Do You Know Pocky?

Today is Pocky Day! Yes, those cute Japanese stick cookies from the Glico Company have a day of their own: 11/11. Get it? Like four Pocky sticks in a row.











Seems like the holiday was copied from the Korean "Pepero (a cookie like the Pocky) Day". It's similar to our Valentine's Day.




So try a Pocky today- they come in lots of flavors.
















Here's a customer review from Walmart (yes, Walmart!):

"Glico Pocky is THE BEST. From the first bite it tastes like magic in snack form. The chocolate isn't too sweet and just melts in your mouth, all while being complimented by the biscuit stick.
Pocky=Amazing"

A Favorite Dinner Revised

OK, how do I make creamed spinach on a nondairy diet. With coconut milk!

"Coconut milk is considered very healthy in Ayurveda, and in modern times has been found to have hyperlipidemic balancing qualities as well and antimicrobial properties in the gastrointestinal tract and topically. It is also used for healing mouth ulcers. In a study with rats, two coconut based preparations (a crude warm water extract of coconut milk and a coconut water dispersion) were studied for their protective effects on drug-induced gastric ulceration. Both substances offered protection against ulceration, with coconut milk producting a 54% reduction vs. 39% for coconut water."

I added garlic to the coconut milk, brought it to the boil and added a bag of baby spinach. Served alongside my baked sweet potato, topped now with EVOO, and all I can say is "Yum!"

Keeping Up With Bento

It seems that bento-making adds to the pressures of Japanese motherhood:

"According to Anne Allison, food is prepared in a presentational style that is determined by a number of codes. One code calls for “smallness, separation, and fragmentation,” another for opposition by means of color, shape, texture and even between the food and its container. The foods should oppose each other in that pink is placed with green, smooth surfaces with rough ones, and circular foods in square dishes should rest next to angular foods in round dishes. There is also a code that calls for the stylization of nature. Foods should remain in their natural, raw, state (and) should also be decorated with natural objects such as flowers or maple leaves. Mothers can spend up to 45 minutes per obento every morning for each child’s lunch.

 
Nursery schools have established regulations for obento. All children must bring one for lunch and each obento should have the following properties:

1) Food should be prepared in such a way that it is easy to eat.
2) Food must be prepared in such a way that it can be eaten with chopsticks or with the fingers.
3) Portions should be small.
4) Food that a child does not like should be slowly introduced so that the child will not be a fussy eater.
5) The obento must be pretty and pleasing to the eye.
6) Obento should be as handmade as possible, including the obento bag (obentobukuro) in which the obento is contained.

Mothers take extreme care in following the rules because each obento serves as a connection between the home (uchi), and the outside (soto), represented by the school.
 
Once at school, the child is responsible for completely finishing his or her obento. Often recess or lessons will not start until every student is finished. The logic behind this rule is that the child must meet certain expectations as an introduction to the future “rigors” of the Japanese educational system. Schools create many ploys to encourage children to eat such as sing-alongs and collectively thanking Buddha. The bottom line, however, is that the obento signifies a message to follow directions and accept authority. The lunch-time rules form an approval of ritualistic tasks that will be carried by the children into later years.
 
Because the obento signifies both uchi and soto it is important for the mothers to create the perfect obento for each child. It must be attractive and must encourage the child to eat all the food within it. However, mothers do not have to form ideas for the obento by themselves, hundreds of magazines are published about obento giving tips and ideas for creating the ideal lunch. In fact, although dated, a 1998 survey in Osaka concluded there were 474 magazines available pertaining to obento. Many schools hold PTA meetings to discuss obento, especially during the first months of the school year. These meetings focus on how the food should be “packed and wrapped” in order to ensure the best results. Often if a child fails to be able to finish his or her obento the blame is placed on the mother’s inability to prepare a proper lunch."
 

And all we had to do was make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

More Cupcakes

Today's cupcakes are spice with cream cheese frosting. Notice the half marshmallow on top (I put the sticky cut side down on top of the warm cupcake- so it sticks); it adds to the cupcake's height.

Lychee Pork With Forbidden Rice

I sometimes get badgered for not using my impulsive "gourmet goodie" purchases filling up my pantry. Here's how I used my can of lychees yesterday.

Lychee Pork With Forbidden Rice

6 boneless pork loin chops (taking up space in my small freezer)
3 T soy sauce
3 T cornstarch
3 T peanut oil

Cut chops into 1 inch chunks (while partially frozen, it's easier). Marinate in soy sauce for about one hour. Dust with cornstarch. Heat peanut oil in wok and fry dusted pork chunks till brown. Save the leftover slurry marinade.




Remove pork from wok. Set aside. Add to wok:

2 carrots, cut into 1/4 inch diagonally slices
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/4 inch squares


Saute for couple of minutes till carrots are tender then add:
lychees, drained and cut in half
pork

And mixture of:

1 T dry sherry
3 T hoisin sauce
4 T lychee juice, from can
leftover marinade slurry (add about 1/4 cup water)

Heat through till pork is cooked - about 5 minutes. Top with:
3 scallions, sliced on the diagonal
2 T toasted sesame seeds

Serve with Forbidden Rice [1 cup Jasmine Rice (uncooked) mixed with only 1-2 T black rice (also uncooked) - this is enough to turn the rice purplish. Cook as you normally would.] My 10 lb. bag of black rice is going to last a long time!
Enjoy!!

