Me - some thoughts on food and life

My new site is up

2010-09-13T16:36:00.000+01:00

I have moved to hiromistone.com. Here you can find my blog, cooking classes and translation info all in one place. I would love your feedback. Come visit me and leave me comments.

Recharging batteries

2010-07-31T20:46:00.000+01:00

Every year, my family meets up in Hawaii. We have been getting together like this probably for the better part of 20 years. My kids have gotten to know their cousins even though we have never lived close by. My parents get to see all the grand kids at the same time and I get to spend time in a place I love. I have also had the pleasure of seeing my nephews grow up into thoughtful, funny people who are also great athletes.

When I was younger and the kids were little, the entire vacation was spent "doing". We'd have activities for the kids, pool, beach, museum, something to keep them occupied as well as the futile attempts to get them to nap. My parents were younger too so came with us on a lot of the outings. Then everyone got a little older and the pace slowed, there was less activity, kids wanted to sleep all the time and my parents wanted to sit more.

I think this year, we may have entered a new phase. The kids are grown ups now, capable of doing things on their own and familiar enough with the city that I don't worry. Their cousin drives too, which adds a whole new dimension to their activity.

For me, it's been a welcome change from the extremely hectic life I lead at home. There's nothing to do but hang out and enjoy my family. Of course it is a multi generational family vacation, there are tensions and a fair amount of negotiating and coordinating before things happen, but I think our days of getting together like this are numbered as the children begin their lives away from us and my parents become less mobile.

So I grab a little me time before anyone wakes up and go walking on the beach. Then the rest of the day unfolds in a leisurely fashion, where does the time go? Before you know it, it will be time to go home and resume my life. I hope to remember with gratitude the warmth, fun and aggravation that is my family.

Teething pains

2010-07-19T18:43:00.001+01:00

I have been wanting to consolidate my cooking and blogging under one roof for awhile now. It was also recommended that I buy my own domain and pay for hosting. That was the easy part. So now what? I managed to get my posts moved over, come up with some tabs, decided there should be a tab on translating as long as I'm at it, then the problems started. It turns out that if you have a non methodical mind, these things are very hard to comprehend, let alone navigate. Who said this blogging software was easy and anyone could do it? I couldn't figure out how to add photos, I could upload them, but the same stupid tree that came with the template just wouldn't leave. And that was just the beginning.

So I decided that I'm going to have to bite the bullet and pay someone. Now for those of you who've read my Scammed Again post know that paying people online has not worked out that well for me lately. So an anxious few days ensued when I realized that I was going to have to pay this so far very reasonable and friendly person my internet budget. It seems to have worked out, and I think we are on our way.

What this whole exercise has made me realize is that I am heading towards branding myself. Now, I've heard all that talk about personal branding and I always thought it was hooey. But, now it is starting to make sense to bring all the different things together under one label. Maybe there should be a tab for Dress for Success? I have volunteered there for 4 years and it is very much a part of my life. While I don't think that I need to share my entire life with the internet world, maybe there's information that I can share which would be of actual interest to people.

I'm planning to give it some thought over my holiday and hopefully come up with some decent content. I need to work out a schedule for my autumn classes and maybe even do a bit of marketing.

My next post will probably be about what a relaxing time I'm having. Fingers crossed.

Oh, by the way, I just signed up to participate in the second Underground Gourmet farmer's market. in September. I will be doing a demonstration and potentially selling some stuff. I think I took a monumental step doing this, but as with most of my decisions, I didn't think that much about it, it felt right. So I hope everything comes together, I'm not sure I have any time to be lounging around on the beach.

A great weekend

2010-07-13T21:56:00.000+01:00

The kids and I went to Prague to visit hubby last weekend. He's been there for about a month now, lured by an interesting new job and a chance to live in a new city, and I thought I was the one with the wanderlust. I've stayed behind in London and so began our commuting marriage. With a daughter at uni and a son just graduated high school, I feel like our days of family trips are numbered. And so it was that the four of us had a wonderful weekend in the blazing heat of Prague, exploring and discovering a new place together.

We walked 10km on Saturday, just seeing the sights. Prague is a small enough city so that it is easy to get around on foot in the touristy parts. We climbed the 208 steps up to Prague castle, toured the cathedral and bought the most expensive bottles of water ever. I took some arty shots of the cathedral, here is one.

No holiday for us is complete without lots of eating, and this was no exception. We tried local Czech cuisine, a little hearty in 30 degree heat but still great, Chinese, Italian and even Mexican (I opted to sleep and skipped that expedition).

But mostly we enjoyed spending time with each other. I am so proud of my kids, how they noticed and appreciated the gorgeous architecture, the enthusiasm they showed for getting to know a new city and the ability to embrace new experiences. They have matured into thoughtful interesting young people and I love knowing them. Okay, enough mom gushing, I'll talk about something else now.

All too soon, we were back at the airport, saying good bye to hubby/dad. We'll all be together again in 2 weeks time, in a different city.

Beginnings and endings

2010-07-06T17:24:00.000+01:00

Looking back on the first half of this year (okay, it's a little over half) I've noticed that this year has been full of beginnings and endings. I thought I would recap some of them to see if I can see a pattern.

Hubby took a job in another country, thus ending a period of self employment. It is also the beginning of a commuting marriage although so far he's doing most of the commuting. It is only a 1 hour time difference but still makes communicating a bit tricky.

I started teaching cooking classes at home which signals the end of many years of raising children and thinking up crazy schemes. It turns out that the simplest idea is the easiest to launch, go figure.

Because I am such a great time waster, I have also started doing translating work. The deadlines force me to plan my time, something of an alien concept for me.

My son graduated from senior school, or high school to those outside the UK. We went to the ceremony, got a glimpse of what his life has been like the last 5 years and loved that he has made such great friends. He is home now for a gap year after having been away at school. I'm sure this will take some adjusting on both sides, but I am looking forward to it.

My daughter finished her first year at uni and is moving into a house for the autumn. She will really have an address that has nothing to do with home.

I began a new exercise regime. Now this is brand new. I had joined a gym last year when I overhauled my eating to get into shape. I was lucky enough to meet up with a great personal trainer who really knew his stuff. But the gym itself wasn't great and it became harder to get to once we moved. I realized that for the last couple of months I was only going to the gym to see him. So it was a waste from both a financial and fitness perspective. Then a new gym opened in my neighbourhood. I had been watching it being built for months, since it is so close to my flat. But when I told my son it said it was a mixed martial arts gym, he said to me, "that's cage fighting, mom". Well that didn't seem at all like the kind of place I belonged. But when they finally opened, I went on their website and saw they had classes for women. I

e mailed them basically saying that I am a 51 year old female, is this the gym for me figuring I would either get no reply or a polite this is for hard core athletes kind of answer. Instead, I got a very friendly e mail back inviting me to come down and have a look around.

To make a long story short, I went, I saw and I took my first boxing class. It was lots of fun, the instructor was very patient and nice and made sure I was doing things correctly. Everyone on staff has been really nice too. Now I have no interest in doing any mixed martial arts, but I understand how the training could be really beneficial even for someone who doesn't want to stomp on the other guy. Since all the classes are included in the membership, I plan to take advantage of it as long as my body holds out. Who knows, I may finally shed some of the fat that's been covering my muscles for decades.

So I guess it's a big transition year for me, this blog is a new thing too. I've been in contact with lots of different people through this blog and am following some truly fun blogs. There are lots of talented people out there.

I hope the rest of the year is as action packed as the first half. Stay tuned.

Me and my computer

2010-06-28T05:56:00.000+01:00

photo: http://www.ehs.net/info.htm

I am sitting in front of my computer for the first time since Friday evening. Now, that may not seem like a long time for you but it is ages for me. If I am home, I am never far from my computer. It's not that I get that many e mails or have that much to research, but there always seems to be something I can do. Let's face it, it's a habit. So on Friday evening, when a computer whiz suggested that I needed to reload my operating system, I blithely said yes without really thinking through the consequences. Well, what followed was about 36 hours of being without a computer, more accurately, the internet while hubby figured out where the wireless modem was which is supposed to be there at start up.

On Friday evening, I was seriously stressed out about it, thinking about all the things that I had forgotten to back up before he blew up my computer. Then, I thought, it's a brand new start. Do I really need the 5 years worth of data and other programmes that I no longer run on my computer? So I just decided to approach this as having gotten a brand new machine and instantly felt better.

I have an online back up system which I have yet to access so I'm not sure that my data is all recoverable. But I have already learned that what I thought was absolutely essential for my computing life turns out not to be. Just old patterns that were familiar and therefore felt essential.

I'm sure there are many aspects of my life to which I can apply the same principle. Hmm, I wonder what I should blow up next?

Real estate bug

2010-06-20T17:55:00.004+01:00

We have lived in 6 properties in 8 years since moving to London. So for the first couple of years, it seemed like I was always looking for a place to live. I've looked at both rentals and sales in a lot of different neighbourhoods. Everyone has different definitions of a desirable place to live. I tend to value hubs where many different tubes and buses converge, very convenient for getting around but not necessarily the prettiest neighbourhood. The amenities that many people look for, like a park and quiet streets, are not as important to me as the ability to get places quickly. My list of requirements has been honed over the many searches we have done. But there comes a time in every search when you have to decide what you are willing to compromise on. That too changes depending on your circumstances and time of life.

When we first moved here, the priority was finding a place where I could walk both children to school even though I had picked schools in different neighbourhoods. That was a "location above all" house and it worked very well for that which was the most I could say for it. The only thing I remember about that house was darkness and it was so small, half our stuff was in storage. We rectified that with the next house where we had lots of light and lots of space. The trade off? 20 minutes further from things. 20 minutes may not seem like a lot, but in London that 20 minutes could easily be an hour depending on traffic or tube reliability. That's when I realized that I could not be at the mercy of a capricious tube line and a single congested road to get from the centre of town to home.

So after we were done with that house, we decided to buy so we could stop moving. That involved being in temporary accommodation while we looked for something to buy. Well, what started off as a three month let in a tiny, dark but incredibly convenient flat turned into 8 months. Since it was meant to be a short let, most of our things were in storage including clothes. It was a boring winter from a clothing standpoint, you can't replace your entire wardrobe when you know it's sitting in storage. I think it was a reaction to living in such cramped quarters that we ended up buying our first place in London. It was a bit oversized but I loved it. It still wasn't great from a light perspective, it had one sunny room where I spent a lot of time. It had a lot going for it, location, space and services. When it was time to move on from there, once again we ended up in a rental, this time big enough that we didn't need to rent extra storage. Instead, we lived for 14 months with random stacks of boxes in the flat, hardly relaxing. We should have learned from the last time but once again, what we thought would be a short rental turned into 14 months while we looked for, then renovated our current place.

I love the place we are in now, it combines my must haves, light, space and convenience. I feel like we've hit the jackpot, the compromises I have made have been very minor. Having laid out the space ourselves, it works with the way we live. I understand now why people build their own houses, it is very pleasant to live in a space designed for your life. But I can understand when we go and sell it, that the next people will find it not as convenient and they won't love it as much as we do until they've moved some things around. I hope I don't take it personally when that happens.

During our many years of looking, I have developed a fascination for property, the way people live in them and how much of their emotions are tied up in it. I remember a place we almost bought that was just lovely until the survey came back. When we brought it up with the owners, they were incredulous since they had lived there for 23 years and never noticed any of the things that were red flagged. The longest I've ever lived in a house I've owned is 4 years and still I could no longer see all the things that needed doing that was obvious to an outsider, so I can imagine what it would have been like after 20 years.

I subscribe to many property websites that e mail me with updates when new properties come on the market fitting my parameters. Even now, more than a year after we bought our place, I can't bring myself to unsubscribe. I live vicariously through the listings, looking at floorplans, thinking about how I would redo the space to suit me. I saw a listing the other day where a house had been overdeveloped with a price tag to match. I remember looking at it thinking it was probably done by first timers who got carried away and overspent and now they have to ask this outrageous price so they could at least break even. Have they never watched Property Ladder? I would love to have the opportunity to try it myself, I'm not sure I would be any better but it would be fun to try. But since I didn't win the roll over jackpot on Saturday, I'll have to content myself with doing over floorplans virtually for now.

