Hinamatsuri--A Recipe for Chirashizushi

Itakima---su!

Chirashizushi is what everybody eats on March 3--Hinamatsuri.  That's Koshi up there holding the Shamoji (rice spoon) getting ready to dish some up for himself and Cici.  Chirashizushi is sushi...with sprinkles!  No--not chocolate sprinkles, nor sugar sprinkles.  Egg sprinkles, ikura sprinkles, sakuradenbu sprinkles (I'll explain in a sec)...and something green, too, so you get those nice pink-white-green spring colors.  My kids *love* Chirashizushi.  What I made today (fills up a ni-dan--two level-- o-bento box) is nearly gone, and I guarantee they'll get up in the morning and polish off the rest for breakfast.

"Chirasu" is a verb--it means scatter, distribute, spread.  I like to translate it as "sprinkle", because for food that's what you do--sprinkle on top.  Chirashizushi is simply sushi rice with certain vegetables mixed in and several other things sprinkled on top.

Full disclosure:  I don't make it entirely from scratch!  I use a package that contains the vinegar/sugar liquid for the rice (because I never can get the ratio of vinegar to sugar right), and the vegetables already cut and cooked to mix in, and the nori/sesame for final sprinkles.  I also don't own one of those huge wooden tubs to put the rice in while mixing in the vinegar/sugar (steps 1 & 2 in the photo).  Not that I don't want one of those, just that they're really big and hard to store in a teeny kitchen.  If I made this more frequently, I'd probably get one, though.  As it is, I just use my big tray (I wash it well first, of course).  So don't be put off making it yourself just because you don't have one of those nifty wooden tubs.  If you find a package version in an Asian market, then all you need are a couple of eggs, soy sauce, sugar, ikura (salmon roe), snow peas (saya ingen), and if they have it at your Asian market, sakuradenbu (explained below).

First things first--make 3 "go" (cups) of rice in the rice cooker.  You can make that ahead and leave it in the rice cooker 'til you're ready to use it.  When you're ready to start, make the Tamagoyaki first (kind of like an omlette).  One egg, beaten, add just a wee bit of shouyu (soy sauce) and a teaspoon of sugar, then pour the mixture into a pan and cook it the same way you do an omlette--letting the uncooked egg flow under the cooked edge 'til it's mostly cooked, then flip it over.  Shape is not important--I use my little rectangular Tamagoyaki pan for this, but any frying pan will do.

...don't have the flame up too high (oops!).  But it was rescued in the nick of time...

I make two eggs like this.  It's fairly thin--cut in half, then into  thin strips for sprinkling.  This tastes like sweet scrambled egg (well--sweet/salt, because of the soy sauce and sugar).  There are invariably little fingers stealing bites while I'm cutting up the egg...

Set aside.  Destring and briefly boil the snow peas, slice diagonally, and set aside.

Get out the rice--put it into a wooden tub if you have one, or just use a nice big tray with a lip.  A very large piece of wax paper would do, too, in a pinch.   Pour on the vinegar/sugar mix (if you're making it from scratch--1/2 cup vinegar, 2Tblsp sugar, 1tsp salt) and cut it in using the shamoji (rice scoop) or a wooden spoon.  Fan the rice at the same time.  This is surprisingly hard to do--like patting your head and rubbing your tummy.   I generally get one of the kids to do the fanning (that's Cici's hand holding the Uchiwa fan up there in the photo).

Next, dump on the vegetables (thin sliced carrot, shiitake,  lotus root, bamboo shoot, kampyou if you can get it--this is why I like to use the package version).  I've also seen the relevant vegetables available in a jar version, sliced and cooked and in the dressing ready to go.  Either way--it's easier and faster that way.

These are what come in the package version--vinegar/sugar mix on the left, vegetables in the middle, sesame/nori sprinkles in the small silver pack.

Once you've got the vegetables well cut in, put the mixture into what ever container you're going to use.  I've used my ni-dan (two level) o-bento boxes, but Tupperware works just fine, too.  The first time I ever ate Chirashizushi, my friend brought some over in a big Tupperware box.  I loved it the first time I had it!

On to sprinkles...

I sprinkle the thin-sliced Tamagoyaki (egg sheet) on first...

Ikura comes next...

