Every Supermarket Should Look Like This

In the words of my auntie Pouneh: “every supermarket should look like this.” I’m well aware of how expensive these stores can be but I still love scanning their isles and oohing and aaahing over everything. Here’s an inside look at a European bio organic supermarket:

No chemicals! No spray!
Passionfruit, pomegranate and prickly pear – that children, is A L L I T E R A T I O N.

Better be orgasmic for those prices!
No more bent-back-over-the-stove-top-homemade-muesli-labouring for me!  
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. (Hippocrates)

Laura’s Photos

As much as I’d like to think that I notice and appreciate the beauty of this place, and make the most of my life here, at times, I can forget. Seeing my village through the eyes of a newcomer makes me fall in love all over again. All photos taken by lovely Laura from Belgium (whom I’m hoping to visit during my Europe trip! And by that, I mean eat some waffles, fries and chocolate with).

This Is What Rural Japan Looks Like

Spring Quinoa Salad 
1 cup Quinoa cooked in 2 cups of water
bunch of asparagus, blanched in hot water for 10 seconds
punnet of green peas, blanched ” ” ” ” ” ”
punnet of snap peas, blanched  ” ” ” ” ” ”
1/2 cup cooked and shelled edamame beans
some red grapes, sliced
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup pistachios
bunch fresh parsley, torn small
bunch fresh mint torn small

Dressing:
juice of half a lemon
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper

Combine all salad ingredients together and gently mix.

Combine all dressing ingredients together in a small jar and shake shake shake then mix through salad.

Refrigerate.

How We Spend Our Days Is, Of Course, How We Spend Our Lives.

Isn’t that the most beautiful quote?

I love literature.
And cake!
And flowers and
spring.
That, most of all
is my favorite
thing.

There’s a lot in this post so I’ll give a brief explanation. First, carrot cake with PINEAPPLE chunks and not just raisins but dates, too. So good. And a crunchy top. Just make sure to drizzle with a little honey before adding the nut/seed mixture. Second, Pictures from my walk to school today. My favorite being the picture of the obachan (old woman) with her dog in her rear tricycle basket. Yes, tricycle. Next, today’s breakfast (sorta Italian) and today’s bento. The latter more Japanese, less Persian. And last, chocolate banana loaf made with okara (soy pulp). Perfect for Japan dwellers cos that shizz is sold everywhere.







The Ultimate Carrot Cake:
3 free-range eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup honey
1 large carrot, grated
4 canned pineapple rings, chopped small
1 tsp pure vanilla essence
—————-
1 cup white flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup chopped raisins and dates
pinch of salt
Topping:
1/2 cup of mixed nuts and seeds
(I used flax seed, sesame seed, walnuts and pistachios)

Preheat oven to 180C

Mix wet and dry ingredients separately then together.

Pour into a baking-paper lined cake tin.

Drizzle a small amount of honey on top of the batter then top with nuts and seeds.

Bake for 45 minutes or until the fork comes out clean.

Note: if topping begins browning too quickly, just cover with tinfoil and continue baking.

Chocolate Banana Okara Cake 
This one’s for the people who have access to okra (soy pulp) or any nut or oat pulp. In Japan, Okra is sold at all supermarkets in the tofu isle.
2 ripe bananas
2 free-range eggs
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup soy milk
1/2 cup okara
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup cacao powder
1/2 cup almond powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp natural peanut butter
1/4 cup walnut pieces
Topping:
1 banana, chocolate pieces (I used ViBERi chocolate-coated freeze-dried blackcurrants), silvered almonds and juice of half a lemon

Preheat oven to 180C

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together

Pour batter into a baking-paper lined cake tin

Top with banana, chocolate, almonds and lastly, a squeeze of lemon juice – this is to stop the banana from changing color.

Bake for 30-40 min or until the fork comes out clean.

I Only Exercise So I Can Eat More

God, I love weekends. Especially when they’re not winter! Yesterday was 25 degrees celsius so I biked 20km for local oranges and organic French bread. Oh and I ate a baked sweet potato on the way. These by the way, are amazing. Their season is almost over but in the winter, you’d find them sold everywhere. I don’t know the exact oven they’re cooked in  but whatever it is, it cooks the shit out of them and leaves them all soft and squishy and some places sell it (hot baked sweet potato) with ice-cream! Yum yum oishii.

PS the flying fish are for “Boy’s Day” whatever that means and the last picture is a Persian breakfast. You can read all about that HERE.

New Year’s in Japan

The following extract is from education.asianart.org cos aint nobody got time to write a blogpost. Just joking, not really, but I will say a word or two. First, that I’m so darn lucky, I got to experience mochi pounding TWICE this year since I live so rural and second that the mochi, the adzuki beans (used to make the red bean paste, anko) and the soybeans (used to make soy bean powder, kinako) were all grown and made by hand by my lovely hosts. Also, that the old lady (obachan) pictured below is a great-grandmother and 94!

JOY JOY JOY! Happy New Year, y’all!

In Japan, mochi (sticky rice dumpling) is a tasty treat made to commemorate special occasions, most notably the New Year. Once essential to the New Year celebration, the practice of pounding mochi together, or mochitsuki, is now rare even in Japan, as busy people eat store-bought mochi rather than make their own. Traditionally, glutinous rice is washed and soaked overnight on the evening before the pounding.

The next morning the rice is steamed and placed in the usu (large mortar) where it is pounded with a kine (wooden mallet). Once the mass is soft and smooth, it is pulled into various sizes and shapes. It can be enjoyed a variety of ways: fresh, with different sauces, sweet stuffing, or seaweed.

An offering to the kani (deity), called kagami-mochi (mirror mochi), is comprised of two mochi cakes usually placed on a sheet of pure white paper in the center of a wooden tray. and topped with a bitter orange (daidai). Kagami-mochi is placed on the family altar during the New Year as an auspicious gesture that signifies hope for a happy and bright year ahead.

Mochi is used to make a variety of traditional sweets and it can be eaten right away or cured and dried for later use. When it is cured, it hardens and can be cooked with red beans, vegetables or soups. It is also popular toasted on top of a stove, dipped in a variety of flavorings such as soy sauce and sugar or coated with toasted soy bean powder. Toasted mochi inflates to several times its original size, forming a crisp crust with a soft, chewy interior.

The exact origin of mochi is unknown, though it is said to have come from China. The cakes of pounded glutinous rice appear to have become a New Year’s treat during Japan’s Heian period (794–1185). As early as the tenth century, various kinds of mochi were used as imperial offerings at religious ceremonies. A dictionary dating from before 1070 calls the rice cake “mochii.” Around the eighteenth century, people began to call it “mochi.” Various theories explain the name. One is that “mochi” came from the verb “motsu,” “to hold or to have,” signifying that mochi is food given by God. The word “mochizuki” means “full moon.”


Oh, and just to confuse y’all a little more, the very first image is where the rice cooks and the last images are of tochimochi being mixed into red bean paste or in Japanese, anko.

This is not what I was expecting when I thought about moving to Japan..

And boy was I blown away. There is so much beauty to be found in Japanese countryside alongside cans of HOT coffee around every corner like literally, every corner. Fun fact: there are fewer people in NZ than there are vending machines in Japan #thirst.

Some other things:
1.If you’ve ever wondered why soy milk is white but edamame are green, it is because fresh edamame are white too (under the green shell)
And,
2.The Japanese dry persimmons (in the most interesting fashion by hanging bag fulls like wind chimes outside their homes) and these wrinkly beauties taste like no other. Dry on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside; it’s time everyone started doing this. SO yum! You HAVE to try them.