We were supposed to do a supermarket demo at the Bellevue Uwajimaya today, but they were a little bit more crowded with Chinese New Year demos than expected and we decided not to become a fire hazard. We did have a fairly substantial delivery for them, so it wasn’t a total loss, but a bit of a complication to our carefully laid, if a little haphazardly executed, plans…

Since we found ourselves firmly planted in the Eastside, we went to eat dosas and utthapam at the Crossroads (Bellevue) location of Udupi Palace, a fairly decent south Indian restaurant that’s actually an outpost of a successful suburban Bay Area group of restaurants.  I used to come here fairly often when I was a Microsoft employee, and to its predecessor called Golkonda.

Today, we ordered rasa vada (fermented lentil fritters in rasam, or spicy tomato soup) to start. We each had half of a pineapple utthapam (thick lentil pancake) with cilantro, and half of a dosa (thin lentil crepe) stuffed with an apparently Sri-lankan style shredded spiced coconut mixture.

These are served with coconut chutney and sambar… our lunch was full of fiber, and sustained us well past a normal dinner hour. Alas, we only had a cell phone handy to record our excessive consumption, so we ended up with a blurry photo.

I came down with a bit of a cold this weekend, and Hiromi thoughtfully prepared some okayu, or rice porridge, for me. This is standard comfort food for anyone the slightest bit ill in Japan. We ate it with some pickles, some of which were Chinese, and some of which were Japanese.

She was craving dengaku-nasu, so my responsibility was to broil the eggplant and prepare the neri-miso, or dengaku-miso, and carefully broil the dengaku-nasu once again with the miso topping just until it starts bubbling. Its very easy to turn dengaku-anything into a crunchy mess, and I’ve had a few disasters before, but this one worked out. I’m sure I’ve explained it elsewhere, but neri-miso is made with miso, sugar, mirin, and, optionally, some dashi-jiru (Japanese soup stock) in roughly equal proportions. The further west in Japan you go, the milder this will likely be, and the further north, the the saltier.

On Sunday, in spite of my slight health complaints, we went to an event for Families with Children from China, where we showed off dragon beard candy, and some matcha chocolates. Hiromi offered samples and some product information, and I filled in details about the products and handled credit card transactions and so on. We had fairly good results, and I left a bit more than was officially requested for the space fee.

After the event, we got crepes and coffee for a late, light lunch at Cafe Javasti in Maple Leaf. When we got home, Hiromi wanted to watch the Seahawks game, so I served some “vegetable chips” and tea for both of us, and later brought her a beer and some Theraflu for myself. She thought it was kind of funny that I was bringing the food so that she could watch the game.

(Although I’m happy that the Seahawks won handily on Sunday and I did pay some attention, I’ve never been a huge afficianado of spectator sports and she was far more excited about the game than me…)

Monday night we had the dubious pleasure of completing my office shelving work… I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s actually organized, but it looks much less chaotic than it previously did. I’d actually be able to make good use of another shelf, but the next step is moving the remaining bits from my upstairs office to my storage facility. I have two spaces at ActiveSpace near the zoo, one of which is small and has a window, and the other of which is large, features high ceilings, but doesn’t get much natural light save for a partial skylight.

I’m planning to consolidate the two spaces into one, now that I really don’t see the office enough during daylight hours for a window to matter much, and don’t need quite the same amount of space as I once did.

We actually didn’t feel much like cooking after a long Monday… it was a day off from my contract project, but I never get a day off from my business. But we made something that was quite pleasant… we were hungry enough that we didn’t photograph it, though. It was tounyuu nabe, or soymilk hot pot, which I think I last had in Japan last spring, but Hiromi made it last Christmas when she visited. Basically, it’s thick, unsweetened soymilk, simmered with a bit of dried konbu, seasoned with miso and maybe a bit of salt. We used a combination of yuzu-miso (expensive, but adds a nice yuzu flavor) and komekoshi-miso. To the pot we added good, fresh tofu, some takenoko, and enoki.

