This Year's Nori ― 2009/12/26
¥2,100/100sheets
From the early December, a local fishermen’s association sells this year's harvests of nori seaweeds at their office. I’ve heard around here there is one of few surviving nori farms in Fukuoka Metropolitan Area. This is a real local delicacy.
Unlike nori you would find in supermarkets, this nori hasn’t been seasoned or toasted. So before you put it on your table, you should lightly toast it over medium/low flame to bring out the flavour of the sea and crispy texture.
Immediately after being toasted, the flavour of the nori is simply wonderful. Even I, who don’t (or can’t) see how good locally produced salt shoul be (please see my previous post about the salt), can see the difference.
The fishermen’s association also sells nori in smaller package for gift, or roasted and seasoned nori.
Sasanqua Hedge ― 2009/12/27
In this season, I will find many sasanqua hedges in full bloom when walking in residential areas.
Sasanqua is one of Camellia family. The flower tends to be smaller than Camellia, and when the tree is out of bloom, the flower falls by one petal after another, while common camellias shed the whole flower with its calyx.
I guess this difference made the sasanqua get more popularity over common camellias—don’t you think the fallen flower heads will remind you of beheaded heads? A shower of common camellia flowers might therefore connote a shower of… terrifying!
Carrot for New Year ― 2009/12/31
Could you see the difference?
One is our everyday carrot which you must be familiar with, and the other is special carrot called Kyo (probably an abbreviation for
The colour of the Kyo carrot is crimson or blood red while the common variety is orange. The vivid colour may have been designed (I don’t know who did, maybe the God of the New Year? ) to make a striking contrast against snow-white Mochi, and therefore will create even more festive feeling when we open the lid of a Zoni bowl (As usuall, being least useful, I don’t go as far as to explain what Mochi and Zoni are).
Also the shape of these two kinds are different. The shape of the common carrot is as short and stout as a little teapot while Kyo carrots look svelte like Naomi Campbell.
This carrot is so special to me, I assume it deserves special treatment to adorn our New Year’s dishes.
Flower-shaped carrot, which I do only once a year. I don’t usually curve vegetables into such a decorative (by my standard) shape, or rather, I don’t even peel the skin.
Year-end Big Cleaning ― 2009/12/31
We have a vexing ritual, the year-end cleaning. You are supposed to clean up everything in your house otherwise the New Year wouldn’t come to you. Of course you can leave filthy bathroom or greasy hob as it is. The year 2010 doesn’t care if your house is clean. But being a rather old-fashioned housewife, and the media whips us into the cleaning ritual, even a born loafer like me feel urged to do something.
To make things worse, the modern Japanese dwellings are made to be cleaned. Does it make sense? I mean, every fixtures come with user’s manual containing “how-to-clean-it” section. Once you know that you can disassemble toilet seat and loo to clean the hidden areas, you can't resist the temptation to see how filthy it is.
Although all cleaning is irksome, particularly the bath room need me a lot of elbow grease.
Here, bathroom is basically a big seamless plastic box fitted into a space called “bathroom”.
You can wash the whole room, and rinse it overall with running water, just like plates or the exterior of your car. Then there is also the owner’s manual which kindly tells me how to disjoint the bathtub unit so that you can clean the underneath of bathtub or ‘hair-catcher’, a net set at the end of drainpipe in order to catch minute bathroom debris. Following the manual, I detached and cleaned under the bathtub and the hair-catcher, which even Kim and Aggie wouldn’t dare to do.
…. I came to know (with a slight pain in the back) what has made my life clean could be a big nuisance when it comes to cleaning it, and there is something you shouldn’t know to live happily. Ignorance is bliss.
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