Japan Hit by the 4th biggest earthquak

Haven't updated for a while.....

I got the news about Earthquake in Japan by my husband morning on 3/11, who heard about it from his friend.

Fortunately my family members and friends live in Tokyo and Osaka, my relatives in Nagasaki, so I had no problem reaching them and knew there was nothing happened to them.

They said they had an quite big shake in Tokyo, too, some stuff fell off and clashed, but no one injured.

Because of the damage to the nuclear plant, Japanese Government started to stop electricity supply 3 hours a day, ( in some area twice a day), and basic groceries like rice, bread, and diapers for babies, papers, batteries have been sold out at most of stores.

As a Japanese living abroad, I'm very grateful that so many countries reached out to us, in so many ways. We've got a help like rescues, supplies from USA, China, England, Germany, South Korea,Australia, New Zealand, Venezuera(my ex-roommate's home country), and so on.

Also, it was a great surprise that Chinese people gave us so many cheers and kind words in their blog or twitter. Although we have still very difficult conflict, when something very difficult like this disaster happen, we can see that they are humans with no difference from us, and we can always care for each others to make our world better.

Here is the blog I thought a bit funny, and also cheered me up a lot :)
I think it was written by a chinese.

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/dongyingwenren/e/07dab7482e2a4660db3cbf3aae50be8a

 (I tried to paste pics themselves here, but got error. please access to the page for actual pics. Below is the explanation for them)


Pic 1, Japan was hit by M9 Earthquake.
Pic 2, Who imagined they will see the view of people as polite as this in front of public phone booth?
Pic 3, Transportation stopped. While waiting in front of gate to subway, no one scream, no mess.
Pic 4, People behave in order. No one behave selfishly.
Pic 5, Schools are used as shelters.
Pic 6, Women and children get help first.
Pic7, Becuase of transportation trouble, people walk (some did for more than 3hours) to go home to see their family. (Do they look like refugees?)


Japan certainly has many problem, still I'm proud of Japanese people's virtue :)
Wish people in Tohoku will be saved as many as possible.......

Shopping Penguin!

In Japan, we have this old good custom to send kids, (even at age 5-10) to grocery shop to shopos in neighborhood.
Neighborhood is completely safe, owner of the shops knows which kids is from which family, kids learn how to walk on the road safely, how much it costs to buy only one vegetable and help parents.

Well, it's not only kids who go shopping, but sometimes even dogs hold an baskets and go to stores!!

But this is completely new! Look at this penguin! Such a clever animal!!!
He is completly one of the family members :)

Verizon Wireless & Apple Team Up to Deliver iPhone 4 on Verizon

i phone 4 from Verizon!!!

Verizon Verizon Wireless & Apple Team Up to Deliver iPhone 4 on Verizon

Personally I was expected that T-Mobile would start service with iPhone and offer competitive monthly fee.
Also it's convenient for me if T-Mobile would do that, because I can use the phone when i go back to Japan temporally as roaming with strongest network in Japan, NTT docomo.

This is a big news, though!
Wonder if they will sell iPhone white, too?????

Happy New Year!! 明けましておめでとうございます :)

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Hope you all had a great holidays!

It's my first new year's days in Philadelphia.

In Japan, we have words "San ga nichi", meaning 3 days of New Year, and the first 3 days of new year are holidays. Atomosphere there is like Thanks Giving in America. Family members get together, eat, eat and eat......!

As the first Japanese recipe, I introduce you Japanese New Year's Eve tradition.

Do you know Soba noodle??

It seems quite popular, at least in New York, where I'd lived for about 1year and a half. You can see it used for salad, or they even have a restaurant featuring soba.

For Japanese people, soba is always the symbol for New Year's Eve.

We have this tradition to eat it as dinner on the day, watching special TV program.

Why??? Some says it's to wish live modest and long, because of the shape of soba noodle.

My mom always make it cold, with tenpura.
So here is my family's traditional recipe!

Soba Noodle with Tenpura
What you need
For Soba

• soba noodle
• mentsuyu broth

*you can get one at japanese foo market. it's sauce made from soy, bonito broth, slightly sweetened)

For Tempura

• Shrimp
• Any kind of vegetable you think is good!

*I use Lotus root, chinese egg plant(thinner than Italian), sweet potato, shiitake mushroom, oyster mushroom.Perhaps it's dificult to find them at regular grocery store, but if you go to china town, you can find them at very reasonable price.

*In Japanese cooking, we value the seasonal food very much. For example, root veges are good for winter time to warm up your body, for summer veges like zucchini,egg plant, tomato, cucumber are good to keep your body cool down.

For Tempura Coating

• flour.....1cup
•  cold water.....a bit less than 200cc
•  baking powdre....2 teaspoons
•  egg......2
•  ice cube.....2

For Garnish

• Grinded Japanese radish, ginger.
• Chopped scallion.

*Sesame seed, pickled plum, Nori(seaweed sheet you see at sushi bar) are also good.