Tounyuu nabe is simple food, but it is kind of special for Hiromi and me, because we ate a variation of it called toufu-dzukushi the first time we had dinner together at a fancy toufu restaurant in Kawasaki.

The last two nights, dinner was completely unremarkable, but tonight I made some yu tsai (a leafy green somewhat like nanohana) with atsuage, onions, and vegetarian “oyster sauce.” Hiromi made takenoko gohan, rice with bamboo shoots. We also had miso soup, but our itamemono wasn’t very Japanese.

After dinner I asked Hiromi if she wanted a drink, and she asked me to do something with the Moro blood oranges we got yesterday. I squeezed about four or five of them and blended the juice with a couple of shots of gin, a dash of bitters and a hint of vermouth, then shook everything up in a cocktail shaker with ice. After splitting the results into two glasses, I added an ounce or so of tonic water to each glass for a bit of effervescence.

The result was quite refreshing. I’m not much an expert on mixed drinks, but I’m starting to have a bit of fun constructing them, and most of my recent endeavors have been quite passable.

We kept ourselves busy the last few weeks, even though last weekend, for example, was a more leisurely kind of busy. I haven't scheduled any product demos since just before the Christmas season. This was our first weekend back in the routine, and we took it relatively easy, with just a four hour Sunday demo in the cards.

Yesterday we handled a fair number of internet orders, and took care of some necessary evils related to either home or office. In the process, we encountered this little made-in-China, post-holiday-clearance pillow creature:

He found a new home. This doesn’t happen often. Several years ago, after a missed opportunity and a subsequent couple of trips of half-serious searching, I bought a (huge) stuffed dog from The Dog Club on a trip to Japan, which went on to become a huge licensed product with a worldwide presence. In spite of me being ahead of the trend curve on this one, this odd fisheye-perspective dog, along with the collection of teddy bears primarily inherited from my great-grandmother, nevertheless continues to inspire snickers and innuendo from non-Asian visitors. “Momo”, the litte round cow pictured above, was, however, Hiromi’s pick. My masculinity in this case cannot be questioned, although I can’t say that’s ever been a terribly important consideration for me.

Subsequent to accomplishing this very important mission, at a hardware store in South Seattle,  we found some suitable shelving to help bring sanity to my office. I like the shelves that I got, so I’m likely to expand that set to complete this office sanity effort.

Alas, this pilgrimage to South Seattle did not go as planned. We tried to drop a couple of items at a post office on the way to some other errands. Not only were we foiled by some awful stadium traffic starting at the downtown exit of Highway 99; I also discovered that this particular post office offers no Saturday collection, which meant that my decision to shorten my path worked out to be both fruitless and inefficient.

Somehow we lost all motivation to prepare food after our mission to South Downtown, and the traffic distracted us from our original goal of obtaining some very fresh tofu from Thanh Son’s factory shop. So we made our way to Maekawa, which, if you order from the relevant three pages of the menu, serves izakaya-style food.

Although we’ve been eating a fair amount of Japanese food lately, it’s all been homemade. This was Hiromi’s first-ever meal in a Japanese restaurant in Seattle, and it’s probably one of very few places that I would take anybody who is actuavlly Japanese. This isn’t because it’s spectacular food; it’s decent, but not pushing any boundaries. The thing that I dislike about most Seattle Japanese restaurants is the distortion of portion sizes and the bizarrely non-Japanese combinations and seasoning approaches. But this place is so familiar and ordinary, that it wouldn’t be terribly shocking to find similar food in a little neighborhood spot in Japan. Except for the strange “teishoku” section on the menu, which is out of place on an izakaya menu, it’s all standard izakaya fare, with a few interesting house specials and so on.

It was, of course, Hiromi’s chance to eat some non-vegetarian Japanese dishes she hasn’t been able to indulge in when I’m cooking. She was simultaneously curious about the place and skeptical, but pleasantly surprised by the comfortable familiarity of it all.

Tonight, on the other hand, we had a bit more initiative. We had some soup and rice, but most importantly, we made a few different kinds of spring rolls.

