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!

No Reservations

There is a wonderful movie I want to introduce to you. The title is No Reservations.



Kate, the main character of this movie, is a chef of a restaurant in NY. She has confidence about what she cooks.



One day, her sister Christine and her niece Zoe (an elementary school student) were supposed to visit Kate, but they were in a car accident and only Zoe survived. Zoe does not have a father, so Kate starts taking care of her niece at Kate’s house.
After the sad incident happened, Kate’s boss at her restaurant orders her to take a week off, and her boss hires a sous-chef Nicholas during that week without letting Kate know. When Kate finds out that Nicholas was hired, she gets angry. She worked so hard to get that position, so she feels he takes that position away from her, and he might even take the restaurant away from her, too. She is not happy about the decision which her boss made.



In addition to such situation at the restaurant, Kate has another problem, which is about Zoe. Zoe does not open her heart to Kate and does not try to eat anything at all even though Kate always cooks elaborate meals for Zoe.



One night, Kate takes Zoe to her restaurant. Of course, Kate has to work as a chef, but she still has worries about Zoe’s appetite. Nicholas is like an enemy against Kate, but thanks to his cheerful character Zoe opens her heart to Nicholas and finally she eats pasta which Nicholas made.





With this as a start, relationship between Kate and Zoe and relationship between Kate and Nicholas becomes closer and closer…


I want you to watch this movie, so I do not tell you how the story ends. But before you watch it you should know that you can enjoy each person’s character, relationship between different people, and their life. And also, you can enjoy food which looks so delicious in many scenes.


From this movie, I learned 2 big things.

First one is that children like simple, home-made, mothers’ meals instead of meals whose appearance and taste is complicated or elaborate.



Kate is good at cooking so she cooks complicated and elaborate meals for Zoe. But Zoe is still mentally unstable and she is not familiar with such meals, so she does not eat meals cooked by Kate at all. But , Zoe eats simple pasta which is cooked by Nicholas. That scene tells us that when we feed children (especially children who have some problems with their appetite), we should care more about the taste they are familiar.


Another thing I learned is that people can enjoy food not only by eating but also by cooking.



There is a scene Nicholas and Zoe cook. They make pizza and pancakes together. I think that is the first time for Zoe to make pizza, so it must be a good experience for her. She usually is served delicious meals from adults such as Kate and Nicholas, but in that scene she herself enjoys cooking and she serves what she makes to others. That is amazing! As I said, we can and should enjoy food not only by eating but also by cooking.


Before I go, let me introduce good lines which I really like from a conversation between Kate and a therapist in this movie.

Kate: I wish there was a cookbook for life, you know? With the recipes telling us exactly what to do. I know. I know. You’re gonna say, “How else can we learn, Kate?”
Therapist: No. Actually, I wasn’t gonna say that. You wanna guess again?
Kate: Oh, no, go ahead.
Therapist: What I was gonna say was you know better than anyone. It’s the recipes you create yourself that are the best.


Enjoy the movie!


See you:)


Trailer → http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-5RJTf0-Jk

Official site → http://noreservationsmovie.warnerbros.com/

Watch and Eat at Movie Theaters

Do you usually go to a theater to watch movies, or do you usually rent DVDs and watch them at your house? It is needless to say that the biggest difference between a theater and a house is atmosphere. Some of my friends prefer a theater to a house because they can enjoy movies with big-screen impact and can enjoy stories with peculiar and distinctive tense atmosphere. I can understand their opinion. However, I usually choose my house instead of a theater. The reason why is not about the cost or the atmosphere. What I really care about to choose is what I can EAT while watching movies.





At a theater, we should keep good manners in order not to disturb others. For example, we should not talk in a loud voice, should turn off our cell phone, should sit properly and so on. Even though you keep good manners like that, sometimes you disturb others with… FOOD you eat while watching movies. Potato chips? Rice clackers? Cookies? Oh God! If you are at a theater, these are not good because it’s noisy! Let’s think about the food sold at a theater. There are popcorn, churros, hotdogs, fried potatoes… These are the food which does not make noise when we eat. So, we just have to care about noise when we choose food? No way! SMELL also can disturb people. What if people next to you start eating a curry doughnut? It does not make noise, but it has strong smell so you would notice the smell and you could not focus on the movie for a moment. You might be upset, huh? So we have to care not only about noise but also smell when we choose and bring food to a theater.
By the way, I said I prefer my house to a theater. When I watch movies at my house, I do not have to care about others. In other words I do not have to care about the noise or the smell of what I eat. I want to eat what I want to eat even when I watch movies, so I choose my house.


To tell the truth, I want theaters to make more choices of food which is not noisy and does not have strong smell. I always find popcorn and hotdog, but I got bored with them! Food which is not noisy and which does not have strong smell… and it must be easy one to eat, such as food we can eat with one hand. Also, it must be the food which tastes good even if the heat is gone because movies need about two hours to end. Marshmallows are good. Small balls of doughnuts might be good. Gummi candy is also good. What about salty food? It’s a little bit hard to find a good one. But, as I said, not everything is acceptable. We have to consider "manners." What do you think is good? I want you to find good one for me. Well, it’s gonna be good not only for me but also people all over the world (including you, of course!). So if you have any good ideas, please let me know! And I hope some people who work at movie theaters read this blog and make new menu for us!!

What I really want is you, FOOD SAVER!!!!!!!

There is one thing which I really really reeeaaaaalllllyyyyyyy want.

