I often have the great kraft beer and the Chicago Style deep dish pizza at Devilcraft in Kanda. This is not a quiche, it is deep dish pizza. This Chicago style pizza was invented at The Pizzeria, later Pizzeria Uno, in 1943 in Chicago, IL. It is baked in a deep pan like a pie! I love this perfect marriage of tasty pizza and hoppy beer.
Five years to the day since I took my post in USA, I visited Shiga Kogen in Nagano Prefecture. Every year my family enjoyed snowboarding in Nagano and Niigata. This time it was clear sky.
The view from the summit of Yokote-yama was very very very beautiful!!
昨秋に引っ越してきた我が家の近所の和菓子屋さんの最中。近所にある新井薬師にちなんでのやくし最中。お正月の親戚のご挨拶に提げていきました。甘い!甘い!甘い!年末年始甘いものシリーズの中では甘さのトップです。この甘いものを頂きながらいただけるお酒ってなんだろう、、、いや、お酒じゃなくてやっぱり濃い緑茶がいいですね、、、最中には。ご馳走様でした。I've never explained "monaka" in English. Monaka is a bean-jam-filled wafers. Aha!
Current picture drawn by my daughter Kaho have a bright pair of eyes. It wasn't that long ago that she has drawn only eyes, but once she has learnt to draw eyelashes, she has a thing for drawing eyelashes!
I often try interesting beverage during my trip. I tried green Fanta in Bangkok. Do you know Why I picked this one? In Japan, green colored soda is called "Melon Soda". But on this bottle the label shows some fruits. When I saw this, I could not understand at once why it did not show melon, why it showed some fruits?!? But it makes sense that they do not show melon! This green colored soda does not have melon flavor. I googled and found this is called "green soda". That makes sense, it is green soda!
During last business trip in Bangkok, we went to Chinese restaurant and Thai food restaurant both. The above is Chinese dish was served at the famous Chinese restaurant located close-by Lumphini Park, this fried egg and crab is inspired Thai food, I think. It was yummy! And this dish's tantalizing aroma with Thai flavor was really awesome!!
Next one is Thai dish, it is also strongly insipried by Chinese dish. This is also tasty! This kind of blending in the dietary culture makes us very happy with lovely surprise.
And sweets also make everyone happy! Yummy, yummy, yummy!! This one is Chinese style sesame rice cake sweets. (น้ำขิงบัวลอย)
This is Shimekazari placed above the front door of my wife's family home. Shimenawa/Shimekazari is traditional decorations for the new year celebration and serves as a charm against evil spirits.
The sacred rope, braided rice straw, indicate a purified place for receiving divinities. It is decolated during the new year holidays. When the new year period ends, Kadomatsu, the new year's pine and bamboo decorations, and the other decorations are taken to shrines and burned.
I forgot to take photo image of my family home's one *><*.
"Zouni" or "Ozouni" is the soup containing mochi rice cakes. This Japanese traditional soup is the vital food for the New Year’s holidays.
But it is not always easy to introduce the Zouni because the style and recipe of Zouni is inconsistent, depending on the region and family, recipe of Zouni is throughly different.
In my family, my mom cooks white miso sweet style zouni soup on the new year's day. It have the appearance of Kyoto style, but our home town is Osaka and my mom's origin is Ashiya near Kobe.
My family's zouni soup is simple style containing carrot, daikon radish, some greens. This year, my family's zouni have yuzu orange peel flavor.
And day 2nd, my mom cooks soup based on soy source. It is also tasty. Evary year, our family have these style zouni soup in the new year's holidays.