I make a few unconventional spring rolls, but tonight we went over-the-top and made about five or six variations. We put some away in the freezer for later indulgence, but we alternated between heavy and light flavors.

One was nattou, camembert, negi (actual Japanese-style leeks in this case) and shiso, and an alternate version with nattou, negi, takenoko (bamboo shoots), and nori. We also made a simple one with takenoko, carrots, and rice noodles, as well as a version with cabbage standing in for the takenoko. We also made one with camembert, walnuts, umeboshi, and shiso, which is the only one that required no dipping sauce. For the others, especially the nattou spring rolls, we used some Japanese mustard (karashi) mixed with Japanese soy sauce.

Apple fritters

Yesterday I made apple fritters with some Macintosh apples. I improvised the proportions of ingredients, so I didn’t quite get the balance of flour and liquid right, and they turned out a fair bit oilier than I had hoped. The oil temperature did drop a bit, but even when I controlled the temperature precisely I didn’t quite get it right.

Of course, it set the tone for the day… I had a similarly high-fat, though fairly modestly-portioned lunch, of macaroni with a blue cheese bechamel sauce. We had a quick and dirty dinner the night before, and our top priority was to use up a few ingredients, and so I made a fairly heavy sauce and the only pasta I had handy.

Knowing I’d have a day of heavy, fatty food ahead, Hiromi and I thought aloud that I should probably make something healthier for dinner. But it wasn’t in the cards… Hiromi had a flash of inspiration, and just asked me to obtain some fresh tofu on the way home.

Vegetarian stuffed cabbage rolls

She used kanpyo (dried gourd*) to tie blanched cabbage leaves together and stuffed them with a mixture of very fresh tofu, mushrooms, carrots and onions. She made a Japanese-ish soup stock with dried kelp and porcini, then added some western touches with some celery seed and onions.

Jaga bataa with almonds

I converted a baked potato into jaga-bataa, which is nothing fancier than cut potatoes with a bit of butter, salt and pepper. I added a touch of sour cream for the Eastern European vibe we had going on, and some almonds for aroma contrast.

* The original version of this post mistakenly referred to gobo/burdock rather than gourd. That should teach me that it's a bad idea to write at midnight... but it probably won't stop me.

During the last week or so most of our home meals have been minor variations of things I’ve made recently, and on late nights, arriving home quite hungry, I haven’t felt much of an urge to photograph the “reruns.”

Tonight, though, I made a first attempt at a brown nougat, made without egg whites, flavored with a bit of kirsch and vanilla. I embedded some almonds in the nougat. My hands weren’t quite happy, because I worked the sugar while it was still hot enough to produce some blisters on my hands. The Silpat mat helped me rein in the sugar as it started cooling initially, but I wanted to incorporate some air into the candy.

The shiny stretched sugar mass

Cutting the nougat into bite-sized bits

 I should have used a lower final temperature when I boiled the sugar mass. I got a fairly crunchy-chewy result; I really would have been happy if it were merely chewy.

Dusted with cornstarch

I dusted the candy with cornstarch so that I can store it without the pieces sticking together. The end result isn’t bad, but I think I have to experiment a bit more before I develop much confidence in candy-making.

I finally got around to shooting some photos of Masa and Lisa’s Matcha White Chocolates, a product that evolved from a promotional concept I developed back in the late spring or early summer. After months of struggling with packaging options and some variations of recipes, they got the chocolates ready just about a week before Christmas, and we got it into the hands of a few customers before the holidays, but we will probably mostly be promoting the product leading up to Valentine’s Day.

Alas, I wasn’t quite happy with my own photographs tonight, so I’m continuing to borrow some of Masa’s and Lisa’s for my YuzuMura project.