Flower Pot Cupcakes

Today's cupcakes were made with buttermilk giving the chocolate a nice tang. Under the frosting lies half a marshmallow which I stuck on while the cake was still warm adding height without additional frosting. Looks good, doesn't it?

Ben's Buns

His looked even better. And I know they tasted better because I ate one.

Best bun yet. Yum!

A Day Late

I forgot that yesterday- September 15th- was Agatha Christie's 120th birthday. Someone has come up with a cake (recipe) for the occasion called Delicious Death "inspired by a passage in one of her Miss Marple books called “A Murder is Announced” in which housekeeper Mitzi bakes it for Dora Bunner’s birthday tea. ‘Impossible to make such a cake. I need for it chocolate and much butter, and sugar and raisins’ she tells her employer."

October Comes In September (18th)

From the Internets:

Why is Oktoberfest in September?

The answer goes back to 1810 during the dark days of beer drinking before refridgeration (sic).

In those days in Germany beer would never be brewed in the summer months. The batches would never turn out good.

The last batches were usually made in March. These last batches would have higher alcohol content to take advantage of alcohol as a preservative.

Traditionally there would be a big fest starting on the last Saturday in September till the First Sunday in October. The purpose was to drink up the old stocks of beer to make room for the new brew that would be make after harvest. The tradition goes back to the 15th and 16th Centuries.

The first official Oktoberfest was held in 1810. Crown Prince Ludwig threw a big party to celebrate his wedding to Princess Therese on October 12, 1810. The party was open to all. Everyone liked it so much they kept having the party every year.

So now how shall I celebrate Oktoberfest on September 18th?
We'll make a pretzel.

Orso

Orso Pizzeria
Finally found a really good pizza (in Falls Church).

Especially liked the Chihuly-esque chandeliers-

Thank You, Georgetown Cupcake

Kewpie

Bet you didn't know that the Japanese have the highest per capita consumption of mayonnaise, "Kewpie", of course, which was introduced to Japan in 1925 and is said to be saltier, creamier and have more "umami" than our good old Hellmann's. Sounds good - I'll let you know. We had some kind of mayonnaise-drenched shrimp in Beijing and I have to say -they were pretty disgusting.

41 Years Ago...

It was a Sunday, a very hot Sunday. Wish the cake had been nicer. Just wanted to avoid this...

Hoping to get something like this... Or even more modestly, this...

Candy House

The owner of the "Candy House" in Joplin, MO was kind enough to give us a personal tour. We ate our samples but it was too hot to buy any chocolates.

Daviess or Daveiss

Owensboro, Kentucky has my favorite barbecue, Moonlite Bar-B-Q, where the pork is meltingly delicious and the sauce has just the right amount of vinegar for tang.

Down the road from Moonlite we went to the Bluegrass Museum (Kentucky is the birthplace of Bill Monroe) and on the way we noticed the name of the county, Daviess. We thought maybe there was an extra "s" which made it difficult to figure out the pronunciation. It turns out there was a misspelling but it wasn't that...

Seems that the county was named after Major Joseph Hamilton Daveiss (March 4, 1774 – November 6, 1811). He commanded the Indiana Militia at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Although the correct spelling of his name appears to be "Daveiss", it is uniformly spelled "Daviess" in places named for him.

At a young age he moved to Danville, Kentucky with his parents. Daveiss is said to have been the first lawyer west of the Appalachian Mountains to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court. He married Chief Justice John Marshall's sister Nancy, returned to Kentucky and served as United States District Attorney for Kentucky.

In 1806, Daveiss brought treason charges against Burr in Kentucky. The charges were, however, dismissed thanks to the help of Burr's attorney, Henry Clay. Five years later, while Daveiss was in the Indiana militia, he was mortally wounded in an Indian attack. He later died.

We are still not sure how to pronounce the name of the county.


PRICE INN
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT HOTEL IN Bartlesville, OK


Spent last night in the odd shaped hotel. It was a little squishy in the triangular shower and the 2 foot square elevator.

Meat Loaf Sundae

Surprise Meat Loaf

2 pieces whole wheat pita bread
3/4 cup milk
2 T ketchup
1 T dijon mustard
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 lb. ground chuck
1 lb ground turkey
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper to taste
4 hard boiled eggs
1 package frozen chopped spinach, squeezed and drained
3 T ketchup for decorative topping

Process pita bread to crumbs. Mix with milk, add ketchup, mustard and Worcestershire. Soak at least 30 minutes. Add to meats with eggs and salt and pepper. Do not overmix. Press half of mixture into loaf pan. Spread a strip of 1/2 of the spinach down the center of meat. Line 4 hard boiled eggs lengthwise down center on top of spinach. Top with remaining spinach and then remaining meat. Decorate top with ketchup swirls. Bake at 375 at least 1 hour until internal temperature reaches 140. Enjoy hot, warm or cold.

Cream Cake

Cream, angel food cake, and blackberries - I saw this cake made on a Scandinavian cooking show.

Chopped Salad Topped with Bento Egg

Anonymous But Cute

I don't like to brag and I don't like to boast,
Said Peter T Hooper, but speaking of toast
And speaking of kitchens and ketchup and cake
And kettles and stoves and the stuff people bake...
Well I don't like to brag, but I'm telling you Liz,
That speaking of cooks, I'm the best that there is!
Why, only last Tuesday, when mother was out
I really cooked something worth talking about!

Bunny Bento Eggs