new year

There Are Hundreds Of Ways To Kneel And Kiss The Ground.

A photo diary:
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Dark chocolate and roasted hazelnut ice-cream. Image (3)
White peach and vanilla sorbet. Image (2)
The mastermind herself.

My attempt at having a non-cereal breakfast: free-range scrambled eggs (2), avocado, and organic gluten-free bread.
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This is a non-traditional Persian New Year haft-sin (literally, seven “S”) table. It’s non traditional because I only had 5 of the real S’s. The other two, I made up myself: S for saat (clock/watch) and S for sparrow (yes sis, I realised sparrow wasn’t Persian. Whatever). Image (1)

An Entire Post Dedicated To Baklava

Before I begin, some context:
Naw-Rúz (literally, new day) is the first day of the Bahá’í calendar year and one of nine holy days for adherents of the Bahá’í Faith. It occurs on the vernal equinox, on or near March 21. Historically and in contemporary times, Naw-Ruz is also the celebration of the traditional Iranian New Year holiday and is celebrated throughout the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia such as in Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iraq, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Afghanistan, Syria, and Tajikistan. Thanks Wikipedia.

This morning, I was surprised by my dear dear Israeli friend, Lifa and his gorgeous wife and sweet son with an absolutely mouthwatering plate of baklava! Posted by Lifa’s mother all the way from Haifa, especially for moi! Amazing. Here in rural Japan, is an Israeli, the nationality I was taught to hate (from the mere age of 7!) by my Iranian school and teachers, surprising me on a Bahá’í and Iranian holiday. Wishing me a joyful New Year. Making sure I am okay, happy and well so far from my family and friends. Love is everything. “So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.”

I am so utterly grateful. I will forever remember this day.
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New Recipes

I have been experimenting…

1. Savory oats. Basically, make porridge as usual then crack a free-range egg into it, stir for a minute and season with salt and pepper. This time, I also added a tablespoon of home-made basil pesto. Finished with pumpkin seeds and avocado. The verdict? GOOD!

2.Coconut baklava balls. It’s almost Persian New Year (March 21st) and so, the perfect time to attempt to healthify my favorite Iranian sweets. These turned out pretty amazing (if I can say so myself). Next, I’ll try healthifying (like how I made up a word?) the original baklava, as well.
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1 1/2 cups unsweetened desiccated coconut plus a little more for coating
1 cup almond powder
4 tbsp melted coconut oil
4 tbsp honey or maple syrup
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp rose water (optional)
1/2 tsp cardamom or more depending on taste
a pinch of sea salt

Blend all ingredients together in a food processor or blender for 1-2 min or until the mixture starts to come together like a dough.

Use your hands to form small balls (wet them to prevent sticking).

Roll the balls in the extra coconut until well coated then transfer to a plate.

Refrigerate for at least 30 min before nomnom.

So I have a confession to make…

But it is not really a confession. More like a realisation. A sad and rather disheartening discovery of self, if you may. Okay, here it is:

Chef Anisa is not really a Chef.

Allow me to elaborate, in pictorial evidence. The following are “Chef” Anisa’s recent creations: a Mediterranean brunch featuring shakshuka and cannellini-bean dip, a vegan smoothie bowl (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) and a vegetarian lasagna.

Do you SEE what I’m sayin’? I don’t know how to cook. I just know how to cook three/four meals, anew.

Ah, the shame. The utter downright ignominy of it all. I’m Persian for goodness sake. Where is the saffron? The pistachio nuts, the glistening fried barberries atop the fragrant jasmine rice and the mint fried onions swimming in my ASH*?

New Year’s resolution TWO: cook new stuff.

*Ash is an traditional Persian soup. It is green and chunky and full of the good stuff: legumes, meat, noodles, herbs and spice.

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2015 ended on a BANG: chickpea chocolate cake

I spent New Year’s eve and day at the Charles residence and it was magical. Seriously. Never in a trillion years would I have ever imagined that I’d be in Japan, not skyrise-Tokyo-Japan but the tiniest village in the middle of nowhere Japan where there are bears, snakes and BOARS celebrating the New Year by eating legit FRENCH food from the best French chef in the world. Never. How do these things happen?! God, from the bottom of my heart, thank you!

First, cheese souffle. Next, French onion soup with homemade bread. Then, salad, two kinds. After, goat’s cheese, broccoli, pine-nut and raisin tart. Last but not least, Chef Olivier ended on a BANG with chickpea and chocolate cake; super délicieux! image[9] image[10] image[11] image[7] image[8] image[12] image[13]
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Chickpea salad:
Chickpeas from a can (drained and rinsed)
Cherry tomatoes (quartered)
Italian parsley (torn)
Dressed in a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

Green salad:
Lettuce (cut med-small with scissors)
Avocado (diced)
Raw walnuts
Dressed in a little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Chickpea chocolate cake (From Nigella Lawson)
1 tin garbanzo beans
0.6 cups orange juice
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar (or honey)
0.6 cups unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

Blend the garbanzo beans until smooth in a blender or food processor, and mix in all the rest of the ingredients until blended.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

On NY day, we ate fresh eggs on fresh bread, walked in snow, had Japanese nabe for lunch and more cake.

New Year’s Resolution nombre un: eat more French food.
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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.”
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image[11] image[6] image[1] image[14] image[9] image[2] image[4] image[8] image[12] image[3] image[10] image[5] 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.