When friendships die

2010-06-17T12:45:00.001+01:00

It's a sad day when you realize that the person whom you thought was a good friend turns out to be secretly harbouring resentment towards you. You may think you're getting along great but if you listen closely to that little voice in your head, you know there's a quality to the relationship, a tension that doesn't exist in your other friendships. It's that feeling that even though it seems like she is being agreeable, somehow you need to tiptoe around her feelings. Sometimes the friendship just explodes when the resentment comes pouring out of the other person and you are left absolutely stunned. At other times, it just fades quietly away, as if both parties acknowledge that neither one of you can keep up the charade any more. Either way, it is puzzling, hurtful and not a nice experience. You think to yourself, "How could I have been such a bad judge of character? Were there signs I missed?".

From speaking with friends for whom this has happened and my personal experience, I've concluded that very often it is envy that is at the root of this evil. The very thing about you that attracted the other person to you and wanted them to make you a friend, superficial things like the way you look, the people you know, a fun life, turns out to be the thing that they think they are missing. So they live vicariously through you for awhile and then the frustrations mount because you are living the life they want. Of course, you don't realize any of this, you only notice that as time goes on, you find yourself watching what you say around them and steering clear of some topics because it tends to upset them. As you don't actually think your life is so charmed that someone else would covet it anyway it doesn't occur to you that, that may be the case until too late. Another scenario is they meet you when you are at a particular down period in your life. They come in, comforting, offering a shoulder to cry on and are so supportive, but as you slowly rebuild your life and become who you used to be, or you evolve into someone much stronger and self sufficient, they can't handle the shift in the relationship.

Is this something that only happens to women? Do men have friendships like this? Of course not all friendships end due to some unnamed resentment. Some are meant to just be temporary, to share some common experiences and then move on. The key is to distinguish between the intense but short friendships and the low key rest of your life ones. Easier said than done I think, much like most of life.

Banana bread I can eat

2010-06-10T19:31:00.000+01:00

No wheat, no dairy, no sugar. That's my mantra these days. The dairy is lactose intolerance so I pretty much have no choice there. The wheat and the sugar is more voluntary. Unpleasant things happen when I eat them but it is not tragic like it is with dairy. So I try and stay away. Now for someone whose favourite activity was afternoon tea, the new diet is a tragedy. But I am willing to forgo the teas because I feel so much better. I had a couple of friends over for lunch today to try out a new recipe. They were very complimentary but what really got raves was the banana bread I made from some too ripe bananas I had sitting around. The lunch is long consumed but here is a photo of the banana bread which doesn't look that sexy on its own.

D and V, here is the recipe:

Banana Bread - makes 1 8" cake round or the equivalent loaf pan
180 degree oven
50 minutes to bake

Wet ingredients
3/4 cup melted soya spread
3/4 cup agave syrup
2 eggs (room temperature)
1.5 tsp vanilla extract

Dry ingredients
2 cups Dove's Farm gluten and wheat free Plain white flour blend.
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup well mashed ripe bananas soaked in 1 cup orange/mango juice

1. Beat wet ingredients in large bowl beginning with agave and soya spread, add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and beat until light in colour.
2. Take dry ingredients and sift together twice.
3. Add dry ingredients and banana mush alternately to the wet ingredients beginning and ending with dry. After each addition, mix gently to combine but do not beat or otherwise overmix - this toughens and dries a cake.
4. Generously soya spread an 8" cake round or equivalent loaf pan and pour batter in and bake.
5. Cool 10 minutes in the pan and then remove to finish cooling.

adapted from the Moosewood Cook book by Molly Katzen
sorry about the mixed fractions and decimals in the ingredients list. I can't find the symbols list on blogger.

A slice of this with a cup of Rooibos Chocolate Chai and I can have my own afternoon tea. Try it, you'll never mistake it for regular banana bread, but it's good on its own merits.

Weekend in New York

2010-06-08T08:48:00.001+01:00

Just got back from a whirlwind weekend in New York. It has been at least 3 years since I was last there. It still feels like home even though we haven't lived there in almost 20 years. I went to college there where I met my husband, worked there and had two kids while living in Brooklyn. After we moved out to the burbs, I didn't go in nearly as often as I would have liked and so stopped identifying myself with New York. But then we moved overseas and New York became our base while the kids were little. But as they grew older, there was less and less reason to spend time there and that is how we ended up in this current situation of not having been in several years.

We have good friends from college, some of whom we've stayed in close touch with and many we remember fondly but haven't seen in awhile. So a 30th college reunion seemed like a great excuse to catch up with some people we hadn't seen in a long time. Our friend B is a great organiser, calling out to classmates who had been such close friends at one point, to come together and reunite. A group of us made it to New York for the weekend and it was a wonderful occasion. There were a couple of friends I hadn't seen in I'm not sure how long and it was great to reconnect. We went to college in the late 70's, early 80's and it was a great time to be young. 30 years later, we had all taken different paths but the strength of friendships formed so long ago made it seem like we had just seen each other. Not everyone that B contacted could come, but the ripple effect was there just the same. Thanks to e mail and social media, we are reconnected. We left vowing to stay in touch and promising to come together again in 5 years time.

Scammed again

2010-06-01T07:09:00.000+01:00

Honestly, I must have a big S on my virtual forehead for ":sucker:". Last year, we stayed in a gorgeous condo with my parents but never got our deposit back. It was a big chunk of change as it was a full month's rent. The man who owned the company that the agent worked for turned out to be an A1 crook and it has now turned into a criminal case involving extradition, hundreds of victims, very messy. I doubt we'll ever see a penny of that money. All of this has been unfolding slowly since about the end of last year. So you'd think we'd learned our lesson about dodgy real estate on the web. Well I've done it again. I gave some money to a non existent person for a non existent apartment in New York for our weekend. This time we are only out the 3 nights worth of rental, but I feel incredibly stupid and annoyed. So for my friends to whom I recommended Craigslist as a great place to fine deals on vacation rentals, please be careful. I have rented successfully from them in the past so they are not all crooks but it is a tremendous leap of faith I realize now to send someone you've never met money in the hopes that they will do what they say they will. So no more deals for me, I will just spend the extra and potentially save myself hundreds in money lost not to mention the aggravation and inconvenience. I feel badly for all the honest people out there trying to rent their places out. All I can say is Jane Synovec, if you really exist, I hope you use our money for something stupid and it brings you no joy.

What is success?

2010-05-25T23:52:00.001+01:00

I have been set a challenge by a fellow Seven Sisters alum to define success. Since I've never thought of myself as particularly successful, I thought I might have a think about what the word means to me.

Success for me has always been linked to external approval, a label put on you by society. It is the way society judges where you are in the hierarchy of deservedness (I know it’s not a word). As the saying goes, “whoever dies with the most toys wins”. So for me, it’s about material, visible accomplishments. As someone who retired from an almost career 21 years ago, it never seemed to have much to do with me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I haven’t just been taking up space all this time. I have had a full and wonderful 21 years crammed with ups and downs and much living. I have been the stay at home mom with two kids while my husband pursued my definition of success. We did country moves, house moves, school moves, you name it, we’ve moved it. Did I miss working and the external validation? Not really. I felt I was doing what I needed and wanted to do. I’m not going to tell you it was a walk in the park, trying to guide a child into becoming a responsible human being is not easy. Especially, when you realise fairly early on that they have minds of their own and they may do what you want them to do, but they’re going to think what they want to think. I have been really lucky to be blessed with two wonderful kids who are sane and sensible with just the right amount of crazy to let me know they’re normal. I am also lucky to have a very supportive husband who has recently redefined his concept of success and is much happier for it.

Now that I am at a point where my kids require emotional time, not physical time so much, I am pursuing my own interests. Who knows, in time I may achieve what society deems success. But I may be too busy living life to notice.

You can read Kim's view here. She is the originator of the Success Challenge. Why don't you have a go?

Flying??

2010-05-19T08:01:00.001+01:00

Flying has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. According to my mom, we were flying from Tokyo to Osaka to visit relatives before I could walk. Then the back and forth of being an expat kid followed by college in NY/ parents in Japan and my own nomadic life has meant that the way I see family is by first taking a very long plane ride. But all of a sudden, what I took for granted is no longer a sure thing. The volcanic ash didn't affect me in the first round of chaos except in the happy form of seeing friends I would otherwise not have seen, but now it may keep me from seeing my family this summer. Add to this the fact that hubby is about to start a commuting life involving planes and I am wondering what will happen. I had to break the news to my mom this morning that we may not see them this summer. We've been getting together like this for a long time now, it's the one opportunity my parents have to see all the grand kids together. As both my parents and the kids get older, I cherish every year thinking this may be our last year, as parents become slightly less mobile and kids develop more independent lives. I hope the ash clears soon and then my only worry will be where to stay.

It's all about the little things

2010-05-13T14:19:00.000+01:00

I must admit, I've been feeling very harassed lately. My cooking classes, which are going well and so much fun to do, still require a lot of time. Add to it, a translation job with the exact same schedule as my classes, needing to plan for the summer, a quick weekend in NY possibly jeopardised by the BA strike, and the myriad of phone calls it takes to keep a life running smoothly and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. I make a quick strike to Waitrose to gather ingredients for tonight's class and am tearing home. I pass a mother and little boy on the street. He's probably about three, doing the running, skipping thing little boys do because their legs just don't move fast enough for their liking. He's also carrying on by himself because his mom's on her phone as she walks. I try not to trip over him as I cross the street in my rush to get home. Then, I hear him say, "look mum, flowers". I expected the mom to just acknowledge briefly or even ignore him, how often have I done that do my kids. But instead, she came to a dead stop, got down to his level and just matched his enthusiasm for how gorgeous the flowers were. I wanted to go over there and congratulate her for being a wonderful mother, but of course I continued on my way. It was a very little thing, but it made me stop and think, life is not about the grand gestures, but an accumulation of little moments. I know everyone says that, but I feel like I may have seen it first hand today. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I feel like my life was made just a little better for having been a witness to their love. A deep breath later, I am ready for the rest of my day filled with just a little more gratitude than this morning.

Improv 101

2010-05-06T16:09:00.000+01:00

A new class today, my first class teaching veggies. I went for the more classic dishes figuring that there will be time later for the variations and the fusion things. So on the menu this evening was a spinach dish that I think most restaurants call spinach bundles because what else are you supposed to call them? Anyway, it only works if you get spinach with stems and bottoms, not the leaves in bags you get in the supermarket. So off I went to Chapel Market this morning to the veggie stall where just 2 weeks ago, I had purchased gorgeous bunches of spinach. No spinach?! Now I know nothing about the growing cycle of spinach, but none of the other stalls had it either, leading me to conclude that this is an off week for spinach. What we had this week were some gorgeous asparagus. So I bought some of that and am doing a dish with similar flavourings as the spinach dish. Of course I had printed out the recipe already, so I had to come home and print the asparagus recipe and swap it around. To make matters more interesting, I am also doing a tofu dish. Well, the recipe I worked out uses the Cauldron tofu. I should have known when I bought the last two packages last week that something was up. They have repackaged their brand and the tofu no longer comes in the same weight it used to. Not only that, they only had one package left at Waitrose, not nearly enough for what I need. So I went to the Asian food store in Chapel Market and bought what looks like the largest block of tofu I have ever seen. Crisis narrowly averted but I do wish people wouldn't go and change weights when they repackage, most inconvenient. All this and class hasn't even started. Not to mention the excitement of having the fridge stop working for a couple of hours last night. As my friend A says, "mercury in retrograde". Hope it's over soon.

Photo

2010-05-05T22:17:00.000+01:00

I have a new profile photo. Now, I think I photograph really badly. But my friend who took my photo today said something really interesting. She said no woman including models she knows has ever said they like their photo. I know what I look like when I look in the mirror. But I usually look to check out an outfit or to look at some part of my face close up. So what is it about a photo that makes you look different from the mirror? My thought is that maybe that's what I look like to the rest of the world..