1, Prepare veges and shrimp for tempura.

   sweet potato, lotus root.......For lotus loot, peel off the skin.

                                              Cut both in round slices of 1/3".

   egg plant.....cut off the stem, then cut lengthways in 4.

                      soak in water for 5 min to get rid off bitterness

   mushrooms.....cut off stem. for oyster mushroom,

                         slice in 1/3" lengthways.

   shrimp.....peel off head and shell except tail.wash well.

                  cut in halfway on belly side to prevent it curl

2, Prepare tempura coating .
   Shit flour and baking powder into bowl. Add egg, water and ice cube, mix with chopstick.
 *Don't mix too much, leave it a bit powdery. If you mix too much, it won't e crispy.

3, Deep fry. Heat oil to around 340. To check tempurature, drop one small drip of coating in the oil, if it won't sink to the bottom, but floating up with bubble, it's ready to go.

Coat veges with coating and gently drop into oil. When they become golden with smaller bubbles, take them out off oil, leave on net to drain surplus oil. For Shrimp heat oil up to 350 and deep-fry.

4, Cook Soba.

Boil pod full of water and add soba noodle. For boiling minutes, follow the instruction of the package, but normally 3mins-5mins. Drain boiling water with a colander, then wash with cold water(you can even put ice cube to give it a better texture).

Now it's ready to eat! Serve broth in a small soup ball, add garnish as you like, dip soba and tempura in it :)

For Tempura, simply salt is also good.

Itadaki masu!!(Bon Appetite!!)

   

New Year's Recipe

Hello from Philly! We had snow early this morning but now the sun is shining.

In Japan, Jan 7 is called "New Year's Day for Women"
In older time around New Year's Days, we had the custom to visit house of your relatives, friends, bosses, or professors. So women had to work to welcome them with gorgeous dinner even during new year's holidays. Around 7th of January, men started working and not around house during daytime, so finally it was the time for women to rest and enjoy relaxing holiday.

Today I introduce you "Zouni", a japanese soup we eat at New year's.
What interesting about this dish is every family has quite different recipe depend on their roots.
My family is from Nagasaki prefecture, and we use so many winter veges, chicken, yellowtail, and toasted mochi(rice cake) with shiitake mushroom broth.
But in Tokyo prefecture where i was grown up, it's normally made with chicken, mitsuba harb, mochi with soy broth, and in Kyoto prefecture they use only mochi and mitsuba harb with white miso paste.

So it's always been interesting for me to visit friends house and had this dish.

Zouni Soup
Ingredients
For Topping
chicken thigh boneless....2 pieces per person
satoimo(Japanese taro potato)......2 pieces per person, peel and wash with water
burdock......2 pieces per person, peel the skin, wash well, then cut in the shape of stick
japanese radish.......one slice per person, peel and cut in round slices
carrot.....2-3 pieces per person, peel and cut
napa cabbage....2-3 pieces per person, cut in moderate size
dried shiitake mushroom.....at least 4 at total, soak in 8 cups of water in a bowl for one night.
                                         Keep the water for broth. Cut off the stem of shiitake.
mochi(rice cake)......1 piece per person.
                               (this could be difficult to get, but you can find at japanese grocery store)

For Broth
shiitake broth you made
Japanese Sake(ginjo)......1 cup
salt......2 table spoon
*adjust as you like

1.Boil water in a pot, add salt.(1/2 cup of salt per 1L(35 fluid Oz).
2. Add chicken in the pot, then satoimo and burdock.Skim the scum, then add carots and radish. Keep skiming the scum.
3. Prepare broth. Pour the broth and shiitake in another pot. Boil the broth, skim the scam until it become clear.
4.  Add Soy sauce, sake and salt. Try the tase and adjust as you like.
5. Add nappa cabage in the pot of veges
5. Toast mochi in a toaster at 300F. When it expand and become slightly golden, turn off the toaster.
6. In a soup bowl, put a slice of radish in the bottom.
7. Put mochi on the radish, then other veges including shiitake mushroom and chicken.
8. Pour broth in the bowl.

Itadakimasu!!(Bon Appetite!!)

This dish is not so complecated, but you can experience the real taste of Japanese broth.
Some ingredients are not sold at regular american grocery store, but if you go to Japanese or Chinese store you can find everything you need.
The veges used in this dish are winter veges. They are full of vitamins and minerals, warm your body up.

Please try :)

Happy New Year 2011!

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope you had a great holiday season.
For me, it was the first New Year's holiday in Philadelphia. Stayed at home, watched Manmmer's Parade, relaxed.
In Japan, we have a word "san-ga-nichi", meaning the first 3 days of January. It's complete holidays for most of japanese employee, companies are closed, no one work ecxept retails such as department store or franchise restaurant.

And tomorrow, 4th of January is the day we start working for new year.
For me, too. I start something to make 2011 better :)

My disolution 2011
Save 50K
Get a driver's license in USA
Go back to Japan to see my family and friends(haven't been there for almost 2 years :(....)