of using chopsticks. There are more than 30 things which we must not do with chopsticks. Let me tell you 4 of them this time. 1, Mayoi-bashi; don’t point one’s chopsticks at different morels on a serving plate before deciding which to take. 2, Neburi-bashi; Don’t lick one’s chopsticks while eating. 3, Kuwae-bashi; Don’t hold one’s chopsticks in one’s mouth while using the hands to do something else. 4, Seseri-bashi; Don’t poke around in a dish with one’s chopsticks. Can you say that you definitely do not do these above? Umm... I think I do some of them. So I should be careful!
When Japanese people eat noodles, we should better make sounds by slurping. By doing so, we can enjoy not only the taste but also the sound and the smell. This is Japanese unique manner because in most European countries people must not slurp when eating something such as soup.

2. Hong Kong / China
In many countries, tablecloth at restaurants should be kept clean, but in Hong Kong and China, people who eat make it dirty and messy by making stain. In Japan, doing so is regarded as a bad manner. In china, however, it is kind of good manner. In addition, Chinese people and Hong Konger do not eat everything they order and leave some amount of food on purpose. The idea is that if the plate still has food, it means they got great treatment and service so they are full with the service and can’t eat all. If they eat all and the plate has no food, it means they couldn’t get good service to make them full and satisfied. That is quite a shocking manner, isn’t it?

3. Korea
In Korea, people must not hold a bowl to eat rice. The bowl should be on the table. In Japan, sometimes we eat rice by holding a bowl in our hands, so Japanese people need to be careful about that manner in Korea. In addition, when Korean people drink, younger people should turn his body to the opposite direction to older people, and then younger people can drink. It is in order to show respect to older people from younger people by not showing the action that they drink directly to or in front of the older people. Korean people are really strict about vertical relationships, and that culture affects the table manners. It is said that Japan is also strict about vertical relationships and we should be polite especially to older people, but that idea does not have a big influence on table manners in Japan.

As you know, there are more rules of table manner in these countries, but I just introduced some of them. We should know a country’s table manner before we actually go to the country and eat, and we should know our country’s table manner a well. I will research more about table manner all around the world and I hope I can introduce more interesting manners soon!

Chinese Food in Indonesia

Hello~~! How are you doing? Are you hungry? So am I!!
What do you want to eat now? Japanese food? Italian? French? Spanish? Or Chinese? I think Chinese food became so popular and common in Japan and there are a lot of Chinese restaurants here. So, how about in other countries? Many countries including America, Canada and Japan have an area called “China Town”, and lots of Chinese people run Chinese restaurants all over the world. My parents live in Jakarta, Indonesia now and I visited them in January. I was so excited to eat Indonesian food especially Nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice) because I really really like it! I tried to go to local restaurants to experience local food, genuine taste and their quality and atmosphere. I enjoyed Indonesian food and it became one of my favorite foods, but the memorable fact I found there is… there were so many Chinese restaurants as if I felt I was in China! So my parents and I went to some Chinese restaurants 3 times a week. Then I found another interesting point, and that is they do not use pork at all! Indonesia is Islamic country, therefore most people do not eat pork. That religious feature has influence not only on Indonesian cuisine, but also on other cuisine in Indonesia. Of course, in China, they eat pork. For instance, xiao long bao (小籠包), sprig roll, meat stuffed green pepper, fried rice and many more have pork in them. But as I said Indonesian people don’t eat pork, so they use other meat such as chicken and beef instead.




I ate xiao long bao and which had chicken inside, not pork. That was the first time for me to eat xiao long bao without pork. The taste was really good and I think I don’t care if it is pork or chicken. Anyway, it tastes good.




Besides, I experienced another new xiao long bao, “a dessert xiao long bao”. That had red bean jam inside. In Hong Kong or main land of China, I have never found such a dessert xiao long bao, so I was not sure the taste would be good, but soon after I ate it I became a big fan of it! I think I am so lucky to know both taste: pork xiao long bao and chicken xiao long bao, and the new taste of dessert xiao long bao as well.
I can try all of the foods all around the world because I have no religious believe or rules, but there are so many people who do not eat certain foods which I normally eat because of religion. That is a little bit weird, but interesting! And I can definitely say that we can experience unique version of some cuisine in different countries like I experience different types of xiao long bao in Indonesia, not in China.

Special and Original Gift

When we celebrate something or someone, we usually eat cake, right? Birthday, wedding, graduation… We cerebrate important days with cake. Compared to the past, nowadays the quality of the taste and appearance of cake is really high.
“Cerebrating something with eating cake” is the thing everyone does, so it is a normal thing to do. I am the person who likes unique, original and special things, so I try to do what others don’t do as much as I can. But I like cake and I definitely need cake when I cerebrate. But, again, it’s too normal. So, what I always try to do is to make cake itself so special and original.
Two years ago, I made a birthday cake for one of my best friends.



That was the first time for me to make birthday cake for a friend and I really wanted to make her happy so I decided to try to make one-and-only decorated cake. I had never made such cake before, so that was the first time to make it. It was more difficult than I expected to make flowers and leaves with butter cream, but it seems quite good, isn’t it? It took me about 3 hours to complete it and it was hard to keep making difficult flowers, but I imagined her smile and I could make it with lots of love.
We can give a special memory to special person with special cake. That is the best point of cerebrating with decorated cake.

“Giving something to someone with a great love.” That is a present. So, we can call meals or dishes “presents” because we cook for someone with love. Now you should realize an important thing. We have received such a wonderful present almost three times a day and almost everyday from our parents or grand parents. Wow… Isn’t that great? Well, mother’s day is coming this weekend. Maybe some of you already prepared some gifts. Buying a present is nice, but I think making a present is more meaningful. So why don’t you cook dinner or cake for your mother? That is going to be a special and original present and your mother will love it! And don’t forget to say THANK YOU with big smile!