So after my friend took my photo and sent it to me, I looked at it as I usually do and thought, "oh why didn't I notice the sweater was crooked, my hair's messy, do I really smile like that", the usual stuff that leads me to conclude that that is in fact a bad likeness of me. But today, I took a step back and tried to look at it objectively. Then I could appreciate that it was a good photo and probably not a bad likeness. So while it doesn't coincide with the mental image I have of myself, I can accept that perhaps this is the way I look in real life.
Here it is

A small ritual

2010-05-03T18:09:00.000+01:00

May 5 is Boys' Day in Japan. It is a day when various good luck items are displayed in the hopes that the boys will grow up to be healthy and prosperous. Even though my boy is almost 18, I thought I would put his display up today. My parents bought this for him when he was born and from the leaflet that came along with the set (because how would I know what goes where without it) it is traditionally something that the wife's family does for the boy. According to the literature, I was supposed to have put it out mid April and it really needs to be put away mid May at the latest. Well, I'm going to take some liberties and leave it out for the month of May so that all my students who come for class can see it.

As you can see from the photo, it is a helmet, sword, bow and arrow. There are more elaborate ones involving the entire suit of armour, but my mom liked the simplicity of the helmet and the workmanship. These items are meant to defend the boy against accidents, illness and other misfortunes on the road to growing up. Maybe it will bring good luck for my son on his A levels, you never know.

A different dining experience

2010-05-02T00:35:00.001+01:00

We went out to dinner this evening. It was at the home of a woman we'd never met. It was our first experience with the underground gourmet movement. Our friends C and E suggested we try this out. The way it works is, you sign up and pay online, you are sent the address of the venue, you turn up and they feed you. Once you get there, you find out what's on the menu. It was lots of fun, we met some lovely people and had a really good time. The food was all really delicious, it's amazing that she was able to cook for 35-40 people on her Aga and do it well. It was an around the world menu, starting with pasta, with a mains of Thai and ending with kulfi. Somehow it all worked together and tasted great. I can't imagine the work that went into it. But the end result was very professional and well organised. They had a rice cooker malfunction but managed to cope with style.
We are going to see whose house we can go to next. Thanks C and E for a lovely evening.

I changed the photo on top, is it creepy? Should I got back to the other one? I would love some of your thoughts.

This week

2010-04-30T07:41:00.000+01:00

It's been a busy and productive week. I taught another class on Tuesday night. There were two people in the class, my friend and her husband. It was just as much fun as my first class and it's really gratifying when you make a connection and they get what you are trying to do. A terrific compliment came in the form of my friend's husband signing up for some more classes as he had really enjoyed it. Thank you and I hope I can continue to deliver. I have new dates up for the next round (hint, hint) if anyone is interested. I am planning to add one off classes to what's already up. I also added a sign up feature so I can stop sending out mass e mails to all my friends soon I hope.

I went to Southfields yesterday to order a cake. It may seem like a long way to travel since I don't live anywhere near there. But my son is graduating this year and I thought it would be fun to have a cake at Speech Day lunch which is the last time the boys will all be together until the last day of school. This was the shop that made the cake at my daughter's graduation and that's where I got the idea. I was very impressed with the shop and the owner, who left banking to do what she loves. I'm really excited with the cake we came up with, I'll try and remember to take a photo to put up here before we eat it.

I ended my day by hearing Lynne Franks speak. She is one of the pioneers of PR in this country and has balanced out her business life with a spiritual one. She was very inspirational and it is funny how everything she was talking about resonated with me. Of course I bought the book, something I never do, and even had her sign it. What's even more astounding, I've started reading it.

Well, back to the translating. One more episode to do for this week, then to finalise the class for next week.

Weekend round up

2010-04-25T19:03:00.001+01:00

It was a mixed bag, weather wise this weekend, but the temperature was mild and everything is in full bloom as my eyes and nose can attest.

We achieved a monumental task on Saturday, we bought a sofabed. Now for one reason or another, I have been shopping for a sofa bed on and off for about 3 years. I've been close a couple of times especially around Christmas last year, but couldn't commit. I had fallen in love with a sofa bed (if such a thing is possible) at Habitat last year. It was a big velvet affair that just enveloped you as you sat down. But it was over budget and so I had to lust after it from afar, until this weekend when for some bizarre reason, hubby got a friends and family discount coupon in the post. This put it within range and so off we went. Well velvet on a gorgeous April day is just not the same as velvet on a cold October day and once again, I was stumped. Especially when right across from it was a sleek (for us) modern sofa that would have fit in with the feel of the flat. We must have sat there for 30 minutes, debating one over the other and finally gave up and came home. There, tape measure in hand, we tried to visualize what the two would look like in the space we had. In the end, we decided on the velvet monster which visually may not be the best thing for the flat, but made me happy. But then, what colour? Well, we had forgotten to ask for swatches so back we went where we finally committed and paid for it. Hooray!! Now of course, we have to wait for them to make it, so sometime before they close the factory for the summer, I am hoping they get to our sofa.

This weekend was labelled King's Cross Reveal and there were meant to be all kinds of events occurring around Kings Cross to highlight the history and the changes taking place. For obvious reasons, we didn't do a thing yesterday so today, we tried to go to two photo exhibitions. Well, they were both closed. Unbelievable. We only had to walk to get there, I wonder how many people went to some trouble and expense to get there. Since we were out anyway, we walked along the canal to come home. There is one stretch of the canal right near us where it is very green and looks quite rural unless you look at what's behind it. Here are some photos of our walk.

I managed to finish my translations which is good, I am now starting my annual hunt for a place to stay this summer, which I usually start in February so I am very late. I also hope to put up a schedule for my next round of lessons, so a very productive and fun weekend comes to an end.

Well, not quite. We went out this evening for yet another attempt to see the King's Cross Reveal. This time, though we were rewarded for our perseverance. They lit up a part of the canal and it was really eerie and cool. Here are two more photos.

And now my day is truly done, good night.

I am now a cooking teacher

2010-04-23T07:12:00.000+01:00

What a fabulous night. I taught my first class to two lovely friends. I couldn't have asked for a better beginning to my new adventure. The evening was relaxed and fun, they asked lots of questions so there weren't any awkward silences. Here's what was on the menu last night.

The two onigiri on the left were made for me by my students, they were very tasty. The evening concluded by sharing the meal and a bit of socialising. Thank you M and C, for making my first attempt such a success. I'm going to stop here because I am sounding very big headed.

Taking the day off today, getting together with a new friend, it looks like another lovely day.

Fall out from the volcano

2010-04-22T06:43:00.000+01:00

I knew that flights were grounded because of the volcano in Iceland last week. I never thought it would affect my life in anyway since none of my family is flying. But it turns out there are plenty of other people, mostly friends whose lives were affected.. Being grounded has not all been bad as I got to see a friend and his kids. I have not seen him in 15 years, I had never even met his daughter. They had been in Scotland for a week and got diverted to London when flights were grounded so a reunion ensued. Friends for life do not make you feel the passage of time and if the very grown kids hadn't been there, it could have been 1986. We had fun catching up and hope to see the whole family the next time.

Then last night, my other friend who was grounded came over with his wife. We were supposed to go out for dinner, but I ended up waiting for a delivery so I cooked. The kitchen worked really well and I got to socialise while finishing the cooking. I tried out a new beef recipe which worked really well. Might have to buy bigger tongs as it is hard manipulating a hunk of beef with small tongs. My delivery arrived, the stools for the kitchen counter. The boys unpacked and we all tried them out after dinner.

First cooking class this evening, wish me luck.

Fruitful weekend

2010-04-18T18:35:00.002+01:00

A gorgeous weekend in London, I did get to enjoy it some, but not the usual lazy weekend. Yesterday, a trip to Japan Centre for yet more rice and other stock items. It is truly scary the rate at which we blow through rice. Hubby came along to help so we got the 10kg bag of rice. That was my only contact with the outside if you don't count windows being open. I puttered around in the afternoon and gradually made some sushi. Here is the end result.

The family were certainly enthusiastic about it so I think it was a good result. I didn't have a set kind that I was making so it turned into many different fillings, a bit of a grab bag especially after it was all cut up.

Anyway, it never rains but it pours, or something to that effect. This week I am finally starting my cooking classes, which is a big deal for me since I've never done anything like this before. So what happens? On Friday, I get asked to do subtitles for an anime. I've been talking to this agency since November about doing some work and it finally came together. The timing couldn't be worse. I did one episode and really enjoyed it so I hope it is something I can do more of in the future. It was a challenge translating colloquial Japanese into subtitles. I took a few liberties to get the point across, we'll see how it goes over.

Today, Sunday was another glorious day in London and I was determined not to miss it. Hubby and I took a very long walk to Marylebone from our flat only to discover my destination was closed! Well, it was a nice walk anyway, and the allergies not tooo horrendous.

Maybe time for a snack, or actually it is dinner time.

Lunch with a friend

2010-04-15T18:43:00.000+01:00

Hello, I had a friend over for lunch today and made some more food. We had grilled mackerel, steeped green soy beans, string beans and aubergine dry stew, rice and miso soup. Here's the photo.

I really enjoy entertaining friends at home, it is so much more mellow. You get to catch up in a quiet environment and while it is nice to have someone serve and clear, it really isn't that big a deal.

The other day, I taught my son how to make onigiri. It was a fun thing for the two of us to do. He did very well, producing 3 different shapes. We had a lot of fun eating them afterwards and chatting about things. He wants to learn to cook, something I promised I would teach him during his gap year. Being able to feed oneself is an important skill I think. I am looking to put together a class for young people on quick Japanese food you can make at uni, a friend's daughter in interested.

I got my business cards today for my cooking class, hooray. They came out pretty well, can't wait to give them out.

Portable food

2010-04-12T09:09:00.000+01:00

I volunteer at Dress for Success once a week. Since I stopped eating wheat, getting a sandwich from the sandwich lady became out of the question. So I've started taking my lunch. Sometimes it's leftovers, sometimes I run into Pret for a salad, but I bought myself a bento box when I was home and was eager to try it out. So, I made lunch today to bring, and here it is;

On the menu today, pork slices in ginger sauce, Japanese omelette, sauteed asparagus and rice. Now I don't think I will go to this much trouble every week, but if I plan it right, I will have leftovers from the night before as my main dish with some veggies and things around it. Ideally, I would have had a bit of red in there, but I was out of tomatoes.

Have to go get ready, so that's all for now.

Unexpected guests

2010-04-10T12:25:00.001+01:00

We had some very good friends over for dinner last night. It was only firmed up Friday early afternoon so I had to find something to make out of what was in the fridge. Fortunately, my fridge is pretty well stocked at the moment so I managed to produce a nice dinner if I do say so myself. And of course as is the case with every other meal I have made for company, I failed to take photos. But here is the menu; tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet), miso soup, rice and an avocado and cucumber side dish. The avocado and cucumber is a dish that can be served tapas style with drinks or as a hashi yasume, literally chopstick rest, a dish to pick at during your dinner. It is traditionally served cold and is most often pickles, but I thought, why not, try it with this. Ultra quick and simple to make, here's the recipe.

Avocado and cucmber salty namuru (adapted from Organic Recipe Notebook by Tomoko Shoji)
1 avocado
1 cucumber (you want to end up with about the same amount of avocado and cucumber so pick accordingly)
2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sale
1 1/2 Tbp rice vinegar
1 clove garlic grated
2 tsp sesame seeds
1 sheet nori

Hit the cucumber with a rolling pin and break into bite size pieces with your hands. If you use a long european cucmber, it is better to remove the seeds. Cut the avocado into cubes

Combine the seasonings from sesame oil to sesame seeds and mix with the cucumber and avocado.

Crumple the nori into the mix, stir and refrigerate.

As I am writing this recipe, I realize I had totally forgotten to add nori last night. Oops, sorry R and M, but it was still very tasty, don't you think?

Oh and by the way, the nuts I was roasting the other day? It turned out really well, and it is definitely something I will be doing again.

