Seven Herbs and Rice Cakes

Today is Jan 7th - the traditional day to eat the seven herbs of spring. The 5 herbs plus two root vegetables (Japanese daikon radish and Japanese kabu turnip) are chopped in small pieces and added to rice gruel.


Gruel is rice that is cooked in over double the amount of water used for steamed rice. This dish is called 'nanagusa-gayu' -- seven herbs gruel, and is eaten to bring luck for a healthy year.



Before I showed you round rice cakes that my mother in law sent from Kagoshima, and today I got square cakes from Mr. T. Thank you! Some regions in Japan shape the freshly pounded rice into balls which flatten as they dry. Other areas spread the hot pounded rice into containers then cut it into rectangular cakes. My MIL makes mochi rice cakes with a machine, but these square ones were made the traditional way - pounding steamed rice in a huge wooden bowl with a giant wooden mallet. I think the handmade type is more delicious. If you check the picture carefully, you can still see grains. I grilled them and they're ready when they puff up. Mochi can be eaten with many different toppings, etc, but today we dipped them in soy sauce mixed with sugar.









Very healthy lunch, followed by green tea!

'Real' sushi?!

When I was talking to my sister on New Year's Day, she said she wanted to eat some sushi. It seems it is really popular in Australia nowadays. But actually when we talked more, she said she likes sushi that doesn't have raw fish!

Today's Japan Times newspaper has a really interesting article about the popularity of sushi in Australia. The story mostly focuses on Sydney, so I don't know if you can find 'new' sushi in other cities. --> http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20060107f4.htm

How about me? I LOVE sushi and have lots of favorite ones: scallops, salmon, salmon roe, horse mackerel ... in fact, most sushi! I eat it 2 or 3 times a month. Sometimes my husband makes it at home but he is a bit heavy handed with the wasabi!


A

scallop - ホタテガイ
salmon - サケ
salmon roe - イクラ
horse mackeral - アジ
heavy handed - (he uses too much wasabi) 苛酷な, {高圧的な, 無器用な}

Lucky Lion-dogs

Look at this cute pair! They are 'shisa' from the Okinawa Islands, the western-most prefecture in Japan.

I received them as a gift, along with some beautiful handmade glasses. Thank you so much N! :) Such a lovely surprise for the beginning of the year.

Shisa are lion dogs that probably originated in China. You can read all about them at this website --> http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/6330/Shisa.html

I put my new little pets in the genkan 'entrance room'. I hope they will protect my house and bring me good luck!

A

New Year's Prayer

Today my husband and I went for 'Hatsumode' the first prayer of the New Year.

Lot's of people go on Jan 1, or even just after midnight, but I think it's too crowded then. When we are in Kagoshima, we do go to the local temple just before midnight.

Anyway, this morning we were up bright and early to get to Mt Tsukuba before the crowds. Bit of a shock when I went outside and found the car covered with a layer of frozen rain! The whole car looked like a cake covered with white icing! Raindrops had flowed down the sides of the car and melted in place. This was the first time this winter it was so bad. Took a while to get all the ice off ...

We got to Mt Tsukuba about 9am. Thankfully the road wasn't busy at all so it was a smooth drive. We only had to wait 5 minutes or so to get a parking space. {As an aside, did you know that from Feb 1, the big free parking area on Mt Tsukuba that belongs to Tsukuba City is not going to be free any longer? There is a sign that says it will cost 500 yen from next month. Hmm.}

We went up to the shrine, put our old charms into a fire (this is what happens to old ones), put a 5 yen coin into the offering box in front of the main shrine and did a simple prayer, then went over to the shrine window to ask for a special prayer inside. This is the third year to go inside.

It is a bit hard to explain, but in the main building is a large room that is in front of the main alter where the god resides. You go in there and one priest beats a very large Japanese drum and then a head priest prays for various things. (Categories the visitors have asked for.) As he prays he waves about a wand-like stick that has shrine papers on the end. You get a small branch of 'sakaki' (sacred tree) which you present to the alter with a personal prayer. Finally the shrine maidens hand out tablets of decorated wood that have your name on them. These are charms that you display in your house for luck.

As well as these ones, we bought a few other small charms for different things. The arrow is for the house, and the little dog figure is for this year - the Chinese Year of the Dog. I was born under the dog sign so I wanted to get one. He's really cute and hopefully he brings luck! :)

I heard you are not supposed to take pictures inside of a shrine, nor take direct pictures of an open alter, so I was a bit surprised to see a cameraman with a video camera today. He said he was from the local cable TV station and that we'd be on TV next Monday. Famous in 2006! Actually the main alter was over to the side and covered with a curtain, so I guess it was okay. When we married, the alter at Kashima Shrine was open and we couldn't take pictures.

It was lucky we went so early today because as we left there was a huge line of cars to more than half way down the mountain!

So that is Japanese New Year all wrapped up! Just a few days left and it is back to work ...

A

Genius!

Hah hah, I'm a genius! :)

I have nothing to do and I don't want to work on New Year's Day, so this evening I've been playing with the computer.

For a long time I wanted to know why some websites have a little icon that pops up when you add that site to 'Favorites' in Internet Explorer. I wanted a cool little icon thing! So tonight I searched the Internet to find how to do it.

It took a while to work it out and then to make it but YAY - success! Go put 'Real English' in your favorites and see what happens. And if you drag the icon onto your desktop, you'll get a big RE icon. And it will appear next to the URL in the Explorer Bar. Hah!

A

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!

I hope the start of 2006 has been wonderful where-ever you are :) It is a chilly 6 degrees right now, but my sister told me Sydney is sweltering at about 43 degrees. Ah, which is better: freezing or boiling?!

I woke up at about 8am this morning and started to make the broth for Ozoni soup. I boiled some chicken pieces, took the bones out, added in flower shaped slices of carrot, green beans, grilled pieces of rice cake, pink and white fish cake, Japanese leek, and finally seasoned the soup with a little soy sauce, mirin and sake. The final touch was mitsuba (trefoil) leaves.

Next came setting out the Osechi Ryori (New Year food box) - it has two layers and because all the food is cooked, it can be eaten over two days. And then we added some sashimi (sliced raw fish) and some tsukudani (small fish and shrimp simmered in sweet sauce that can be kept for a few weeks). Finally, small glasses of ume (Japanese plum) liqueur, and "ta da!" New Year's Brunch! Well, kind of breakfast because it was only 9:30am. Hmm, I wonder why Japanese have the tradition to eat such heavy foods so early? I guess long ago it was kind of a once a year feast.

So we ate a little and then put the food box away again. It will be lunch AND dinner as well!

Not much to do today as we aren't going to visit a shrine so early. The postman just came and brought nenjajou (New Year greeting cards). Sending cards is another tradition for New Year, kind of like Australians send Christmas cards. The big difference is that the post office saves up all the cards and delivers them ALL on Jan 1. I'm amazed that the post office can usually find the correct recipient, even if the address is really strange. Go Japan Post!!!

The top card you can see is the one I made to send out this year. Cards follow the Chinese Horoscope, so 2006 is the Year of the Dog.