...then the Sakuradenbu (Denbu is pressed, finely shredded fish and shrimp that's had sugar added and some food coloring to make it pink--hence the "sakura" appelation.  It's the same color as cherry blossoms:-))

And on top of the pink, put some green--I used snow peas, briefly boiled and sliced diagonally.  I've also seen Mitsuba (chervil) used, which is pretty also.

Final sprinkle is the nori and white sesame seeds.  Dekiagari! (Done!)

Itadkimaa---su!

...and if you're still feeling adventurous, you can try Amazake--very sweet, thick, milky-looking sake.  It's basically sake in the very early stages of fermentation, so it has less than one percent alcohol.  People let kids drink small amounts of it.  Actually, I think everybody only drinks small  amounts of it (I can't imagine drinking more than about half a cup of it).  Teddy liked it--Koshi and Cici....not so much:-))  I noticed my husband making a face, too--there are plenty of Japanese who don't care for it.  So don't feel bad if you try it and aren't crazy about it.

So next time you're up for a Kitchen Adventure--head over to your nearest Asian supermarket and see if they stock the things for making Chirashizushi!

Ip---pai tabenasai! (please eat a lot!)
Mata asobou, ne!

SpyShopper-- Snacks for Hinamatsuri

Hisamochi

Hinamatsuri, in addition to the Dolls being put up, has several snacks and foods associated with it, one of which is pictured above.  It's Hisamochi, though you don't eat it as is.  Mochi has to be grilled first so that it gets soft and chewy.  This is the one snack that is also a part of the doll sets--you can usually see plastic versions on little stands (yesterday's post shows it as next to the Minister of the Right), and generally in the Three Colors of Spring pictured above.

My kids' favorite, though, is Hina Arare--also in white, pink green. Traditionally, I think this is roasted mochi pieces, but the kind we get seem to me more like a puffed rice snack.  "Arare" just means diced or chopped with reference to food, so it must mean (I think) the small pieces of this snack.  This kind is sweet (a little), sweetened with sugar instead of soy sauce.  I got a couple of bags for the kids...well, ostensibly for them;-))  And like all Hinamatsuri snacks, this one is decorated with the Emperor and Empress and the lanterns and plum blossoms. 

Even snacks like caramel curls (which are out all the time) will put out special packaging runs for Hinamatsuri.  See how the character of the bag has been turned into the Hina Emperor (left, holding his shaku, wearing his little hat, lantern to the side)?  On the right is special run Peach flavor (pink and white curls), with the character representing the Empress (see her gold crown?).

Today they got Koala no March, a snack they like year-round (chocolate-filled cookie puffs, a little like small ravioli but made of thin cookie.  And chocolate inside--reason enough to eat anything)...

Koala HinaDoll Cookies!

On Mar 3 (tomorrow), they'll get these beautiful snacks I found, each with a plastic plum blossom twisty-tied on.  Plum Blossom hard candies on the left, Hisamochi-shaped jellies in the middle, and another hard candy made to look just like those round, clear pieces of glass (like flat marbles) used for games (the name escapes me at the moment--I'll update when I remember).

candies displayed at Daiei on tiered cloth-covered shelves 

And this year, for special, we're going to try drinking a little AmaZake--sweet sake.  It's sake, but the alcohol content is very low, since is isn't completely fermented.  It's a bit like drinking slightly sweet, slightly alcohol-y rice that's gone to mush.  It's thick, not clear like regular sake.  Some people like it, some don't (my husband doesn't care for it).  I did not, however, buy that huge bottle of it (*mercy*!  It'd be in the fridge for the next twenty years, I'm sure)...

...I just got a small can, so they can taste it.  Ama Zake is drunk warm both for Hinamatsuri and for New Year's (they were handing out small paper cups of it at the area where we went to watch the Hakone Ekiden Marathon)...

I'll let you know whether they like it or not!