FOOD SAVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I saw TV commercial about Food Saver at mid night. Since that night, I can not forget about it and I am crazy in love with it. OH MY GOD!!! I want it so bad!!!!!

It has many good points and we can use it in many ways. I want you to know them and want to let you buy it for me! haha!



Food Saver is a vacuum pack. We can vacuumize any kind of food with it. Meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, snacks, and even soup and stewed food is ok!
Food Saver can keep food fresh for longer time. For example, it keeps vegetables fresh five times as longer as normal plastic wrap. In case of meet, we can keep it for three years, and fish can be kept for two years by using vacuum packing. We can use that advantage very effectively.
Students or workers are really busy. If they live by them selves it’s gonna be busier because of housework. Cooking needs time, and shopping at grocery stores needs more time. So, if they can save time for shopping and cooking, it’s better, right? Well, Food Saver can help them! Even though they buy lots of food at once, Food Saver can keep food fresh for longer time, so they do not have to worry about food safety. Therefore, they can spend their important time for shopping for less time or fewer days.
Busy people don’t want to spend much time for cooking, but they need healthy meal, right? If they can cook a lot at once and can keep it for a long time, it’s convenient, isn’t it? Food Saver’s advantage makes it comes true!
Besides, if a certain food is much cheaper than usual, people want to buy it a lot to save money, but it is possible that some amount of the food become bad before they actually eat. So when people hoard food, they can use Food Saver to keep it in good condition.
Wow! It seems that Food Saver saves not only food, but also our time and money!



Keeping food fresh for longer time is wonderful, but that is not the only thing Food Saver can do. It can cook, too! When we make marinated food, we need time. But Food Saver need short time to make delicious marinated food. Vacuum packing makes food easier to permeate in marinade.
In addition, we can use it for boiling or heating up food. So if we keep cooked meal or leftovers with Food Saver, we do not have to put the food out of Food Saver. We can heat vacuum-packed food by using microwave. When we boil vacuum-packed food, we do not have to waste the food’s nutrition or flavor. So it leads us to have more delicious and healthier meals. It is safe because it is made from heatproof material! Yay!



Not only people who cook at home, but also chefs at restaurants use it. It means, chefs who are really responsible for food safety and good taste use it. That fact tells you that it really helps and you can rely on it.



Now you know why I am so crazy in love with Food Saver!
Do you remember the purpose I talked about it? I did not try to make you like it. I tried to make you BUY IT FOR ME!!!!!! Please please please pleeeeaaaaaase buy it for me! If you do that, I will cook delicious food for you by using it!





More information:
http://www.shopjapan.jp/disp/CSfLastGenGoodsPage_001.jsp?GOODS_NO=77067

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee...

I am sooooooo sleepy now because I did not sleep last night. I did not feel sleepy at all. Why not? Well, I woke up at around 10 o’clock, and did not take a nap whole day, so I must feel sleepy at night, right? But I didn’t. Hmm… what did I do?
Ah! I drank a cup of coffee at 10 p.m., so it might be the cause! But almost every night I drink coffee and the kind and amount of coffee I took last night was the same as usual. So… Isn’t coffee the cause?
By the way, does coffee really make us awake? What kind of advantages and disadvantages does it actually have? Is it good for our health or not? Wow. It seems that I have many questions about coffee and I do not have good knowledge about coffee at all! I think I should learn about coffee. Don’t you think so?
I like coffee, but the image I have about coffee is not so good, actually. So I want to know mainly about the advantages of drinking coffee.

According to the site, http://ajca.or.jp/health/index.html, coffee has great advantages to keep our body healthy.

1. Hangover
It’s good for us to drink a cup of coffee when we have a hangover. The cause of the headache when we have a hangover is caused by “acetaldehyde”. In order to recover from the headache, we must get acetaldehyde out of our body and must make blood circulates well through brain. Caffeine helps us to do that! (You know that coffee contains caffeine if it’s not decaf.) So we should drink coffee after having a drinking party with friends!!

2. Diet
Human being has two autonomic nerves, and one of them is called the sympathetic nerve. That nerve controls our appetite and helps fat to be vanished. Coffee helps the sympathetic nerve to function actively, and then it leads to have a rapid metabolism (代謝). In short, coffee helps us to digest fat, so if you care about the weight you can drink coffee!

3. In the morning
Many people drink a cup of coffee in the morning. Maybe you drink it in the morning? So, do you know why it is said that having coffee in the morning is good? In fact, a cup of coffee can make good blood circulate. When the circulation is really smooth, the energy goes well through our body and we can move actively. However, if you have coffee and do not eat anything, coffee can give damage to your stomach by activating the secretion of gastric juices. So please be careful.

4. Diabetes
Diabetes is one of a serious disease. Well, I have good news for you. Coffee can prevent us from diabetes! According to the study in Finland, the people who drank 3 ~ 4 cups of coffee a day have lower percentages of having diabetes. (Women is 29% lower and men is 27% lower.) Besides, women and men who drank 10 cups of coffee a day have 79% and 55% lower possibility to have that disease. By the way, Diabetes occurs when body can’t change sugar into energy properly or smoothly. It is said that chlorogenic acid which coffee contains can avoid this phenomena.

5. Cancer
Peroxidized lipid is the cause of cancer and aging or senility. Coffee has antioxidation effect, so it is said coffee may prevent cancer.


Wow! Coffee actually is good for our health! But we have to think about the good amount to take it. Too much is not so healthy, so maybe 3 cups a day is good.
I hope you can spend healthier days with coffee!

Ciao!


(The information is from http://ajca.or.jp/health/index.html)

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!