Practice makes perfect

2010-04-08T16:11:00.000+01:00

Now that I have a date to start my cooking class, I have been cooking like mad, well for me anyway. I made rice in a pot yesterday, I usually just use a rice cooker but thought it would be good thing to test out to make sure the method works. It did but the problem with rice cooked in a pot is that it doesn't stay hot. So I ended up making onigiri(rice balls). Somehow, onigiri is fine eaten room temperature whereas the exact same quantity of rice in a rice bowl simply isn't appetising. It may have to do with the connotations of onigiri, which is usually a portable lunch, so it brings back memories of outings and school trips. You will see from the photo that it is "naked". I couldn't find the open bag of nori, I know I put it away, but where, I couldn't tell you. I did find a bunch of other things I forgot I owned, but I digress. In keeping with the outing theme, the rolled cooked egg is another staple. So after I made the onigiri, of course I had to make the egg. The salmon in the fridge needed eating so it became teriyaki. Then I did a mushroom in batter thing which turned out to be incredibly good and so simple. Anyway, here is the photo, I ate way too much and think I need to recruit more people to eat my food, especially meat eaters. Any volunteers?

It's been awhile

2010-04-05T20:00:00.001+01:00

Haven't posted anything new in over a week, busy travelling and launching my other blog page for my cooking class.

We went to my in laws for Passover, a holiday that has a lot of tradition and a lot of great food. Unfortunately, now that I am off wheat, the food bit wasn't nearly as fun. When you don't eat Matzoh, it eliminates a lot of food that used to be favourites that would only appear at Passover. But it was great to see family and marvel at what wonderful people the nieces and nephews are becoming. The weather turned gorgeous after the first couple of days, by the time we left, the cherry trees were in full bloom as were the magnolias and dogwoods.

I saw my friend E during our trip, I think the last time we saw each other was probably 1996 or 97, so it's been awhile. We have been friends since college and we picked right up and it was as if we had seen each other yesterday. We did a lot of talking and feel like we've caught up on each other's lives. Hopefully it will not be another 12 years before we see each other again. So great to have friends you have history with.

My cooking classes are finally organised, check it out at www.hiromiscookingclass.blogspot.com. Many friends have kindly forwarded on the information to their friends and so I have had some interest and people signing up. It is very exciting but also a bit scary, I hope I can do a good job.

So, I spent most of last week eating macaroons ignoring the fact that I am off white sugar and so am trying hard to get back to my usual eating patterns. I discovered an amazing food at Trader Joe's, LarabarsThey are basically a date based bar with no added sugar or oil and taste just amazing. I don't think they sell them in the UK but if they do, please tell me, they are my new favourite snack food. There is no getting around the exercise, I am going back to the gym. It's been a month, so it won't be fun, but so worth it. I just roasted some nuts with kombu soy sauce and tabasco. I can't really tell what they taste like until they cool off, will let you know if it's any good.

Week in limbo

2010-03-25T16:30:00.000Z

Got back on Sunday after a very pleasant flight. There were gale force winds in Tokyo when we took off and thanks to that, we landed about 50 minutes early. I was thinking about how long it's been since flying 12 hours to see family has been my norm. Certainly since university when my family returned to Tokyo and I stayed on in New York to finish my education. I was surprised they allowed me to stay but perhaps my appeal to graduate with the same class I started with seemed a reasonable request. Anyway, since 1978, some form of family has always been 10-12 hours away. There have been many changes to the travel over the years, we no longer need to stop in Anchorage to refuel between Tokyo and New York, the economy class seats just keep getting smaller and security is ever more annoying. But the amount of time spent in the air and the excitement of being in a familiar place that's also different hasn't changed. Tokyo, New York and now London are three places where I will always feel like I've come home.

So, I've been spending the week in front of my computer, getting caught up on things I missed while I was away and working away on my cooking class plans. I brought home a new rice cooker so I've been trying it out. This one has many settings including brown rice so I no longer have to make brown rice on the stove. This may not be that exciting to you but for me, being able to walk away and come back to perfectly cooked brown rice is very exciting.

Both kids come home this weekend so I can try out some more recipes on them. Cooking is really big in Japan right now so I acquired a lot of new material, can't wait to experiment.

Hopefully I can get something done by the end of the week and out about the classes. Watch this space.

The roots of Japanese porcelain part 2

2010-03-19T23:40:00.000Z

Day three of our grand adventure started chilly and rainy. After another hearty breakfast, we said goodbye to our lovely nakai san, the person who looked after us during our stay, and boarded the train for Arita. I had a vague idea from the guidebook that Arita would be nothing like Imari geographically and I was right. It is very spread out and you really need a car to get around. The nice thing about travelling with elderly parents is that they no longer feel the need to do things the hard way. We got into the first taxi outside the train station just as the rain started for real. There is a kanko taxi (sightseeing taxi) tradition in many parts of Japan where a taxi can either take you somewhere on the meter or just charge you by the hour and take you around town. Our driver was really nice and so we opted to have this man show us around until it was time to board our train back to Hakata.

First, he took us to the site where they first found the rock that became porcelain. It was truly impressive and very atmospheric since by then it was pouring. He said most of the material now comes from another area in Kyushu but there is still one pottery that makes some of their porcelain with rock from this quarry.

Then we went on to Tozan jinja, a shrine with a gate and many objects made out of Arita pottery. The colours had faded so it wasn't as impressive as the photos in the guide book but it was still great to see. I pulled a fortune, my second in two days, as I also got one at Imari jinja the day before. Not only were they both Dai kichi, the best you could get, but they were identical. An astounding coincidence, I am planning to heed the fortune very carefully.

The weather was clearing and the driver then took us around to a couple of different potters. It was a very different experience from the day before. This was like going to a museum, the pieces were exquisite and very expensive. So it was much more a look and appreciate rather than think about owning. This is the house of one of the famous potters. You are looking at his teahouse and to the right, the house he grew up in. The family have built a more modern house directly behind the one on the right and they live there now. The workshops are on the property as well as the showroom. The tree in front is a persimmon. They say he observed the fruit to come up with the brilliant vermilion color he used in his work. Only the heir is allowed to use the color, they are currently on the 14th generation.

It turns out there were outlets and more places where things were actually affordable but we ran out of time and really I think it was a good thing since anything I buy I have to bring home and I did just ship 3 boxes of my mom's old china back home. It turns out one set is from a famous maker in Arita so I already had my piece of Arita.

We bought eki ben (bento meant to be eaten on the train) and boarded our train back to Hakata and then back to the airport. We got home safely and we were all pretty beat, especially my parents who are not used to schlepping non stop.

I love visiting different parts of Japan every year when I come to see my parents, I hope one day I can make the same trip with my family. There is so much to Japan outside of Tokyo and these trips really make me appreciate the history and the traditions that have shaped Japan. It is so much easier to wax lyrical about your own country when you don't live there and don't have to put up with the everyday annoyances. Maybe that's the best thing about being an expatriate.

My time here is almost done and reality waits at home. It's been a great couple of weeks with all it's ups and downs.

Sorry about this link, I can't get rid of it.

The roots of Japanese porcelain part 1

2010-03-19T00:33:00.000Z

Just got back from a jam packed 3 days with my parents touring the pottery towns of Imari and Arita in Saga, Kyushu. It was my first trip to this southern island of Japan and I hope it won't be the last. Everyone was so friendly. They were incredibly kind and helpful and the taxi drivers are a hoot. More than once, someone said hello as I passed them, just unbelievable for a big city girl like me but so nice.

Anyway, but I digress. We flew to Fukuoka, domestic flying in Japan is a throwback to what flying used to be. Relatively carefree and you get to leave your shoes on in security. I even got to bring my tea through security, although they do scan it, for what I don't know but they gave me back my half drunk bottle afterwards. Once we landed, 2 or 3 stops on the subway which is in the airport to Hakata, then a train to Takeo onsen, a sleepy hot spring town which was to be our base for the next two days. Well, the flight was a little late, the train was a little late (gasp!) so we were a little late arriving at the inn. It was a gorgeous ryokan, over 100 years old and their chef had trained in one of the top restaurants in Japan and had also appeared on the Iron Chef. We all soaked in the hot spring, recovered from our journey and sat down to a feast. It was gorgeous, and very filling (2 nights in a row) but the great thing is, you don't need to go anywhere afterwards to lie down. Here is a little sample of what it looked like

The following morning, round two. Well the portions were less than half the night before, but still a hefty amount to put away at 8:30 in the morning, then to our destination, Imari. The weather really was with us and the day was bright and clear. I really had no idea what to expect, I just knew it was a name that everyone knew associated with pottery and although I was a little fuzzy on the details, I knew the pottery was very beautiful. The passing scenery from the train was so tranquil, it was as if the area was caught in a time warp. There were gorgeous old houses with serious roof tiles, fields and soon to be rice paddies. Here is our train which is only one car and runs on a single track. The trains can only pass each other when one is stopped at a station, not sure a feat that the London underground can pull off. Most of the stations are unmanned and you take a ticket when you get on the train and pay the conductor when you get off. Each stop is numbered so the conductor/driver(same person) knows how much to charge. Life moves a bit more slowly here.

We got to Ookawachi yama where 20 potteries are clustered, we passed many more on the ride up but really you need a car to hit them all so we consoled ourselves with the 20 that were accessible.

It turns out we did this a little backwards. The whole pottery business started in Arita around 400 years ago but geographically it was not good for keeping crafts men sequestered. It was a highly coveted and highly guarded skill these potters possessed and to prevent the artisans from running away and spreading their skills elsewhere, they moved the lot of them to this mountain. There, they were essentially kept prisoner by a mountain behind them and a toll booth in the front. So probably it made more sense to go to Arita first, but what can you do. I believe we hit every pottery on that little mountain and it was very interesting to see individual styles as well as a lot of similarities. We did a little shopping but mostly we did a lot of looking. There weren't many tourists about so in most shops, we were the only ones there. It was a lovely time, quiet, peaceful, surrounded by beautiful objects and nature.

On the way back, we stopped at Imari Jinja(shrine) and paid our respects.

Then back to the inn for another feast.

The next day was off to Arita but I'll tell you about that another day.

Death by Food

2010-03-15T14:30:00.001Z

OMG I am sooo full. I was treated to an exceptional dinner this evening by my old friend M. He was my first boss and it is great that we have stayed friends.

The dinner was a very special experience starting with the entrance. You would never know it is a restaurant from the outside. Of course in retrospect I should have taken photos of everything, but instead you just get my raves. The interior is very modern, very sparse but with much wood, giving it a warm feel. We sat down at the counter, and that's when the party started. Just one dish after another of exquisite seasonal food. Everything was so incredible that I forgot to pay attention to my stomach. Apparently it was getting quite full. I probably should have stopped before the rice, but how can you resist when it comes with salmon roe, mullet roe and seaweed that you add yourself? And did I mention the two desserts?

It was great to catch up and have a few laughs in such an amazing place. But I seriously thought I was going to explode on the way home. I managed to make it back in one piece and have finally digested to the point where I think I can go to sleep. Thanks so much for a lovely evening, the food truly was magical.

Tomorrow, I'm off for a couple of days in Kyushu, an area in southern Japan. I've never been and I'm looking forward to it very much. We are going to stay in an onsen ryokan which is well known for their food. We also plan to visit the potteries in Arita and Imari. I hope I can resist the bargains on offer, I have to keep reminding myself I just sent 3 boxes of my mom's dishes back to London. But you know, none of it was Arita or Imari so we'll just have to see.

Two Great Days

2010-03-11T22:23:00.000Z

Ok, so I admit, my last post was a bit whiny. But I have just had two action packed days which were just the opposite of my endless days in front of the tube.

Now first off, the weather improved markedly today. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's start with yesterday. I spent the day with my very good friend C. We've been friends for about 12 years I think and have shared many laughs and good times. We went to a shop near the Ginza which if you've never been to Tokyo, it is hard to imagine (the shop, not Ginza). I think it started life as a camera shop, but to call it a camera shop is like calling Costco a food store. They sell the standard electronic things like cameras, tvs, phones, and appliances like washing machines and toaster ovens. But they also have a book department, interior department, golf gear and so much more. We spent a good half hour trying on headphones and didn't get through a quarter of the display. The store really appeals to the my inner geek and I bought some things which will make my laptop happier when I get home.