Even Daiei had a beautiful Hina-Ningyo set out (Ningyo = Doll) above the snacks (along with the Hinamatsuri song playing on continuous loop...).  I thought their set was somewhat unusual, in that is has three tiers, but instead of the Court Musicians (the usual third tier), this one has The Ministers of the Left and Right!  My favorites!  I'm sure Lewis Carroll could work them in to Wonderland...;-))

Mata asobou, ne!
Tomorrow:  Recipe--Chirashizushi for Hinamatsuri

Hinamatsuri-- the Doll Festival

Mikado Dolls (Mikado = Imperial)

The custom of the Doll Festival-- Hinamatsuri--dates back to Heian Japan, when originally people used to float straw dolls (Hina)  down river to the sea, thus carrying away bad spirits--somewhat in the manner of the biblical scapegoat, though rather less costly.  Celebrated on March 3rd as the plum blossoms are just beginning to fade and the peach blossoms are almost ready to pop, modern custom involves putting out Hina Dolls for daughters a week or so before the third and displaying them until the third.  My mommy friends tell me that it's important to take the whole set down by the 4th--superstition has it that if you leave your daughter's Hina set up too long, she'll be an old maid;-))

click to enlarge all photos

Of course there are special foods and snacks associated with the Doll Festival, but I'll leave those to tomorrow's and Thursday's posts.  For today, I'd like to tell you about the gorgeous Hina Dolls... a set of which we don't own because of the expense and the storage (small apartment...*sigh*).  Really nice sets, as Chris mentioned in his comment yesterday, go for thousands of dollars (several juu man yen), and typically the sets are handed down from grandmother to mother to daughter, adding a bit each generation.  Most people have the Emporer and Empress--the top tier, as in the photo above.  They sit before a gold screen (byobu) in their many-layered Heian era silk robes...

O-Dairi-Sama (the Emporer) holding his shaku (ritual baton)...

a close-up view...

...and O-Hina-Sama (the Empress) holding her fan.  "Dairi" means imperial palace, "Hina" is girl or princess. 

incredible fine details

the seven-tiered set at the Children's Hospital

Few people have the entire seven-tier set.  If you ask someone, they'll tell you the have an "ichi-dan" (one tier) set, or a "ni-dan" or maybe a "san-dan" set (two, or even three).  At least, of the big dolls like those above.  If someone says they have a "nana-dan" (seven tier) set, they've either inherited all of it from O-Baasan, or they have a set with very small pieces inexpensively made.  I was floored by the big set up at the Prefectural Children's Hospital we go to for Teddy's eyes (strabismus)--no ropes around it or anything, so I had a good up close look at it!  I took some video of  it, too, since it was hard to take good photos of the whole set.  Go ahead and watch and enjoy, then below I'll explain what's on all the other tiers...


Aren't they detailed and lovely and fine?  If I were a better video editor, I'd have put the HinaMatsuri Uta (song) with the video.  Because of my lack of skills, please enjoy listening to the Hinamatsuri Song in a separate video:-))



The words go something like this:
Let's light the laterns on the tiered stand
Let's put peach blossoms on the tiered stand
Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums
Today is a happy Dolls Festival

Sannin Kanjou no Sanpou...the seated sake bearer

Starting from the second tier are all the court retainers.  On the second level itself are the Sanin Kanjou--the three court ladies holding sake equipment.  From right to left (viewer's) they are the Nagae no choushi (the long-handled sake bearer), the Sanpou (the seated sake bearer, flanked by takatsuki stands holding sweets other than mochi), and on the left the Kuwae no choushi (the backup sake bearer).

Kotsuzumi and Yokobue of the court musicians

The third tier (which is as far down as most people own) is the Gonin bayashi--the court musicians.  From left to right (viewer's) they are:
1) Taiko--small drum
2) Ootsuzumi--large drum
3) Kotsuzumi-- hand drum
4) Yokobue-- flute (seated)
5) Utaikata--the singer seated and holding a folding sensu fan.

The Sadaijin--Minister of the Left....who is on your right

The fourth tier holds the Ministers of the Right and Left--the Udaijin and Sadaijin, though their names refer to their positions relative to each other.  In the photo above is the Sadaijin, always depicted as an old man seated next to the Kakebanzen (the covered bowls table).  He's to your right, though he called the Minister of the Left...

Udaijin--the Minister of the Right...who is on your left;-))

...and the Udaijin--the Minister of the Right (who is on the viewer's left), depicted as a young man. He sits beside the diamond-shaped hishidai holding the diamond-shaped glutinous rice cakes called Hisamochi ( colorful here, but usually in the three colors of spring--pink, green and white). Both figures usually hold bows and arrows.


