Sourdough bread

My wife made some sourdough starter last week, and some wonderful bread. I took some of the starter yesterday and made this 50% whole wheat loaf. The flavor was wonderful, but the texture is a bit crumbly. I thought it felt a little different when I was kneading it. I'll try giving it a second kneading and rising next time.

Cold cereal

This is the cold cereal section at our local discount supermarket. That's it -- the whole section, sweet granola and corn flakes with or without sugar, some with chocolate. Regular supermarkets have a few more choices, including occasionally All Bran. Most Japanese eat either rice with something or toast with not much for breakfast.

I wonder about the Oreos next to the sweet granola. Are they intended as another breakfast option? I'm sure my daughter would go for that.

After dinner

At our local 100 yen sushi place. The white plates indicate sushi without wasabi. The dark brown are for servings with only one piece, not the usual two, but with the neta, the topping, larger and often higher quality.

Cool spring = late rice planting

We had a very cool April, so many farmers were late planting their rice this year, at least in our area. Some had to wait until their carrots were ready for harvest, but others just seemed to wait for warmer weather.

A few fields are still not planted, though obviously they're ready.

Mango

When we lived in Salinas, we bought mangoes regularly. A produce stand a few minutes' walk from our house regularly carried at least three varieties. Here, we can buy them, but rarely for less than five times as much as we think we should pay. Occasionally they're on sale and we buy.

They grow a few mangoes in Japan, in the far southwest, but most are imported from the Philippines. I think some come from Thailand.

Suntory Protein Water commercial

I don't have a TV here, so I haven't said much about food on TV, but I should. As a start on that topic, here's a You Tube video of a commercial for Suntory Protein Water. The team of skinny guys in silver lamé
is led by a kabuki star.

Here's a shorter version of the commercial.

Cat's Time Cafe

Now there's a place to really relax!

Very special melons

From Yubari.

1,500,000 yen for two.

Rice bra

Yes, a bra that's a pair of planters, designed to encourage people to grow their own rice.

(That's what it says!)

Rice Helper

That's right -- drain, add to uncooked rice, and cook it.

Pretty good pizza

Almost as good as homemade though, at 1500+ yen it was a bit expensive, even with the small salad bar. The restaurant was called Dan Ran.

Salmon belly sushi

Okonomiyaki

Which means, of course, cooked as you like it.

Squid ears

And here I was, thinking squid didn't have any ears!

$400 for a ham, anyone?

A very special ham, perhaps, and the source of Mr. Bacon?

Which is so reminiscent of the song Oleanna:

Little roasted piggies,

Walk about the city streets,

Inquiring most politely if a slice of ham you'd like to eat.

Spring planting

Farmers are getting their rice seedlings in. It's Golden Week, when four national holidays fall in the space of seven days. Now is the traditional time to plant the rice, which is rather more easily done these days, thanks to the Kubota Corporation. Lots of younger people come home from Tokyo and other cities to help their parents and grandparents get the seedlings in the ground, though I don't think I've seen any younger people (or men) walk behind the planting machines to fill in the gaps and corners of the fields.

Nationwide Yummy Things Convention

That's an awkward but direct translation of the title of an event my daughter and I went to at Sogo, the only major department store in Tokushima City, across the river from where we live. The only thing we bought was warabi mochi, mochi flavored with fiddlehead ferns and dusted with kinako (roasted soybean flour). It's very Japanese, pretty sweet, and really yummy.

The word yummy is used rather more widely by Japanese speakers of English than by native speakers. It's taught before the word delicious and I think Japanese teachers of English don't emphasize the fact that the latter is used more often by adults than the former, especially in less casual contexts.