From there, we went to lunch. Many Tokyoites are foodies and there are many restaurants that cater for every budget and every taste. I even saw an Ethiopian restaurant this trip not far from my parents' place and where they are is pretty suburban. Anyway, we chose a restaurant we had eaten in before, which serves great dishes from Kyoto, heavy on the veggies and very pretty. Here is a not great picture of my lunch. I would have had to stand up to get a better angle and that was a little too embarrassing.

Froｍ there, we went to my other favourite store, where they sell all kinds of things having to do with life - stationary, storage, lunch boxes, kitchen gadgets, I could get lost for hours and pretty much did. Then she had me over to her new flat and having just done battle with 120+ boxes myself, I thought their place was coming along very nicely.

Then drinks with S whom I haven't seen since we left Tokyo almost 9 years ago. It was great to catch up, the time just flew by. But that was not the end of my evening. Dinner with another friend, M, whom I met in London. She now lives in Tokyo and knows some of the same people I knew, it's a small world. We went to a lovely Kyoto restaurant (my day for Kyoto food, but who's complaining). My mom is friends with the chef/owner's mom and it is easy to be supportive since the food is fabulous. Here is a photo:

Now, I did mention that today was fabulous, weather wise. It was bright and sunny, not too cold. My mom surprised me by saying she thought we should take a trip to Yokohama to have my aura photographed. So the three of us went off after lunch and it was a fun experience. They give you a massive print out about what it all means which I haven't read yet. But Yokohama has changed a lot since the last time I was there. There are now converted warehouses which have shops and an event space. Of course the real estate obsessive in me thought, "what a waste, better to turn them into condos, look at the great windows.". You can't really see from the photo but this is a proper warehouse with walls about 2' thick. and heavy cast iron doors.

We then headed towards Moto Machi, an area of shops which was the chic place to shop in Yokohama when I was younger. We tried to hail a cab, but had a hard time finding one and I saw one going the other way. I tried the London trick of asking him to make a U turn and sure enough, it worked and we got a ride. Had a lovely stroll through Moto Machi then, over the bridge to Chinatown. Tokyo Chinatown is pretty big and they have had a renaissance in the last 15 years or so. It was very bustling with many impressive looking restaurants. We had a great dinner in a private room of a well known restaurant, I think they only had private rooms, 4 floors worth in fact. That was fun and the service was amazing. We headed back to the train, got a little lost and ended up walking an extra train stop. Now my parents don't walk much anymore and we had done our fair share already. But they made it to the train and home. I looked at the pedometer I always carry and we had walked almost 9000 steps. I think they said on a big outing, they walk 3000. I hope they continue to get out as the weather improves, walking in the city is so much fun.

This has turned into a monster post so I am going to sign off now. But another fun day awaits tomorrow, good night.

Thoughts from home part 2

2010-03-09T22:41:00.000Z

So, I'm still here, visiting my parents. This is something I have done for the last couple of years, visiting by myself and staying for a couple of weeks. I have found as my parents get older, it is easier for them if we don't all descend on them at once. Also, they live in a pretty standard Japanese condo so I think at this point, a visit from all 4 of us would cause their house to explode.

I love being in Tokyo and visiting with friends and going back to the places I used to frequent when we lived here. That of course is in direct conflict with spending time with my parents. So every year, I risk my mom's wrath and spend lots of time catching up with friends. But this year, I made the radical decision to come home to spend time with my parents. So I find myself on a rainy Tuesday, sitting in their living room watching endless TV, telling myself that I am not wasting time. To put off temptation, I really didn't let too many people know I was coming and I made sure to tell my friends that the primary purpose was to hang with my parents. Many of my friends are in a similar situation with aging parents and everyone is very understanding.

What I had hoped to do was eat in the many wonderful places Tokyo has to offer and take photos and put them up here. Well, eating is not high on my parents' priority and travelling to eat is really not a part of it. Frankly with the exchange rate being what it is, that's probably a good thing. Tomorrow I am seeing a very good friend and we will have a nice lunch together and I am seeing a different friend for dinner so there may be hope for some photos. On the plus side, this has been a very mellow trip and my parents actually seem to enjoy our time together.

There probably won't be that many more opportunities for me to feel like a kid again, both in a good and bad way. I am planning to enjoy it while it lasts. I wonder if I will treat my kids like children when they are 50, I hope not. Relationships are very different between us and the next generation so I guess we will find our own way to annoy them.

Thoughts from home

2010-03-06T14:51:00.000Z

I am here at my parents' condo, where they have lived on and off since 1971. It is essentially the only permanent home I have known growing up. My dad was an expat so we spent a lot of time out of the country but this place has remained constant. There is a shopping area about 15 minutes away. I remember when it was just a little branch of a big department store really in the middle of nowhere. I used to pass through it to get home from school and we used to break school rules and cut through for the air conditioning in the summer, the heater in winter. It has now grown into a two building luxury shopping mall with many designer boutiques and shoppers who travel there as a destination. Now they are in another phase of development with major construction going on all around the train station. I take the back roads to get there from my parents' and I was struck today by the changes. It used to be a really sleepy place, sure the occasional house would get knocked down to be replaced by a mini condo but that was the extent of it. But this trip, I almost got lost going to the mall because of all the unfamiliar buildings. Where there used to be a lumberyard, there is this large grey building with a parking lot. All of a sudden, there are sidewalks on that side of the street, where there never were any. Of course all this didn't happen overnight, but I haven't been home in 14 months. There is a huge grey building which I think is the parent to the grey building that I passed, I'm not sure what that's going to be. Where am I going with this? I guess it's not that unusual for things to change and for areas to be developed and not recognise where you were brought up. But for me, it didn't happen in the 80's when all of Tokyo went nuts duing the bubble and it didn't happen in the following 20 years. I'm afraid the next time I come home, I really won't recognise where I used to sneak ice cream cones on the way home with my friends (the school rule stated no detours on the way home and certainly no going into shops in our uniforms). I haven't been back at my school since I left in 1975, I really don't think I could find my way there any more. Tokyo is an ever changing city, and that change has finally reached my little neighbourhood.

A proud mama

2010-03-01T13:03:00.000Z

My son is in a band. He started drumming about 6 years ago. We figured it was a phase as he had tried clarinet and trumpet without it making much impact on him. But the drums stuck and he's been drumming ever since. He has been in a band with some friends from school for the last two years. They've played at school, at the odd party at other schools but recently they have started playing gigs around London. They have a group of very loyal friends/fans who turn up to support them. We go too, feeling a bit out of place but very proud. His playing has just taken off in the last 6 months or so and I think he is now a very good drummer. Of course I may be a bit biased but if your mother doesn't think you are the best, what chance have you got with the outside world. The band writes their own material and I enjoy listening to them. They have gelled as a group and are good friends outside the band as well.

One of the band members organised a charity concert last night to benefit Room to Read. It was an extravaganza involving three schools and many musical acts. They sold over 700 tickets and raised lots of money for the charity. It was held in a theatre in the West End, it was certainly the biggest mixed crowd they had ever played to. All the acts did really well, it is so nice to see kids passionate about music. One of the dads filmed the whole thing so hopefully the results will be up on Youtube fairly soon. Here is the very blurry photo I managed to take of them on stage.

muffins

2010-02-27T14:54:00.001Z

I gave up eating wheat about 10 months ago. It started as a lose weight or buy bigger clothes crisis. I eliminated alcohol, sugar, dairy, wheat and caffeine for a month. Now it's not as drastic as it sounds because I am lactose intolerant so gave up dairy awhile back, although I had discovered I could eat high fat ice cream so that was very much part of my diet, I don't have a coffee or tea habit and I really don't drink alcohol that much. The sugar and the wheat were two huge things for me since I had multiple helpings of both in a day. What I discovered after a month was not only the weight loss (to be fair, I did go back to exercising after 8 years off) but that all the stomach things that I just took for granted disappeared. My stomach was just plain flatter and I had more energy. So ever since, I have stayed away as much as possible. I don't do white or brown sugar, I am reasonable about it, if I go out and it is in my food, I will of course eat it. It just isn't part of my regular diet anymore. So what to do about muffins and bread? I have discovered a spelt loaf which is pretty close to wheat bread, I can slice it and make sandwiches with it. You do get tired of eating the good but chewy 100% rye after awhile. I'm still in search of the perfect muffin recipe. I made a batch today, which were ok, I think some tweaking and it could be a whole lot better. I must say, the biggest fault lay with me, not the recipe because I over mixed. But it was a good excuse to practice with the camera so here is a photo.

Of course they will get eaten, but I will wait for the next batch and see if my tweaking paid off before I publish the recipe.

lunch for a friend

2010-02-23T19:08:00.000Z

Just had a lovely lunch with a friend I don't see very often. It was a pleasure to cook for her and share a bit of time. There's always loads to catch up on when you don't see each other very much and I feel like we could have stayed gabbing for a lot longer. I actually took a photo of the lunch, it is attached below. Could have used a bit more time in the plating and arranging, but we were hungry. Menu for lunch; teriyaki chicken, spinach and mushrooms with a flavoured sesame dressing, miso soup and rice with added grains and seeds.

I've had my ipod on shuffle all day, it is nice to have music you don't have to think about. Since it's my music, I know I like it all and I enjoy the juxtaposition of Frank Sinatra followed by Foo Fighters followed by the Mikado. I didn't leave the house today, a nice thing to do from time to time especially in weather like this.

Caught up with another old friend, this time by phone. A brief chat to reconnect for a bit then back to our busy lives.

Good friends and Sunday

2010-02-21T21:27:00.000Z

We had an open house last night to show friends our new flat. Many people have been following the progress on Facebook so it was nice to show off the finished product. Nearly 50 people turned up to hang out and reconnect with each other or make new friends. We had a big party last June and some people had met each other then so there was some reacquainting going on. The food went off without a hitch thanks to my wonderful friend H who came early and did a beautiful job plating all the food. But do I have photographic evidence of this? Of course not! One of these days I swear I will take some photos of the food that I make. I wish I could have recorded all the nice things people said about it. The kids came and brought friends, it's fun that they are old enough to be a part of our social life from time to time. Time flew by and we would love to do it again soon.

No party is complete without glass rentals and drinks from Majestic and this one was no different. If we can figure out a place to put it, it is tempting to just own all those champagne and wine glasses. Saves on the schlep the day after to return them. That's what we did today, loaded up a car service with the rental glasses and unopened cases and took them back. Walked home afterwards and had pretty good luck dodging raindrops, when will this weather ever end? Spent the rest of the day digging out my kitchen in fits and spurts, working on this blog pretty erratically too, I think it's a pretty typical Sunday after a party. It will take me a bit to recover, but maybe we'll have another one early summer when we can open the windows.

Went to our favourite Chinese restaurant for dinner tonight, lucky enough to get one of the last tables. They were putting on entertainment for the new year so the place was jam packed. We went there a lot when we lived across the street so they take very good care of us. The food was excellent as usual and they gave us a bit of sweet bean soup for dessert. There was live music and a performer from a Chinese opera whose mask kept changing, how does he do that? It was festive and fun, always interesting to see another aspect of someone else's culture. Afterwards, reality came in the form of good old TFL, waited 35 minutes for a bus that never came, ended up taking a taxi home. I want the taxi fare and 35 minutes of my life back.

A full week coming up, off to veg out for the remainder of the evening.

Food for 60?

2010-02-18T08:19:00.000Z

Well, you know from my last post that I hadn't quite figured out how to feed all the people coming. I think I have it figured out now. First off, a very wise friend told me many people would probably drop by pre or post dinner so I wouldn't need to provide dinner for all. So, I have come up with a menu and figured I will make so much of everything and when it runs out, we can run to the corner shop for crisps.

