As I've mentioned about breakfast last time. I've bought new thermos steel pot to take some homemade soup to work. It has 16oz (0.47L) of capacity, and cold liquid can be keeps 24 hours, hot liquid keeps 12 hours. I like this red color. I think it is cute. So I've just prepared my soup for tomorrow. It is sweet potatoes and broccoli soup. 先日、食生活を改善するため、朝食をとりはじめた事を書きました。 そのために、朝から出勤の場合は、仕事にスープを持って行こうと思い、ステンレスの水筒を購入しました。ずっと買おうかどうしようか、と迷っていたのですが、これを機会に買う事に決めました。 16oz (0.47リットル)の容量があり、冷たいものは24時間、熱いものは12時間保温できます。 この赤い色も気に入っています。 早速、明日の朝のためにサツマイモと、ブロッコリーのスープを作りました。なんだか毎朝ピクニックみたいでーす。
When I was child, my mother never let me go to school without breakfast. Even when I wake up late or sometimes my mother wake up late... she still tried to prepare something for me.
She believes breakfast is most important meal in a whole day.
I've been working in this industry for 14 years. Since I started to walking in the restaurant, I'd never had proper meal for 3 times a day. And I'd never had more than 20 minutes to enjoy my plate. Well, I could choose different job and my parents wanted to me to do something else. But I was so addicted and fall in love to this business. Just seeing smiles of customers, that always remind me "this is why I can not leave"....
Anyway I'm become 30 now, and I realized my body doesn't listen to me as much as used to be. And started to think about "HEALTH", which I'd never ever thought seriously. And I'm trying to started from "break fast" that I haven't eaten for ages. So this is my first step... I've made dried fruits sauce for forth myself to eat break fast. I've cooked prunes, dried apricots and nuts with orange juice and dash of read wine and add some Cinnamon to give nice aroma.... cook in low heat and no sugar need to be added. Off course great partner of yogurt and cereals. I'm trying to think what else can be nice with...
Tokugawa Mitsukini(1628-1701) was a feudal lord in the Mito domain who was known for his influence in politics of his era. He compliled a huge collection of the "Dai Nihon Shi" (history of great Japan) , which helped to raise nationalism in the late shogunate. He was the first person in the Japanese history who has tried milk, wine, Chinese noodle, gyoza dumplings, cheese, beef, lamb and pork... when people were not allowed to eat meat due to religion reason. Also he had 2 coloured people in the house to research them and later he even gave them title as part of his family. He was also into the making of Udon noodle by himself. He loved sake. He used to drink milk sake. Milk sake is a sake that is mixed with water, milk and sugar, and he drunk it warm. I've tried this sake a number of times before I go to bed. Actually it's not so bad, and he died at 73 years old, when the average life span of Japanese people was 33 years old. So it must be good.
As I've mentioned already, I love gazpacho. But I never knew there is many types of gazpacho until I've tasted such a delicious melon gazpacho at DEHESA -charcuterie & tapas bar- where is on the Ganton street, in central London. It was so tasty. Since then I always wanted to try to make melon gazpacho.
It was about almost two week ago when we hire the smart car in the week end. We had nice trip to country side and on the way back home we did BIG shopping that usually we can not without car. We bought so many stuff, even something that we can get from around our flat....
The melon was finally ripe well (almost forgotten!) so I thought about melon gazpacho. I've checked recipe on the internet, but so many different styles and so many different ingredient.... So we decided to follow OUR recipe and used simply melon, peppers (green, yellow and red), white wine vinegar, salt and pepper, dash of cranberry juice (I don't know why but one of the recipe used) and olive oil. We didn't want to kill anybody after, so we avoid to use garlic. And served it with toast and butter. It was not great as the one from DEHESA, but it was very nice and fresh. 前にも少し書きましたが、私は、ガスパチョが大好きです。 しかし、DEHESA -charcuterie & tapas bar- という Ganton streetにあるレストランで、メロンのガスパチョを頂いたときの感動は今でも忘れず、その時初めてトマト以外でも美味しく作れる事を知りました。それからというもの、機会があったら是非挑戦してみたいレシピの一つでした。
Ippodo Tea Co. has almost 300 years history in Kyoto. "Tea" is not only a "Tea". Tea has many different styles, taste, and production method. Especially, for most of the Asian culture are very close to tea since ancient time.