For some reason, I forgot to take a photo of the figures in the fifth tier--the samurai helpers as protectors to the Emperor and Empress.  Look closely at their faces in the video--can you identify which is the Nakijougo (the Maudlin Drinker), which the Okorijougo (the Cantankerous Drinker), and which is the Waraijougo (the Merry Drinker)?  Gambare! (do your best!)

Only the Empress possess a mirror...

The sixth tier holds things used within the Imperial Palace.  These are the Emperor and Empresses things, so they are (of course) beautifully lacquered and painted with gold, tied with silken fringed cords.  Commoners were lucky to have a chest of drawers (if that), and nobody owned a mirror except royalty and the ultra-wealthy.  From left to right (viewer's) are:
1) the tansu-- a chest of drawers (usually five), sometimes with outer doors;
2) the Nagamochi--a long chest used for storing kimono, and placed on top of it the Hasamibako (a smaller clothes storage box).  To the far left in the photo above.
3) Kyoudai-- mirror stand (I was really intrigued by this)
4) two hibachi-- braziers used for heating (far right in photo above)
5) Haribako-- the sewing kit box (for fixing up all those voluminous robes;-)), and...

see the tiny bamboo whisk?

...6) the Daisu with all the Ocha Dougu (tea utensils) used for the Tea Ceremony.

Gyuusha--the ox-cart favored by Heian nobility

The seventh, and final, tier hold things used outside the Palace--things for traveling, such as the Gokago, the palanquin (hand-carried litter) used to carry the royalty around.  In the middle are the  Juubako, the set of nested boxes for food tied vertically with a silken cord wonderously made.  On the right is the Goshouguruma, the ox-cart (pictured above).  The trees on the bottom are (on the left corner) a mandarin orange tree, Ukontachibana, and (on the right) a cherry tree called the Sakon no sakura (right-corner cherry).  I could stare for hours at a beautiful set of Hina dolls--aren't they intritcate, delicate, and fine?

If you've another minute, I found this darling video by Sakai Houichi (who does beautiful watercolors) showing how to draw or paint the Mikado (Hina) Dolls.  Watch how he paints the circles for the faces--clockwise in one smooth zen-like movement starting at the bottom of the circle.  Cool.  I also liked the little paper kitty-puppets he uses to point to things during the video:-))  Dozo, enjoy!



Chotto Hinamatsuri wakattekita ka naa...?  Do you understand the Doll Festival a little better now?  Stay tuned!  Coming up tomorrow:  SpyShopper--Hinamatsuri Treats;  and on Thursday:  Recipe--Chirashizushi for Hinamatsuri.

Mata ashita, ne!

Land of Cute--Hinamatsuri Kitty-Chan Style

Hina-Kitty!  Kawaiiiii--

Is it possible?  Can the Hinamatsuri (Doll Festival on 3/3) be made cuter than it already was to begin with?  Don't be ridiculous!  This is the Land of Cute!  Of course it can be cuter-- via a simple Kitty-fication process.  Anything innately cute can be bumped up a level by making a Kitty-chan version of it;-))

Here's what real Hinamatsuri dolls look like (they have a simple set out at the kids school near the entryway):








p.s.--If you don't know anything about Hinamatsuri, stop by tomorrow!

Mata ashita!

CrowWatch--An Experiment

Corvus corone...Hashibosogarasu... Carrion Crow

A couple of weeks ago, biologist Jerry Coyne over at WEIT featured a post on Corvid Savants which just fascinated the heck out of me:-))

It reminded me of a TED talk a while back by Joshua Klein on the Intelligence of Crows , which stayed in my mind for a long time after watching it because I agreed so strongly with Klein's motives for studying them.  In his TED talk he says he was goaded into action by an acquaintance at a party, who maintained that crows were incorrigible pests and ought to be systematically exterminated.  Surely humans are inadvertently responsible for enough extinctions already without adding intentional exterminations to the ever-lengthening list of shame?  His response--which I applaud--was to attempt to "turn the longstanding rivalry between man and crow into something profiting both species."