Right now, the menu will be marinated salmon, string beans in sesame sauce, tofu salad and gomoku sushi (a sushi that has various veggies and things mixed in, not made into any shape). I am off to the supermarket this morning so I can cook tomorrow. Since I'm gone all day, I need to make everything tomorrow. My wonderful friend H has offered to come around early and help out so I am very grateful.

It should be a fun evening and I am really looking forward to it. Now, off to the market.

Time is whipping along

2010-02-16T10:27:00.000Z

I am sensing a theme here, this is the second posting where I note how quickly time flies by. We decided to throw together an open house, very last minute. We made a guest list and added people as we realized how many we had forgotten. So, I hadn't really kept track of the numbers and this morning, when I finally added them all up, realized we have quite a few people coming. So I was meant to spend today working on how to publicize my classes but instead, I am trying to figure out how to feed the people who are coming. Oh and did I mention I am in a workshop from 10-5 that day? I'll be lucky to make it home before the guests arrive. I'm sure I will figure something out, I still have the rest of this week.

On a different note, I tried marinating salmon in the miso marinade I had made weeks ago. It is a miso and garlic combination and it needs to sit for 2 weeks before you start marinating things. Once it is ready, you really can put anything in it including veggies. The salmon came out really well, I can't wait to try other things. I was going to put a photo up but I didn't really make dinner that night so the salmon kind of looked sad on a plate by itself. But I did bring it for lunch the next day with some rice and spinach. I should have taken a photo of that, oh well.

Dress for Success and cooking class

2010-02-11T07:34:00.001Z

I volunteer at Dress for Success www.dressforsuccess.org/london and this is our 10 year anniversary since opening in London. To commemorate the occasion the Darlings hosted a reception for us at 11 Downing Street. It was lots of fun catching up with volunteers from other days. I go in once a week to help dress women for job interviews and so never see the volunteers from the other days. We all love what we do so there is a real camaraderie when we get together. It was fun to go behind the big gates and go past number 10 (we had a reception there in 2008) and into 11. I must admit I was very bad at meeting the VIPs who were there but did manage to meet Joi Gordon who started the charity in New York. I think we overstayed our welcome a bit since it was meant to be over at 8 but the last of us shuffled out closer to 9.

On an entirely different note, I worked out a schedule for my cooking classes yesterday. It will be a block of 5 weeks beginning 27 April. I will teach Tuesday and Thursday nights and it will be the same class so you have a choice of nights. I also figured in the beginning I will keep it simple. Also, one Saturday during the course, I would arrange an outing to Japan Centre so you will be able to navigate on your own for Japanese ingredients. Now I just need to figure out a way to post it somewhere so I can start spreading the word. Oh, and of course I need to price it. That may be the activity this weekend.

Exam

2010-02-09T15:45:00.000Z

Today is the exam for my "Nutrition for Everyday Living" class that I have been taking for the last couple of months. It is given at the College of Naturopathic Medicine so the whole bent is organic, natural, evils of the food industry kind of thing. This suits me fine and so I was thinking, how long has it been since I became interested in organic food? I think we have been trying to eat organic since 1989 when my daughter was born and we joined the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn. I don't remember it being a conscious decision but I guess I didn't want to feed my baby pesticides. But I do think organic produce tastes better and with the various health related food restrictions I've had over the years, I've gotten pretty good about reading labels. But I am not fanatical about it at all, I buy it when I can but when I can't I buy regular. The four years we lived in Japan we mostly bought non organic since it was hard to find organic produce and meat. If you are willing to live with a restricted selection, London is not bad. You do get tired of eating the same veg. Various people have suggested the organic food boxes they deliver to you but I am not a huge fan of surprise vegetables and prefer to buy what I need. My cooking is improvisational as it is, so it doesn't need the added drama of mystery ingredients. And so I find myself studying for my first exam in probably 30 years if you don't count driving or citizenship. I'm hoping unlike my other endeavours, I don't forget all the information the second I leave the classroom but old habits die hard.

Here is the recipe for my kombu soy sauce which you will need to make the niku jaga from Sunday.
Kombu 30g cut into 2.5cm squares
Soy Sauce 2 cups
Sake 1 cup

Put a heavy pot over a low flame and gently dry saute the kombu. Let cool. Pour the other ingredients into a jar, add the kombu. Keeps in the fridge for 2 months.

That's all there is to it. Couldn't be easier.

Wish me luck tonight.

Cooking for later

2010-02-07T13:43:00.000Z

Both children came home for a whirlwind visit this weekend. I am also having guests for dinner tonight so I wanted to make something that would be fine sitting on the stove to feed children as they got hungry. So, I made a large pot of rice and a Niku jaga which literally means meat and potatoes. It is a dish that gets stewed on the stove top and the flavours improve with sitting around. The only hitch is, you need sukiyaki sliced beef. I happened to have some in the freezer from my last trip to Japan Centre, but my friend Nana says you can achieve the same effect by slightly freezing a steak and slicing it. I will have to give that a try the next time. I was also able to try out my home made kombu soy sauce which was a great shortcut to producing dashi (stock). The result is pretty good if I do say so myself. Here is the recipe.

sukiyaki sliced beef 300g
potatoes 3 large
onion 1 medium
carrot 1 small
mange tout (snow peas) handful

water 2.5 cups
kombu soy sauce 6 TBP
sugar 2 TBP
rapeseed oil 1.5 TBP

Slice the beef into 5cm pieces, set aside.

Peel and cut potatoes into good size chunks (6-8 for a large potato), put into a bowl of water.

Peel the onion, cut in half lengthwise and slice into 7-8mm pieces. Chop the carrot into small pieces (about half the size of the potato). Slice the mange tout in half on the diagonal. Drain the potatoes in a colander.

Put the rapeseed oil in a pan and saute the beef followed by the onion and carrot. Saute lightly and add water.

Separate the beef while cooking over high heat and remove the foam as it forms.

Add the potatoes cover with aluminum foil with hole in center and cook 12-15 minutes on medium low heat.

Remove the foil lid, add the kombu soy sauce and sugar and reduce cooking liquid by half.

When the potatoes are close to crumbling, add the mange tout, let it cook a bit and serve.

Here is what it looks like.

Setsubun

2010-02-03T18:50:00.001Z

Today, is Setsubun in Japan. Now I only have memories of throwing soy beans so I thought I would do a little research and find out what it really means.

Good old Wiki to the rescue, here's a little history. The word setsubun means separate the season. So it started as the day before the start of each new season. However, since the Edo period it has meant the day before the start of Spring (hard to believe looking out the window today). Because it was believed that bad spirits tended to appear when the season was changing, a tradition developed to chase them away. Around the time the ritual was adopted by the lower classes (circa 1447), toasted soy beans were thrown at people dressed as demons to ward off evil spirits in temples and shrines. People also put sea bream heads speared on a holly branch on their door at dusk on setsubun as a talisman.

Today, the tradition lives on in the form of symbolically throwing soy bean outside the house caling "Oni wa Soto" meaning demons, out and "Fuku wa Uchi" meaning fortune, in. I remember when I was little doing it at home but my mom wouldn't let us throw many beans in the house because it was messy to clean up afterwards. My mom is a bit of a neat fanatic so my sister and I thought it was great that we deliberately got to throw things on the floor. Another tradition is you eat as many beans as your age plus one so that you stay healthy and have good fortune throughout the year. But when I was a little kid, roasted soy beans were not my idea of a good snack. But fortunately you don't have to eat that many of them. We did the bean throwing at school too and one of the gym teachers always put a demon mask on and got pelted with roasted beans. If it is your year on the zodiac calendar, then you get to be the one that throws the beans. Every year the big shrines get celebrities and athletes who are aged multiples of 12 to come and throw the beans. There are lots of warding off evil kinds of traditions in Japan. Either they were very superstitious or lots of bad things happened. I hope there was lots of throwing beans in Japan today, the demons need to be beaten back.

Thank you to my friends who commented on my blog and asked me for recipes. Please let me know how it turns out, I would love to know.

On a totally different note, I went to a coffee morning today and met lots of really interesting women. It is really hard to meet new people and you tend to hang out with the same people all the time, not that it's a bad thing but I find meeting new people really stimulating and I love hearing about how they got to London and sharing our stories. Our hostess is a wonderfully dynamic woman who draws people to her. It is her warm personality and hospitality skills that made the morning such a success. We all overstayed our welcome and sat well beyond the time originally scheduled.

My camera has returned from its holiday and is taking lovely photos. I hope to be able to make the blogs a bit more interesting with some photos in the future.

My goodness how time flies

2010-02-02T08:12:00.000Z

I can't believe it's February already and over a week since I posted anything. I am still waiting for my camera to return from it's little holiday in Tunbridge Wells, hopefully it will be as good as new.

I've finally decided to start my classes in April. Right now, I am working on a structure but I am hoping to do two nights a week of quick one dish supper kind of classes 1.5-2 hours and a longer class on Saturday consisting of more dishes. I've made up some flavoured soy sauces which really add instant Japanese flavour to any dish. Here is the one I use all the time.

Bonito Flavoured Soy Sauce
2 cups light soy sauce
1 cup mirin
40g bonito flakes

Combine the light soy sauce and mirin in a saucepan. Let it come to the boil then add bonito flakes. When it returns to the boil, turn it off. Wait for the flakes to settle to the bottom, then strain into a jar. Keep in the fridge.

My favourite thing to do with it right now is to put it in my omelets. Don't put cheese in it because that would be weird but any veggie meat combo will do. Bacon, mushrooms and onion with a dash of the soy sauce for flavouring and it becomes a great thing to eat with rice. Try it.

a quick recap

2010-01-25T07:58:00.000Z

I realize I haven't written for a couple of days, very bad since I'm trying to write everyday. So here's what's been happening the last couple of days.

My camera's been broken and I have sent it off to a place in Tunbridge Wells to have it fixed. It got me thinking, maybe I should buy a digital SLR so I can take better pictures and put them on my blog because as you know, a poor craftsman blames his tools. We have a friend coming to visit from NY in a couple of weeks so I thought if I can make a decision quickly, I can have one shipped from B and H, a wonderful shop in NYC and ask him to bring it over. So I called the only person I could think of who might be able to help me and she very generously offered to have me over to talk to me. Now, I don't really know this person very well so I was really touched by her generosity. She showed me her camera, we took some photos of a roast chicken that was going to be their dinner and compared automatic settings and manual settings on a SLR and point and shoot. The conclusion we reached was that for the purposes of the web, the point and shoot was fine for me. I think she just save me masses of money. So now the only thing I have to do is wait for my camera to come back and buy a tripod. Yaay. Oh yeah and learn to use my camera that I've had for 3 years.

So we start chatting and I am telling her I want to photograph my food and start teaching classes and she tells me about pop up restaurants that have become very popular in London. For those of you that don't know, it is a dinner in a non restaurant location where strangers will pay to come eat your food. I gather they are in people's living rooms and cool spaces to which they have access. She was very enthusiastic about that and offering to help and I am going to give it some serious thought. We have a space that's big enough to accomodate probably 12 people, but I've never cooked for that many before. But the wheels have started turning.

the wisdom of space planning

2010-01-21T18:37:00.000Z

This is the first place I have lived where I have had any input into the design of the space. Like most people, we move into an existing space and work with what's already there. But as we nearly stripped out the space we are in and redesigned the space, I now live in a place that suits me and my stuff.

As I am hoping to teach from my kitchen, the kitchen layout was very important. Considering I wasn't sure what I was doing, it turned out really well. It is purely by accident since I thought the space would end up to be much bigger and I was very disappointed with the way it turned out. However, now that I have moved in and started using it, the space works really well. I am short so I did away with hanging cabinets. I don't like them visually and they are also very impractical when you are 5'1". Instead, I have drawers underneath counters holding all my kitchen equipment. I also have three tall cabinets which hold my larder and spices. The two things I insisted on were a heavy duty stove and large fridge. They both dominate the kitchen, but I get so much use out of them that it doesn't matter. Here's what it looks like. Well, here was supposed to be a picture of my kitchen but my camera is on the fritz so the photo will have to wait until the camera comes back from the shop. Anyway, off to make dinner, chawan mushi, a savoury egg custard, stewed daikon, rice and leftovers.

lunch

2010-01-20T15:01:00.000Z

Had a couple of friends over for lunch today. On the menu, grilled filet steak, string beans in sesame sauce, freeze dried tofu, miso soup and mushroom rice. I was very satisfied with the result, I think my friends liked it too. I usually take lots of short cuts and use premade things when I cook for family but today I made everything from scratch and actually it doesn't take that much longer and it tastes so much better. It is all about organisation and planning things out. I meant to take a photo of the table laid out but I forgot. I even had the camera out on the table, can't believe it. I will try again the next time I entertain.

