Yummy Books, Yummy Memories

Frankly speaking, I really don’t like reading books. I am not good at it. Many letters make me feel sleepy or I get bored soon after I start reading. So I think I don’t have any good memory of reading books. But what I don’t like is just reading. It means, I do like a book itself. I just don’t want to read it, but I like to see pictures in it or a cover of it. Sometimes I buy a book because I like the appearance and the atmosphere of it. So, as you can tell, I like a book itself. For me, a book is not a thing to read. It is a thing to see.
When I was a little girl, I, of course, did not like reading. But I had many favorite books. Now I think back and I realize that all of my favorite books were about food or something related to food. Wow! I guess I was always thinking about food… LOL

But as I told you, I only enjoy seeing pictures, so I don’t remember anything about the stories of these favorite books. (That’s funny!) But! But! Buuuuttttttt!!!!!!! Thanks to my character (hate reading), I paid huge attention to pictures of these books (although other kids paid great attention to the contents), and I really do remember about the pictures of them. …? No. I lied. What I really have to say is that I do remember the foods of them! (aaahhhhh…. It’s ok to call me a crazy food monster!!!!!!! HAHAHA!!!!!!!)

I want to introduce three most amazing books (and foods) which I liked so much in my childhood.



★からすのパンやさん / Mr. Crow’s Bakery



The story is about the bakery which is run by crows. The family of the bakery got four baby crows and they bring new ideas which make the bakery more popular in the end.
The reason why I really really like this book is found in the pages which have more than 80 pictures of bread!



Each one is quite small, but it’s so cute! The crows make many types of bread whose shapes are animals such as cat, elephant, duck, panda, pig, fox and so on. In addition, they make many types of food-shaped bread such as strawberry, pineapple, banana, pumpkin, mushroom, Japanese chestnut and others. All of them look nice, but sometimes I can find weird bread which makes me wonder why the crows chose that bread to make. For example, cup, cactus, toothbrush, and rice cooker. Why? Why did they choose these to make? What made them to make such bread? Are they cute? I have never found such weird bread in a real life! Have you? Well actually that is the point which makes this book interesting. In this book, we can enjoy the bread which we can not enjoy in a real life. This book is translated in English, so everyone can read (or just see like I do) it! I strongly recommend this book not only to children but also adults!
I found another interesting book which is related to Mr. Crow’s Bakery. The title is Let's make the bread of Mr. Crow's Bakery.





The book introduces how to bake bread which is shown in the book Mr. Crow’s Bakery. All the bread look so delicious and I can imagine that they smell good! I want this book, too! And I want to try to make some of them. Maybe…rice cooker? LOL



★11ぴきのねことあほうどり / Eleven Cats and Albatrosses



Eleven cats open a croquette shop. Gradually, they get bored of eating the leftovers of croquette everyday and they start thinking about eating different food: a roasted chicken. Then, an albatross appears…
It seems that the story unfolds excitingly (as you know, I do not remember!), but the most impressive thing in the book is, the food: croquette!!!!



We can see so many croquettes in this book. Eleven cats make them for eleven albatrosses, so the amount is… huge! Every time I saw the pictures of them I felt hungry and wanted to eat them all in my childhood. Nowadays, I feel different differently. Recently I cook not only for me but also for other family members, so I know both joy and difficulty of cooking. Besides, I actually made a great amount of it (like more than 30 croquettes) with 8 big-sized potatoes last Saturday. It got bored and tired of making it when I finished making about 15 croquettes, and I looked into the bowl and found that the bowl still had big amount of potato. In the end I finished making, and I felt like I was done with croquette and I’ll never make croquette! So, what I want to say now is that I can understand the cats’ feeling!



They must feel pain or tiredness of making it! But it’s their business and they have to do the same boring thing again and again everyday. It is interesting that the point I used to pay attention to was just croquette or it’s deliciousness, but now I care about the cats’ situation and I feel empathy with them. Oh… this book makes me realize that I grew up. What a wonderful book!!



★しろくまちゃんのほっとけーき / Pancakes of Little White Bear



A little white bear makes pancakes with his mother. As you can guess from the title, the bear is a young, little boy bear, so he makes them making little troubles like dropping and breaking eggs and spilling dough. After all he and his mother make pancakes which are look delicious.