Corvus macrorhynchos...Jungle Crow...Hashibutogarasu

I've been watching crows here in Japan for quite a while--I've always admired their glossy black feathers and cheeky intelligence.  But I watched without looking anything up, and so didn't realize that there were, in fact, two species I was seeing.  Before Cici was born, we lived up in Tokyo, and I (like everyone else) was half fascinated, half frightened of the enormous Jungle Crows who raided trash piles (kitchen trash--they left the plastic trash alone, no fools they;-) around the city.  I remember hearing that they were an invasive species, having come up from Southeast Asia, and that they were becoming unmanageable pests and should be culled.  I personally didn't see why people couldn't simply compost more and devise a better system for trash pick-up than plastic garbage bags on the curb.  Eventually the city ward offices passed out nets, but the problem remains (since people tend not to cover their garbage completely with the nets--again, human fail).  My kitty-cat, Clio, used to get all excited watching the crows at the trash pile outside, lashing her tail and ik-ik-ik-ikking at them.  I just shook my head at her.  *Mercy*--those crows were bigger than she was!  Jungle Crows run to about 56cm in length, second only to Ravens in size.  They'd have carried Clio off like the Winged Monkeys in the Wizard of Oz for sure.

Heckel and Jeckyl;-)

 When we moved from Tokyo to Yokohama, one of the first things I noticed was the absence of crows at the trash pile.  That lasted 'til about 4 years ago...suddenly one day, the Jungle Crows had discovered our trash pick up point (and also, which days were household trash and which were plastic or recyclables and not worth bothering with).  Walking to the road to put out garbage on a quiet Saturday morning, my steps are the alarm--a sudden, yet unhurried, liftoff and nearly a dozen dark shapes rise on a couple of slow wingbeats to power lines and branches overhead.  I've disturbed their feasting--I see someone's had Nabe for dinner, the not-quite-empty crab legs are strewn out into the road now...  If I look up, they watch me watching them.  And though they've repaired to perches out of reach, they don't seem especially disturbed by me.  These are intelligent creatures, no doubt.

These observations were in my mind when I watched--with pleasure, rather than astonishment--Betty the New Caledonian crow's wire-bending accomplishments, and the traffic-light-obeying Carrion crows of Sendai using traffic to crack their nuts (both videos posted in the WEIT article, linked above).  I was interested, too, to learn how long they live (20 years or so!) and how social they are (like many raptors, corvids tend to be monogamous--generally mating for life).  After reading Dr. Coyne's article at WEIT, I looked up Joshua Klein's TED talk and watched it again--and was intrigued by his recounting of the University of Washington grad students who had to wear masks and wigs when banding crows, so as not to be harassed by those same crows for the rest of their grad school days.  Crows can recognize you--and remember you.

The very next morning, continuing up the river after walking the kids to school, I was surprised to see three crows swoop in to land on the railing *right* next to a woman walking her dog.  When she came toward me, I smiled and said she must have been surprised to have a crow land so close to her.  She wasn't, though.  *I* was surprised when she said that the crows knew her because she always fed them some of her dog's food pellets (the soft kind, it looked like to me) when she walked her dog.  I mentioned that I'd read that crows were actually very intelligent and could recognize individual faces--she said, yes, they did recognize her.  I watched her walk away, and was surprised by how...politely the crows waited for her to put food down for them.  I got it on video, so you can watch, too:-))



Did you see how they sat very close to her on the rail, yet didn't harass her in any way?  No flapping of wings in her face, nor pecking, nor loud cawing.  Two of the three are the big Jungle Crow (the Large-billed Crow--their beaks are a good deal thicker than those of the Carrion Crow, who can be seen right at the end of the video).  Well, I was hooked, I tell you.  I decided right there to try to find some crows a little closer to home to befriend.  Can I get them to recognize me?  The test will be, after I think they *do* recognize me, to go to the usual spot wearing a mask (I'm thinking the Oni Mask from Setsubun will do the trick...;-) and see whether they still come or not.

Next installment:  A Group of Crows Found

Now reading:

Bernd Heinrich's Mind of the Raven
                   
Corvid Cognition (N. Clayton and N. Emery; Current Biology, Vol 15, No3,  R80)
                   
Can Animals Recall the Past and Plan for the Future? (N. Clayton, T. Bussey, A. Dickinson;  Neuroscience Vol 4, Aug 2003, pp. 685-691)

Mata asobou, ne!