Tonight is the first nutrition class after a long holiday break, I hope we aren't expected to remember anything, because I'm pretty sure I've forgotten the little I knew before the break. I think my challenge for tonight will be staying awake for the whole class.

I went to class and it went pretty quickly. There were some new people in the class and they are friendly so it made the breaking into groups easier. Not that the other people in the class are unfriendly, but I get the impression they take this all very seriously. Talked about fad diets and ways of eating as a philosophy. Somehow I thought we were nearly done with the course but it turns out we are only half way there. Oh well.

simple dishes

2010-01-17T16:37:00.000Z

I'm having some friends over for lunch on Tuesday so have been putting together a menu. I made a quick string bean with sesame dressing as a side dish for lunch yesterday, don't know if it will make it onto the menu for Tuesday. The basic composition is rice, a soup and three other dishes. One can be cold, one hot and the last usually is a meat or fish of some sort. Obviously within that, you can play with the combinations but if you can put 5 items in front of your guests, you've got the basics covered. As far as home cooking is concerned, none of the techniques are that difficult, it is a matter of making sure all the different dishes work well together. When I cook for my family, very often it is one main dish, rice and soup or sometimes, it's just a one dish meal. Japanese food isn't always delicate and beautiful, sometimes it is hearty and homely. I'll try and take some photos on Tuesday so you can see.

Self esteem

2010-01-15T16:56:00.000Z

Here is a piece I wrote for my friend Silvia's site on women and employment.

Self esteem is a fundamental requirement for a successful life. As social beings, we derive much of our self worth and self esteem by mirroring those around us. The feedback can be both positive and negative. Some of us are lucky enough to have been brought up in an environment where the positive far outweighs the negative. It is a superhuman task to set about changing your mindset about who you are in a positive way. It can come about through small successes and accomplishments which build self confidence. The setbacks and failures only make us stronger as we discover hidden reserves to deal with obstacles.

Having a job, being able to support yourself as well as a family goes a long way towards giving someone self esteem and dignity. I volunteer for a charity Dress for Success www.dressforsuccess.org/london that helps women to start on that road to confidence and dignity. We work with women from diverse backgrounds who due to circumstances find themselves out of work. We help the long term unemployed, those recovering from mental health issues, soon to be parolees, every woman is unique. Many of them are single mothers and for them to be in employment affects everyone in their family. When these women have a job interview scheduled, they come to us where we outfit them with clothing appropriate for the interview and position. We talk to them about the interview process, but mostly we make them feel good about themselves. By the end of our session, the client is feeling much more positive about the whole interview process and confident of their success. Over and over we hear, “now I don’t need to worry about what how I look” and “I look the part now”. Once they are successful, they come back to us and we give them further outfits to help them go to work everyday. It is an incredibly simple model and it works really well. I love helping our clients and to see the transformation in them at the end of a session is truly rewarding. For our clients, getting the job is the easy part; they will have to fight everyday to learn new skills, new people, and new systems. But if they can stay with it, then those accomplishments and the confidence gained along the way can be something they can turn to when things aren’t going so well. I hope there comes a time when everyone who wants to work can have a job as there is nothing more demoralising then having the desire to work and being denied an opportunity.

There's a frst time for everythng

2010-01-11T17:21:00.000Z

I find myself alone this week, everyone is away. It is absolute bliss. I'm sure after a couple of weeks I will be very lonely but for now, as it is such a rarity to be alone in one's house, I am relishing it. Which leads me to my experience this evening. I am going to the theatre alone. I got an e mail offer and thought, why not? I'm sure it will be fine, but as with all new things, a bit uncertain. I hope it's good, I've only walked out a couple of times at the interval. But it has to be really bad.

I volunteer every Monday at Dress for Success. It is a charity that helps women back into work by providing interview clothing and other support. I have been there for 3 years, I think and it continues to be a great way to spend my time. I've met all different kinds of women, some have been wonderful, some impossible to make a connection and some so unhappy that you know they are still a long ways off from being able to have a steady job We only had one client today as the weather is still causing trouble for those travelling in to see us. She left feeling on top of the world and I hope that confidence will come through at her interview. Fingers crossed she is successful and we will have the pleasure of outfitting her for her new job.

Another day of cold

2010-01-08T09:58:00.000Z

Had my first training session at the gym of the new year. Why is it that working with someone else is so much more effective than working out by yourself? I guess that's why I pay for a trainer, I have the sore muscles today to prove it. The funny thing is, I couldn't really tell you what we did yesterday that was so strenuous that I should be sore today. I've also become very conscious of portion control in the last couple of days. When I was on a good eating/losing weight phase, I was eating every three hours. My portions had crept back up to where I was eating a large enough bowl of cereal for breakfast, that it was holding me until lunch time. So, cut back on the portions and the weight is starting to go down, thank goodness. I have to make it to the gym more frequently than I have been over the holidays, hard when it is so frigid out.

I had tea at a friend's house in the afternoon to meet her mother who is visiting from the States. I had a really fun time and the hours flew by. I guess we've matured to the point that friends' parents are just people now, maybe at this rate, I will get over my fear of teachers and headmasters sometime in the next decade. I left the house in the afternoon walking over a solid sheet of ice on my street and came home in the early evening to find the street had been gritted. What a difference that makes. I wouldn't mind the weather so much if the sidewalks were kept clear. I live in mortal fear of slipping and breaking something. Consequently I wear my ridiculous ski boots around in this weather. There are solid patches of ice on the boat basin now, a lot of birds hanging out on it. I guess their feet don't get cold.

Waiting for my shipment from rice wine shop to arrive so I can start experimenting with sauces. A very different experience from net a porter when my shoes arrived the next day at no extra cost. Of course they didn't fit, they went back the same day and they are going to send me a different size all for the same original shipping cost. I was unhappy about having to pay shipping, but I am certainly getting my money's worth.

Winter

2010-01-06T14:13:00.000Z

It's been flurrying all day, not enough to stick and not cold enough to stick either. Everywhere on the news, they report the chaos in other parts of the country due to the "weather". I guess this sort of thing happens infrequently enough that the local councils, airports, trains and anyone else charged with keeping people moving feel that you can just grin and bear it for a couple of days until it goes away. Hardly worth spending money on, for 2 days a year, right? Usually yes, but if the predicted 10 more days of sub zero temps continue, we are all in big trouble. Eventually I will have to leave my house. Already today I have put off a grocery foraging trip since I don't want to go out in this mess. I hate being cold, I hate being wet so the combination is very unappealing. I have to go out tomorrow so perhaps momentum will carry me to get the shopping done as well. We'll see.

Have been reading and thinking about how to structure my cooking class and have started to have some ideas. I am a huge convenience fan. I like good food, I like good ingredients but I think anything that takes hours to prepare, I'd rather pay someone to serve it to me than make it for myself. I always thought of prepared seasonings as the full of chemicals stuff they sell, which certainly has it's place and I am not above using them liberally. But as I am discovering from my readings, there exists a tradition of sauces in Japanese cooking that you can make yourself and they can be very handy. I am planning to prepare some of them and experiment with it to see how it all fits together. I just need to find someone to eat the stuff I make since husband is veggie.

shopping

2010-01-03T18:33:00.000Z

Spent the day shopping with my 17 year old son. He is at an age where sometimes he is required to dress up. So, he wanted some clothes he could wear to parties that wasn't his dress suit. So, off we went to Spitalfields and the surrounding neighbourhood. Oh yes, he wanted shoes to go with that as well. We looked at all the stalls in Spitalfields that did men's clothes as well as individual shops, he tried on quite a few jackets and things but vintage is really hit or miss and today was more of a miss. You have to be very patient and persevering and I'm not sure he has the stamina. Towards the end, he just couldn't look in any more shops so we went to eat in Shoreditch, had a big meaty lunch and came home. I cherish these days we spend together because I know they won't last forever and I do enjoy his company.

I have to make another trip to the Japan Centre to stock up on supplies. I think I will go on Wednesday and prepare some basic things on Thursday. I'm starting to understand when people say it's all about being organised.

Can't believe regular life resumes tomorrow, I've had a fun couple of weeks off. Although in a household where no one goes to work, it seems like everyday should be the same. But even within our random household, the holiday time has been a bit special. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

2010-01-02T10:13:00.000Z

The new year is starting off with a sore throat. Took a very long and cold walk yesterday to St. Paul's. I had never been in there before, so I didn't realize it would cost £11 to get in. £22 for the two of us, so we just peered around from the pillars by the ticket desk. The streets getting there were absolutely empty especially once we got closer to the city. But the cathedral and the area immediately around it was heaving with tourists. It wasn't quite the same as going to a shrine, it was too soaring and grand, but it was nice to be in a spiritual space to commemorate the new year. Afterwards, we walked over to Kingsland Road and had a Vietnamese lunch, our first since moving out of the neighbourhood.

My food intake has steadily increased and I can tell I need to pay close attention to what I eat again. I don't think I am going to the gym today, I just don't feel well enough but I think I will try and cut out the sugar again. I no longer eat white sugar but have developed quite the dried fruit habit and bouja bouja ice dessert thing made on cashews and agave syrup. Basically, sugar is sugar in whatever form it takes and I am addicted to it.

I am seeing my trainer again on Wednesday and boot camp resumes next Saturday so hopefully I will feel better by then and can kick start my year.

On the menu today, a new batch of hummous, something involving daikon or maybe another pot of curry. Forgot to buy so many things at Japan Centre on Thursday, will have to go back soon.

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T09:41:00.000Z

Happy new year, a gorgeous start to a new decade. I wish it could be bright like this all the time. The morning light is very inspirational and makes me think anything is possible. I guess my resolution this year is to do more things. I tend to fill my time with activities which while enjoyable are probably not that productive. So this year, I will attempt some harder stuff, things that take a bit of effort but are more rewarding. The cooking class is an example of that. I have a friend who has already found me two clients so I'd better get on that. Trying to come up with a format is definitely stumping me. Maybe I'll stop procrastinating and actually think about it.

I would really like to get to a shrine to pay my respects today, there are some traditions that I absolutely love about Japan. Maybe a walk to St. Paul's will have to do. It is a place of worship and I figure it's the thought that counts, not the denomination.

This song is perfect for today, I think. http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0NvDUta38k

end of year continued

2009-12-31T16:54:00.001Z

Well, it took 9 months from when we saw the property to move in, 5 of it spent on renovating. Our simple project of adding a bedroom and redoing the kitchen somehow turned into a near gut. There is no such thing as the perfect home, but we are pretty happy with the way it turned out. The project was a pleasure since we hired our friend Amanda to be the architect and our wonderful builder Gabor did a beautiful job. I've never had to figure out where the light switches should be and the outlets, so it was good to have people who do this for a living that we trust advising us. We've been in for a little over a month now and have miraculously unpacked nearly all the boxes. When you build your own space, you tend to build places to hold all your things. What an advantage. Not sure I would recommend this for everyone, but it worked out for us.

Our daughter started uni after 2 gap years and is loving it. She has mentally flown the coop and I think she thinks of coming home as "visiting". Son in his last year of senior school, looking forward to a gap year next year. I am very lucky to have two very different wonderful children, they are fun to hang out with. I enjoy having them around but am very happy that they have their own full lives.

I spent the year getting ready to start my new life. I had the feeling that things would get going once we moved into the new flat. Since that didn't happen until the end of the year, it will have to wait until tomorrow, when the new year starts.