Hiromi says that she can’t readily find matcha chocolates of this quality in Japan… most of the Japanese products I’ve seen so far use a fairly low grade of matcha and a blend of other ingredients to simulate the matcha… Masa and Lisa decided to use the same matcha they use to produce their matcha latte, so it’s a fairly nice result. I’ve gone with a somewhat more assertively matcha-y flavor profile in my own matcha white chocolate enrobed fortune cookies, so their chocolates have a slightly sweeter touch than my cookies, but I like them as a small indulgence, so the sweetness isn’t terribly overwhelming. The little foil packets help me with portion control…

I thought the last couple of days before Christmas would finally calm down, but I didn’t quite get to rest. I had a flood of late orders, some of which may have been meant for after-holiday purposes, that kept me up late. This combination of working a contracting gig (a.k.a. a job) and operating a business has already been fairly overwhelming, even though I haven’t quite done a “full” work week at Revenue Science yet… Due to holidays and competing commitments, I’ve only been “on the clock” 28–38 hours/week for the first few weeks.

The good news is my web orders this month have now beat any previous month, so the “Christmas magic” seems to have done its job. Because I had quite a boost from previous months between July and November, and relatively conservative Google and Overture/Yahoo ad spending, the jump wasn’t quite as dramatic as it is for some retailers. I also failed to get much in the way of self-promotion done this season because I was just so overwhelmed with other work from November on, so I think I can do a better job with some advance planning and maybe some hired help next holiday season.

Hiromi and I took my brothers, stepfather, and stepgrandfather to the Christmas Eve Seahawks game last weekend, where I narrowly avoided a parking ticket. I thought Christmas Eve was a city holiday, but watched some other cars being ticketed on the way to the game, and made a beeline to my car to get it in a garage. My mother couldn’t make it to the game because she had to take care of my grandmother, and due to some misinterpretation I didn’t quite realize this until about 45 minutes to kickoff… we tried to offer the ticket on the street at face value, but most average folks weren’t interested in a single, premium 200–level ticket when their main goal was to get inside the gates, and the scalpers that came up to me wanted to pay less than face value so that they can claim they had to pay $74 or whatever for it; my rush back to my car made any further negotiations complicated, so we didn’t get anything out of the extra ticket.

I actually had a couple of deliveries to make on Christmas Eve, since I had a few locally-destined internet orders that I had planned to hand-deliver, but couldn’t squeeze in during the week. I liked bringing such orders in person, but it’s no longer feasible unless it’s a very large order. Under my current circumstances, I think I’m going to have to go back to using FedEx Ground for local shipments, because I can’t deliver in as timely a fashion as they can, and it doesn’t save me any money right now when it takes so much time out of my day.

We went to a family party at my grandmother’s house after the game, which involved about 20 dessert options and nothing savory, so I threw together a frittata to have some kind of protein source… Hiromi and I took my little brother out to dinner at a corporate restaurant in downtown Bellevue late at night.

In spite of a pretty hectic schedule, we’ve usually taken 30–60 minutes a night to make a passable meal, and a few times I’ve made some more interesting things.

The night before Christmas Eve we made some pleasant manicotti, with San Marzano tomatoes; the filling involved chevre in addition to ricotta fresca. I used fresh oregano and basil, and some shiitake mushrooms in the sauce.

On Christmas Day, I made a pizza with a potato-based dough that, in my small circle, I’m known for… We roasted bell peppers in a hurry, and served it with some very nicely caramelized brussels sprouts, seasoned with garlic.

I’m not quite caught up… more good food to come… and probably some end of the year thoughts.

I always crave kabocha croquettes in the fall and winter. I think I first experienced them at some chain izakaya in Japan, but even there they made an impression. I now seek them out anytime I am in Japan during in the cooler months. The sweet nuttiness of kabocha squash, mashed with potatoes, contrast nicely with the crunchiness of panko.

Unlike the usual Japanese croquette presentation, served with tonkatsu sauce or a similar fruity thickened worcestershire-enhanced sauce, I served mine with an apple-ginger chutney from a Washington apple orchard (Woodridge Farms, perhaps).

Hiromi and I collaborated on tonight’s meal, and she made this beautiful satoimo to gobo to ninjin no nimono (simmered baby taro root, burdock and carrot).