On Design-- Laundry Hangers

I know you're all secretly dancing in your bedrooms, seeing our socks and all--but this is about the hanger and the laundry poles.  I bring up this most mundane of subjects because my husband, recently talking about Arizona and using the drier at my parents' house, wanted to know why they even *had* a drier.  I said I had no idea why, since in the summer clothes dry even faster outside than in a drier (and don't shrink up to boot).  But... actually I do know why.  And it's to do with a certain rising level of suburban snobbery that has spread  across America that says "Heaven *forbid* anyone should see my laundry outside."  Never mind the energy savings, the ecological... logicality of it, the fact that practically the whole of the rest of the world does.  Ewww.  That's just so...countrified.  One of the longest comment threads generated (over 450) at a personal finance blog I read occasionally was over the blog author's intention to save money by hanging his laundry outside to dry.  I was both amused and dismayed by the number of commenters who were aghast at his entertaining the idea at all (American commenters, I should say--European commenters couldn't figure out why he was so hesitant to do it and so worried about what the neighbors would think).

I don't need to worry about it, though--there isn't an apartment anywhere in Japan (unless they are *very* tall) that doesn't have hooks descending from the ceiling of the back porch to hold long laundry pole for shirt hangers and multi-pinch hangers.  On sunny days everybody has laundry, futons, blankets, pillows out drying--and nobody thinks a thing about it.  There are, I'm sure, some slightly uptight housewives who take care to hang up the undies inside, but I'm not one of them.  It all goes outside.

*A Digression*
When Teddy was about a year old and had just learned to walk, he used to follow me out onto the porch while I pulled things out of the  laundry basket and hung them up to dry.  It took me weeks to figure out why I kept finding my underwear down below (four floors) on the ground...until I happened to look over at just the right moment and catch Teddy plucking my best pair of underwear (which I trust you can imagine for yourself) from the top of the laundry basket and sticking his little hand into one of the spaces between safety glass panels and poi!  Why--why!--didn't he ever once throw Papa's boxer shorts from our fourth floor balcony??


I love my laundry-pinchy-hanger-upper-thingies.  They have no particular name that I know of, but no matter.  They are unbelievably useful and save me a huge chunk on the electric bill every month. They are inexpensive, lightweight, fold-able, and easily stored.   And, after some initial resistance, I decided I prefer hanging it outside to listening to a noisy drier and the resulting shrunken sleeves and pant legs that fit when I bought them.  On a warm, sunny day when the Uguisu (Bush Warbler) has begun to sing, it's my favorite household task.

Mata asobou, ne!
(p.s.-- Full Disclosure:  During the Rainy Season, I do sometimes wish desperately for a drier and have used laundromat drier to get things dry that otherwise wouldn't dry out 'til August...)

Keeping Warm on the Inside-- A Recipe for Garlic Chives

Allium tuberosum... Garlic Chives... Nira

One of my favorite winter dishes is Nira no Tamago Toji, "Nira" being garlic chives, a member of the onion family.  The strap-like leaves are used in Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and widely in Korean cuisine.  They have a wonderful, onion-y--garliky smell and come loaded with Vitamin A (just the thing for keeping your body warm from the inside when the frost comes and they're also good for anybody with a cold or the flu;-).  You can use it in stir-fry, or yaki-soba and such.

 Nira-Tama, though, is a great side-dish, or even main dish if you're just having a light supper since it's made with eggs.  And the best thing is--I can throw it together in five minutes flat (well, ok--6 or 7 minutes).  All you need are a bunch of garlic chives (which are easy to grow from seed I've been told--haven't tried growing them yet myself), 4 eggs, plus a little powdered dashi, soy sauce, sake, and mirin (serves 4).

Slice the Nira 4-5cm while bringing the soup ingredients to a boil.  Soup is:

240ml dashi (water plus 1/2 tsp powdered dashi)
2 tbsp mirin (sweet cooking sake)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sake

Boil briefly the soup ingredients, add the Nira and simmer 'til cooked.  Let someone who is pestering you in the kitchen break and beat the eggs (bonus feature: this recipe has enough eggs for each kid in almost any family to have an egg to break, thus fulfilling its vital role as peace-keeper).

Pour the eggs over the soup, stirring in briefly, put the lid on and simmer 'til half (or so--as you like) cooked.

dekiagari!

 Some recipes make this with half the above amount of soup (about 120ml and 1tbsp each of the flavorings).  I make double the amount because I like the soup itself.  I also sometimes add a teaspoon or two of sugar to the soup since the kids like it like that.  Teki to ni.  Suit yourself;-)  I also let it cook long enough that the eggs look puffy when I take the lid off (4 or 5 minutes over medium heat).