For the first time in many years, I plan to bring in a little tradition for the new year's celebratoin. We will be having soba this evening. It is traditionally eaten to bring long life. Tomorrow morning, I will make a traditional soup to start the new year. It will just be the two of us probably since the kids are with friends for new year's. Not the elaborate creations of years past, but much more than I have done in a long time. Maybe it's because I feel like I am at home here.

Here's to a healthy happy new year.

end of year relfections

2009-12-30T08:44:00.000Z

It's almost the new year, and although I am not a big one on resolutions, I thought I might look back on this year, as it's been very eventful.

We started the year in limbo, in a rental flat, looking for the next place to call home. Finding said new home was a long and fairly painful process. We were lucky enough to sell our place before the market went south but discovered that as house prices dropped, properties were pulled off the market everyday. Basically people who didn't have to sell, didn't. So, as usual, our budget didn't quite stretch to what we wanted, but it was tantalisingly close. Husband Dan went and looked at anything anyone called him about and spent a lot of time online looking for properties. We looked at a couple that we thought were doable, but nothing struck our hearts. I am a firm believer in not buying until you have that sense of being at home when you walk in to a property. I guess that's not technically true since I really disliked the layout of the last flat but for some reason had a compulsion to be in the building, but anyway, when I have that feeling, it's always worked out later when we sell. Dan got really frustrated with me because I wouldn't commit to any of the properties we had found and wanted me to compromise. I refused and said I would wait for that feeling. 2 weeks later, we both stood in a property that was basically a blank canvas and we both had that feeling. So glad we did.

and then some other stuff happened

2009-12-26T09:50:00.000Z

Boxing day, another quiet day in London. Had an invitation to a friend’s for lunch but husband is sick. It’s really too bad, I was looking forward to it, but he is coughing like he is going to lose a lung so probably best to stay home. Another grey day, although yesterday had some bursts of brilliance. Kids are going to hit the sales today, hard to get motivated to brave the crowds. The house guests are off on a Stonehenge adventure this afternoon. Funny how everyone who comes to visit wants to go there, maybe I’ll get there one of these days. I need to put some structure around this cooking class idea, perhaps I’ll work on that a little today.

Part 3

2009-12-26T09:48:00.002Z

We moved to Tokyo in 1997 with an 8 year old and 5 year old. We put them in an international school and I started to experience life in Tokyo that I didn’t know existed. We were part of the “expat” community, a small pretty tight group of foreigners who were in Japan on assignment. We had a very nice life, large flats, American appliances, membership at the American club and holidays in Asia. I discovered in the 15 years I had been away, so many short cuts were invented for food in Japan. It was now possible to buy many seasonings in a packet to add to ingredients to make dishes, there was pretty much no end to the things available in these packets. Also, the takeaways were absolutely delicious as was the ready made food available everywhere. Consequently, I didn’t cook much at all in Tokyo, just produced meals very little of which was home made. I did join a food coop in Tokyo which is a wonderful service. Every week you get a catalog of food as well as sundries ranging from clothing to kitchen gadgets. You pick what you want, write it on an order form, they come and pick it up when they drop off your order from the week before. That was the simplest way to get organic produce in Tokyo at that time. I tried to continue my eating organic whenever possible. So four years in Tokyo went by in a flash and it was time to leave. Next stop, London.

I had heard horror stories about food in the UK and I did have the experience of having cheddar cheese on my pizza when I visited in 1983. But food in London in the beginning was bewilderingly expensive and not good. I wouldn’t say it was horrible there were definitely some good restaurants. But everything was very expensive and price didn’t guarantee quality. Coming from four years in Tokyo, where most food is very good regardless of price, I felt royally ripped off. There wasn’t a huge variety of produce either and deliveries were pretty hard to come by so I found myself trying to figure out what to make for dinner. In the early years, I shopped at M&S because they delivered. I now shop at Waitrose for the same reason. I do a big weekly shop and then supplement at health food shops and the local Tesco. Funny how even with the house being just my husband and me, I still feel compelled to do a weekly shop, old habits I guess. I eventually settled on a boring menu of a protein, veg and starch. It was the easiest meal to produce and required no brain power. Getting Japanese groceries was a pain, it required a trip to Piccadilly since we lived in central London. I found an online shop that delivers but obviously couldn’t get fresh ingredients that way. I have a friend who is truly into her food. She will travel great distances and make anything she can’t get from scratch. I am not nearly that dedicated. So what I am trying to do is to try and adapt what I know to what is available locally. It is the seasonings that make it taste the way it does and I think it is ok for the ingredients not to be authentic. There are so many vegetables you just can’t get in the local shops and while there is no substitute for some things, others, you can fudge.

I entered a new chapter in my life this past May when I finally decided I needed to do something about my weight. I had put weight on gradually in the 8 years that we lived in London and I hadn’t noticed how much bigger I had gotten. Well, it got to the point where I had to lose weight or buy new clothes. So I decided to lose weight. I also hadn’t exercised since the first year we lived here so I figured it was time to get back into that too. I did the very strict Elimination Diet for a month, a detox as well as weight loss and started back gradually on the exercising. I lost a little weight that first month, but it really wasn’t until the second month that things really started moving. I realised I felt very good from the combination of the diet and exercise and decided to adopt some of those things everyday. The diet eliminates caffeine, alcohol, dairy, wheat and sugar. You also eat organic wherever possible. Well, you cut out the wheat and sugar and pretty much my snacking was gone. I was a total sugar addict and it turned out I was wheat intolerant. It’s been 7 months now and I feel really good, I have lots more energy, but that’s probably as much to do with going to the gym three times a week. I hope to keep this up for the foreseeable future. Sometimes, I do have things I shouldn’t, but usually the physical discomfort that follows makes it not worth it.

So, my interest in food was rekindled as what I could eat was severely restricted. I found myself cooking a lot more, as I had to make things I could eat. Home made really does taste better and it could be really quick. I am reconnecting with my Japanese cooking chops since it is easier to adapt Japanese food to my new way of eating. So I hit upon the idea of teaching Japanese home cooking to people in my flat. It would be Japanese cooking taught by someone enthusiastic about food, not in a gourmet way, but in a quick and easy kind of way. Food doesn’t need to be complicated to be good, it is all about the right ingredients. And so begins my journey.

Part 2

2009-12-24T15:27:00.001Z

In 1975, my dad was transferred again, this time to New York and I was 16, found myself back in the States, but a very different place from LA. Our diet was pretty healthy, there was a Japanese grocery not that far from where we were living, so meals at home were still pretty Japanese. From there, college in NY, the rest of my family went back to Tokyo after my first year so I was alone for most of the year, going home at Christmas and summer. Nothing remarkable here, I had a pretty typical young person’s diet, lots of pizza, Chinese food, booze but lots of dancing to work it off. You could find lots of cheap good food in New York and after a brief stint at home after college, I was back in NY, hanging out with my boyfriend (now husband) and friends, working and eating. I cooked a lot back then, we loved to entertain. I would plan elaborate meals, shop and cook on a Saturday and have friends over for an evening, We both had pretty demanding jobs so during the week, we ate out mostly or had food delivered and I saved all my cooking for “occasion” food. I never did cook any Japanese food though, except for things like stir fries and fried rice because Japanese cooking was my mother’s domain. We got to go out for Japanese when my dad was in town and he would take us out.

Fast forward a bit, we are now married, living in Park Slope and we have a baby. I have quit my job to stay at home with my baby Hana, “poor but happy” was our motto back then. We joined the Park Slope Food Coop, a wonderful place full of wonderful food. It was here I was introduced to organic food and how much better it tasted than regular food.

My parents were back in New York, so once again, my Japanese food consumption went up. I made most of Hana’s baby food since it was a simple thing to do and organic baby food was just being introduced. Thanks to the Coop, I always had the freshest ingredients to hand. Fruit and vegetables just tasted more like what they are in organic form. Here is an anecdote about organic food; when Hana was a still very little, the coop was only open 3 or 4 days a week and I had run out of carrots for her. I went up to the green grocers on Seventh Avenue and bought some, cooked it and gave it to her. She refused to eat it, because it tasted nothing like the carrots she was used to. Now obviously that’s an extreme reaction and she now eats organic and non organic produce, but I was very surprised.

Well, we had another baby and moved to Montclair, a New Jersey suburb, into a lovely house on a great block. With the birth of my kids, my own cultural identity started to become more important and I began to cook more Japanese food. I wanted to pass it on to my kids but also, they seemed to really like it. I discovered that all those years growing up, helping mom in the kitchen had stuck and I had a pretty good grasp of the basics. What I couldn’t figure out, I would just call home and my mom would talk me through it. She sent me some cook books and some of her own recipes and I would recreate the dishes I had been brought up on.

My ultimate triumph as a Japanese cook came when I made a new year’s box. In

Japan

, traditionally, the first three days of the new year are a time when everyone rests and you visit friends and family so a traditional food box is eaten filled with food that would keep over the three days. Of course traditionally, it would be filled with lots of fish products but I was married to a vegetarian. So, I had to cut way back on the fish, and add veggie version of some things. Much of the food in the box also has symbolic meaning mostly to do with good health, longevity and hard work. Somewhere I have pictures, I think, it was a pretty proud moment and I did it at least two years and then we were transferred to Tokyo of all places. But more on that tomorrow.

The story so far

2009-12-23T08:41:00.000Z

I haven’t always liked food. That is not to say I ever had an eating disorder. When I was a baby, or so my mother tells me, I didn’t like to eat. She would struggle to get me to finish my bottle (I never did) and later she would buy me very expensive jars of baby food which I would eat a couple of bites and that was it.

But at some point, I started a love affair with food. It was probably when my family moved to LA in 1965 and I discovered ice cream. Not the anaemic low butter fat content stuff I had in Japan, but full fat American ice cream. We lived not far from the Carnation store in LA and it was a frequent treat. We ate lots of red meat for the first time and although my mom did make some Japanese food, my sister and I were just in love with the junky, fatty food available in the States. We both developed weight problems and there are school photos from those days I would just as soon never saw the light of day.

After 5 years, we were transferred back again to Tokyo and what a shock to the system! It was cold there, first of all, 5 years of not owning an overcoat in LA and then October in Tokyo. We also reverted to a Japanese diet. 1970 was a time when there were no American fast food restaurants; the diet was still pretty typically Japanese. There were shops selling ready made food, but made in the shop, not some large factory somewhere. Even the box lunches you got for train trips were made in small batches somewhere near by. Within 6 months, my sister and I were back to our normal weight. I would never be the ridiculously skinny kid that I was pre LA but I no longer stood out in a country with very few overweight young people. Gym class was a horror. I had never been particularly athletic, not being the most coordinated person in the world, (just ask my trainer) and the once a week volleyball gym class in LA did nothing to enhance my fitness. In Tokyo, there was gym class 3 times a week and they would make us run, play softball, basketball, jump these ridiculous boxy things which all my class mates did with some degree of ease since they had been doing it since they were 6. Hmmm change in diet, exercise three times a week? Sound familiar? I actually never put that together till just now.

My mom went on a cooking rampage. She re discovered the wonders of Japanese food. She took a kaiseki course and prepared elaborate meals for us, only to have my sister and I not appreciate them in the least. My dad was rarely home in those days, being a “salary man” and all so life was mostly the 3 of us. I really regret that my palate was not developed enough to appreciate my mom’s kaiseki, she’s always been a remarkable cook and I’m sure it was wonderful. Having children of my own now and having them be really appreciative of everything I make, I feel bad I couldn’t do that for my mom. Kaiseki was followed by bread making. That we appreciated, especially the crusty rolls with cubes of cheese she used to make. Because you see, the Japanese diet was slowly starting to merge with the west. Frozen vegetables were introduced, KFC came to town, all things which should have set off alarm bells, but at the time were embraced as new and exciting. I remember watching a documentary about the struggles the American companies faced, trying to bring frozen vegetables and KFC into Japan and it was definitely a little patronising and depicted the Japanese as having to be convinced of this new way of eating which was already a part of every day life in the States. Oh if we only knew what we know now, dieting probably still wouldn’t exist in Japan. More tomorrow