Children’s making pancakes with their mom is just as everyday event and the story seems not so special. So, why do I remember this book still now? Why did I (and do I) like this book so much? I think I know the answer. The book use bright and vivid colors and the pictures are so clear to see. Therefore the pictures can easily stay in my head. In addition, there is another factor which makes me remember and like this book.



Look at the pages! These two pages tell us how to make pancakes and the steps the dough becomes pancakes. Simple explanation, simple shapes, simple drawings, simple colors… everything is so simple. But, as you can see, all the simple things perfectly show how pancakes are made. It is so easy to understand and, actually, these pages are really cute, aren’t they? They make me want to look at them forever! One day, if I get children, I want to make pancakes with them. At that time, this book can help me to tell how to make pancakes and help children to know how exciting making pancakes is.


In addition to these above, I have more books which I want to introduce. If you want to enjoy more, please check out…


★おだんごぱん / The Rolling Pancake




★ぐりとぐら / Guri and Gura




★はらぺこあおむし / The Very Hungry Catapillar




★おさるのジョージチョコレートこうじょうへいく / Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory




★こまったさんのスパゲティ / Komatta-san’s Spaghetti




★わかったさんのアイスクリーム / Wakatta-san’s Ice Cream




To you, reading my blog, I have extra news which is really good!
There are the books which introduce recipes of the meals which are found in picture books including the books which I introduced in this blog.


☆絵本からうまれたおいしいレシピ(１～３) / Delicious Recipes from Picture Books







In this book, people actually try recipes out and make meals which appear in picture books. They show what the meals are like in real life. Good idea, huh? I want thank people who put such a brilliant plan into practice! And I think I have to buy all the series of this book right away!



Do you have any good picture books which are related to food? Do you have good memories with such books? If you say yes, please let me know the title and give me a chance to enjoy it!

Chinese Hot Pot

Have you ever heard the phrase “Chinese Hot Pot”? Do you know what it is?
I am working at a Chinese Hot Pot restaurant in Shinjuku, and today I’m going to talk about Hot Pot and hope you get knowledge about it before you would eat it in the near future (I hope lol).




Chinese Hot Pot is, as it is called, the meal from China. Some people say the origin is from Mongolia, but now it is famous for Chinese cuisine. Hot Pot is like a Japanese Nabemono such as Shabu Shabu, and its original characteristic is found in the pot and the soup.



They use a metal pot which has two partitions, and they can enjoy two types of soup: Baitang and Mala. Baitang is white, mild soup which is made by stewing pig bones, sea foods and so on. Mala is red, spicy and numbing soup which has red chili peppers and Japanese pepper (山椒) in it.

We can enjoy any kind of ingredient to put in.



The main ingredient is sliced meat such as lamb, beef, chicken and pork.



Chinese people especially like lamb because it has low calories. They like meat balls including lamb balls, beef balls, pork balls and chicken balls as well. In addition, we can put in many kind of seafood such as shrimp, squid, sliced fish, shark fin (フカヒレ) or even we can enjoy shrimp balls and squid balls.



Of course, we can put many vegetables: cabbage, lettuce, pumpkin, potato, sweet potato, yam, spring onion, bean sprout, Chinese radish (daikon), spinach, wax gourd, bok choy (青梗菜), coriander, Chinese mushroom, Chinese hackberry (enoki), cellophane noodles and so on. We also can enjoy dumplings, tofu, tofu skin (湯葉) and frozen tofu. People usually eat noodle such as Chinese noodle, egg noodle or even instant noodle. In Japan, people make rice gruel (雑炊) with white soup.


It seems that Japanese people like to eat nabemono in winter. However, Chinese people eat hot pot in all seasons whether it is hot or cold. Chinese people say that it is good to eat hot pot especially in summer because we can get power and stamina to overcome hot summer. We can eat any kind of food including meat, seafood, vegetables and noodles. It means that we can get great variety of nutrition by eating hot pot. Soup itself also has good nutrition, so hot pot has many advantages!



Hot pot is really tasty and it is really good for our health. If you want to be healthier through eating food, you definitely should eat hot pot. And if you want to eat it in Japan, you must come to the hot pot restaurant where I work for! Everybody! Come to my restaurant! I will entertain you with Chinese hot pot!