Enjoy!  Itadakima--su!

thud... Thud... THUD

That last resounding THUD was Mama, felled by Da Floo...

First Cici Sunday night, then Teddy Monday morning, and me later on Monday.  It's bad enough when more than one of your kids has flu, but it's an order of magnitude worse when I get it alongside them... So let me just state right here, in large letters, THANK YOU to my husband who stayed home for two days from work to take us all to the doctor, pick up medicine, go shopping, feed those who felt like eating, do laundry and get office work done on the laptop he'd brought home!!  SuperPapa!!   I'm hoping he doesn't come down with it himself tomorrow...

Colds and flu in Japan mean lots of sleep with extra blankets and an ice pillow for that fevered brow, a custom I thought was somewhat quaint (if not downright dangerous-- "bundling" is bad, isn't it?) until I got sick one time myself with a high fever.  I decided right then and there that ice pillows were a Good Thing.  Ice pillows allow you to make effective use of the body's natural fever defense while helping you feel at least a little comfortable (I won't pretend that running a fever is ever fun;-)).  I picked up on using ice pillows pretty quickly, though it took a good deal longer to figure out why my husband was so adamantly against taking a bath while running a fever (in a country where homes are not centrally heated, the area where the bathroom tends to be is generally *cold* in the winter, hence the bathing contraindication).  For kids, those stick-on cool gel pads for the forehead are useful (especially if you have to go wait in a doctor's office for a while)--and I think I saw those recently in the US.  Am I remembering right?  Have the cool Forehead Sticker Strips made the leap?

And, this bit is the same, plenty of fluids.  Which means usually Pocari Sweat--an Oral Rehydration Therapy drink that is also a popular sports drink.  *Not* the other way around, either, as is Gatorade--Pocari is a real ORT.  I've been given it in hospitals, and advised by doctors and nurses to use it for myself and my kids while running a fever, or when recovering from a bout of stomach flu.  It's good stuff that has the advantage of being both widely available and inexpensive (and, also, a name that gets picked up by English-speaking news media and reported as "a sports drink in Japan called--get this!-- Pocari SWEAT!  Who'd want to drink that?!").

Today was the first day we all ate actual food instead of just O-Chazuke and Pocari sweat, and I managed to be up most of the day with no nap.  And now it's 8:30pm... and I'm about to fall face-first into my keyboard, and I have no idea whether I'm writing sentences that make sense or not.  Tomorrow should be better...right?

O-Yasumi Nasai!
(p.s.- we did get Tamiflu, which knocked my daughter's fever out in 36 hours and mine and Teddy's in 48 hours.  Not bad!)

On Design-- Pencil Cases

My kids' pencil cases for school in the photo above (Sugar Bunnies for Cici, Pokemon for the boys).  From the day Koshi started first grade (or rather, slightly before, when we got the list of things to get *for* first grade), I thought these were the coolest pencil cases I'd ever seen.  Seriously. 

...Look at this!  I'm slightly jealous of my own kids, they have such awesome, well-designed pencil cases.  I *know* I didn't ever have anything this cool when I was in elementary school...

...see how the sharpened pecils slide right down into their own little sleeves?  And how the whole piece lifts up (you can see my fingers over there, holding it up) for ease of putting in and taking out?  That way you can go to school prepared with nice, sharp pencils that won't break on the way to school--an important consideration for first graders:-))

And there's plenty of space for erasers, and even a built-in pencil sharpener that actually works well...

Can you see how to use the pencil sharpener?  You don't have to take it out to use it (though it comes out to dump out shavings)...

Ja jan!  There's a little door that slides to the right on the outside--just slide it over, and sharpen away!  Take that piece out and slide the end open to dump the pencil shavings

Teddy's pencil case..

...and that's not all!  That's Teddy's case above, and flipped over in the photo to the right.  The underside has storage for extra pencils, small rulers, erasers, or whatever.   (For the Sharp-Eyed Reader:  yes, Teddy has managed to lose his pencil sharpner out of this case, which is fairly typical...)
To be completely honest, though, I don't know how much studying I'd get done at school if I had a pencil case that fun...

Mata asobou, ne!