More than just a retailer, Ippodo is a multifaceted tea company directly involved in the procurement and blending of highest quality of green tea. I've been kindly invited to Ippodo tea tasting at L'etranger restaurant, from Miss Keiko who has a great passion of introducing and importing Japanese tableware into UK. 京都に本店を構える一保堂茶舗には、300年近い歴史があります。たかがお茶、されどお茶。土地柄や、製法によってその酒類は様々で、特にアジア人にとってお茶は、日々の生活に無くてはならないものではないでしょうか。 英国在住で、日本の食器や、食品などの輸入、販売、を手がけるけいこさんから、先日ご親切にもL’etrangerで行われる、お茶のテイスティングに呼んで頂きました。 The tasting started very smoothly. Iced Gyokuro Kanro tea greeted us. There are 35 colorful different tea leaves from Ippodo on the table. 当日は、各料飲店等の関係者が集まり、テイスティングは和やかに行われました。 レストランに着くと、まずは冷たく冷えた玉露甘露、でリフレッシュ。 テーブルには、35種類もの一保堂が扱う茶葉が並べてあり、その色のきれいな事。 I didn't know that 70% of ingredient are extracted with first drip. And last drop is always important for any kind of tea. I thought about my ex-boss when I was working at Hyatt... he is the one always telling me that. 70%もの茶葉に含まれる成分は、始めの一番出しに出てくるとか。 そして、どんな酒類のお茶でも共通して言えるのは、最後の一滴がとても大事だと言う事。 そういえば、昔、ハイアットに勤めていた時、料理長が言っていたのを思い出しました。 We've tried about 10 different types of tea. All selections were so different, tasty and made me relax. When I tried some of the Bancha, it brought back some nostalgia.... school trip, sports day at junior school, my mother used to give me a bottle of Bancha tea. 私達は全部で、10種類のお茶を順番に頂きました。どれも本当に美味しくて、ホッとする香りと味でした。何種類かの番茶を頂いた時、とても懐かしい香りに、私は子供の頃の、遠足や運動会で母がいつも持たせてくれた水筒が思い浮かびました。 Also we had a Maccha with chocolate. I haven't had Maccha for AGES! It was beautiful, and I had 2 cups... And 2 volonteers were trying to make Maccha in the traditional way. Both of them looked very serious. We've also tasted new vintage tea that were released on the market in May 2010 and sold out in July 2010. How lucky!! 後半では、抹茶をチョコレートと一緒に頂きました。 抹茶なんて本当に何年ぶり?!とても美味しく、2杯も頂いてしまいました…。 参加者の2人が、ボランティアで抹茶を立てています。かなり真剣。 5月に販売し、7月には売り切れてしまうという今年の新茶も運良く頂く事ができました。 なんてラッキー。 I had a really good time. I've learned many things and tasted many teas. Special thanks for Miss Keiko and L'etranger. とても素晴らしいお茶をテイスティングし、いろいろ勉強になり素晴らしい方々に出会え、素敵な午後になりました。 けいこさんと、L'etrangerに深く感謝します。 ありがとうございました。
If you realized you haven't got any thing to open a bottle of wine at the park or camping, what would you do? This video is a bit noisy but even drunk people can open the bottle very well. Hope this video will help you in the future. if it happens to you.... キャンプや、ピクニック等でワインを楽しむのは良い物です。 しかし、うっかりワインオープナーを忘れてしまった場合、いちかばちかで、こんな開け方があります。 酔っぱらっているせいもありテンションがかなり高く、周りの音がちょっとうるさい感がありますが、知っておくといざという時に役に立ちそうです。