Since we went through the trouble of frying foods, we also decided to make agedashi-doufu. I’ve made this occasionally, but usually I’m so intent on getting what little crispiness I can from the experience of eating it that I don’t want to distract myself by letting it absorb the soup stock while I’m trying to take a few pictures. Today, though, I caved in, even though this is not one of my best agedashi-doufu. It would have been a bit nicer with some daikon-oroshi; all I could find in my refrigerator was some negi and shouga (scallions and ginger). It was reasonably crispy, though.

We also had some dotori muk, a Korean dish made from acorns. I served it with nothing more than a little soy sauce blended with sesame oil, which is just about right to bring out the nuttiness of the starchy dotori.

My vegetarian variations of okonomiyaki are necessarily limited, but Hiromi and I decided to make okonomiyaki for dinner today, and we happened to have a nice kabocha on hand at home.

I stole this idea from a serviceable but unremarkable (save for the cheap drinks) okonomiyaki chain in Japan. This okonomiyaki variation features thin slices of kabocha in the cabbage and batter mixture, and some pureed steamed squash added after both sides of the okonomiyaki have browned.

It’s topped with some cheese (I used some good gruyere, but ambiguous white processed cheese would be more likely in Japan), and the usual mayonnaise and okonomi sauce.

The sweetness from the kabocha makes this a pleasant but relatively mild-flavored variation of okonomiyaki.

Neither Hiromi or I have any religious reason to celebrate Christmas, but in Japan Christmas is a purely secular event, partly an excuse for fancy meals and hotel packages. For me, it’s part of an annual family reunion of sorts, but mainly a chance to wind down after difficult work schedules.

In the U.S., I haven’t usually decorated for any holiday, but Hiromi thought it would be fun to set up a tree this year.

We found a reasonably healthy, apartment-sized “living holiday tree” at Target, though we originally went there for accoutrements, expecting to pick a cut tree somewhere else. This small potted tree should be able to survive under my neglect out on my balcony after the holiday season passes, because our climate favors evergreens.

We decorated the tree with some lights, ribbon and ball ornaments we picked up at the same time, and I extracted the ornaments collected during my childhood from storage.

Since we got a small tree, the huge satin ornaments I had from my childhood didn’t quite match the scale of our youthful tree, and the other small ornaments I had tended to be too heavy for our tender branches. But I found a couple of pieces that still worked.

I can’t quite remember where it came from, but this walnut-backed ornament was made by a family member when I was young. I wasn’t much of a baseball player, so it was probably a distant relative, but it’s still somehow cute.

My silence the last few days is merely a reflection of a rough schedule, combined with relatively uninteresting eating.

I did my usual supermarket demos on Friday and Saturday, one of which was a long stretch away in Beaverton. I think I’ll be doing one more Portland area demo this holiday season, then maybe one in January. It’s still painful to go down there because of high gas prices, but someow I got decent mileage on the last trip.

My dragon beard candy has been selling at a fairly decent clip, presumably due to holiday demand. I restocked the Seattle Uwajimaya faster than I expected. I hope that keeps up. But for cost reasons, I’m not doing anything dramatic this year; last year, I brought the candymakers to Seattle, Portland and the Bay Area to run some promotional events. I can’t quite cost justify that this year, because my available resources are too tight, and unless I do something larger in scale, maybe in New York or very dense urban outlet, this kind of promotion only just barely pays for itself.

Last night I had a decent dinner, but I just haven’t been eating well lately. Today I had no time for lunch. I don’t like to eat “out” right now because it doesn’t save much time and even at the low end of the cost scale, is more expensive than making the equivalent food myself, but I’ve caved in and grabbed a burrito, slice of pizza or similar pretty much daily recently.

I wanted to make nabe-yaki udon for dinner last night, and I realized I had no udon, or even soba. So I settled for some thin “glass noodles”, turning my essentially rustic Japanese dinner into an accidental pan-Asian fusion dish. It was comforting and fairly healthy, consisting mostly of vegetables, shiitake, and tofu. I hope it made up for my slice pizza, eggnog latte and cookie lunch, which was quite the opposite.