Pears and Apples

Apples are my favorite fruit, no matter what country I happen to be living in at the moment. Whereas grocery store apples tend to be hit or miss in the US, and only orchard apples have any really dependable flavor, in Japan they're all wonderful, and you will never, ever find a mushy red delicious or a watery macintosh. I like some varieties better than others (okay, I'll confess that I have gone home without apples at all when there were no Olins to be had), but really there's no such thing as a Japanese bad apple. Best of all, unless you accidentally pick up one of the gift-fruit apples (which tend to be giant and individually wrapped in protective foam), you won't pay that much more than you would in the states, about a dollar an apple.
Here is a Japanese pear, a nashi. I got four pears this size - the gigantic, gift-worthy size - for just three bucks from my neighborhood slightly-injured-fruit stand. There's nothing wrong with the pears at all, except for a little cottony-ness in places that probably disqualified them from being sold as perfect, expensive gifts. They taste like nectar and are pure white inside, gushing with juice. Unfortunately, the only Asian pears I've ever seen for sale in America were tiny and hard as rocks, but if you ever have a chance to try a ripe one, don't miss the opportunity!
Here's a pair of my beloved Olin apples. Most apples in Japan are grown in Aomori prefecture in the north, and I don't know if it's something in the soil or in the air there that makes the apples taste so good, but they're amazing. The skin has its own sweet-sour flavor, and the inside is redolent of citrus and cloves. They're crisp, crunchy, and perfectly balanced. I eat at least one and sometimes two a day when they're available. Happily that's most of the year, though they start to get scarce mid-summer through the new harvest in September. Fujis are available all the time, but ... I'm an Olin addict, and nothing else is quite the same. I usually don't buy any other kind of apple at all, though if Mutsus, another green variety, are around (they are extremely rare and usually cost more than others) I'll get a few for their absolute smoothness and pure, sour-apple flavor. But to be honest, Olins are still the best.

Thanksgiving in Tokyo

Thanksgiving was always one of my favorite holidays growing up. We would drive over the river and through the woods to my grandparents' house in Mississippi, arriving just in time for the huge lunchtime Thanksgiving dinner. Then the grown-ups would clean up, watch TV, or fall asleep while the five of us cousins would venture outside in the crisp November air to explore Granddaddy's vegetable garden, the pond, and the fields out back, where the pecan trees were full of nuts and the herd of Holsteins roamed a pasture of long, coarse, brown grass. Midafternoon, when everyone had recovered just enough appetite to manage a piece of pecan pie, one of the mothers would call us inside for dessert, and then we'd settle down in front of the fireplace to play Monopoly for the rest of the day.
Thanksgiving as a grown-up in Tokyo is a bit different, but still one of my favorite holidays. There are no late-autumn fields around here, but the ginkgo trees and Japanese maples are starting to change color in the nearby park. And I'm extraordinarily lucky to have family in Tokyo, which means these days I get to celebrate Thanksgiving with my other grandparents and another set of cousins. They always invite a big group of interesting people to their dinner, and it's always a wonderful evening of delicious food and great company.
One thing I particularly appreciate is that I'm not the only non-turkey-eater at this table - there were four of us, which certainly justified having a Thanksgiving salmon on the table in addition to the turkey. There was even vegetarian stuffing, made of white bread with olives and artichoke hearts. The green beans, adorned with slivered shiitake mushrooms and sauteed red onion, were an elegant variation on the classic casserole. There was a spicy carrot ring, somewhat like carrot cake but more dense and less sweet; an eggy corn casserole that my grandfather makes for every special occasion; a beautiful salad full of colored peppers and avocado; and of course the turkey and gravy.
But dessert is always the best part. At the top of this post is the photo of all that remained of the pumpkin chiffon pie after dinner - it's so light and creamy that even those who, unlike me, aren't diehard pumpkin fans love it, and the ginger cookie crust is so good that my cousins were picking up crumbs from the table the rest of the night. There was also a delicious apple tart that I didn't get to photograph. And the most beautiful dessert of the evening was certainly the cranberry upside down cake - a rich shortbready cake topped with sour, ruby red berries. After the table was cleared, we all sat there talking and laughing for another couple of hours, until we finally were able to stand up and move around a little. It was a wonderful celebration, and being able to celebrate my favorite American holiday so festively even here in Tokyo surrounded by family and friends is certainly something to be thankful for.

Nagano Bakery

Japanese people are often very patient about standing in line, and a line is often worth joining. This isn't always true, of course - for example, when Krispy Kreme opened its first shop in Shinjuku, the line stretched all the way down the street and across a pedestrian bridge from the store. I can't believe the people who waited that long could have been impressed enough to make it worthwhile. Fortunately there isn't quite such a wait to get into Nagano Bakery. And what's on offer is (at least in my opinion) far superior to a glazed donut, even a good old fashioned Southern Krispy Kreme glazed donut. What might that be, you ask?
Yes, it's a mentaiko sandwich! Where else but Japan can you find fish eggs mixed with hot pepper and mayo stuffed in a crispy, chewy mini-baguette and topped with strips of nori dried seaweed? As weird as I fist thought this combination was, when you think about it, it's not all that extreme. After all, Russians eat caviar on bread with butter. Americans eat oyster po' boys. Japanese put spicy fish eggs in rice and wrap the whole thing in seaweed. This may be a different form, but it's the same concept. And it's delicious.
Don't worry, if donuts are more your thing, they have those too, plus all the classics both Japanese and French. Shown here is a nice variety, from the plain rolls on the top shelf spread with peanuts-cream (a Japanese concoction that transforms peanut butter into something sweet and ultra-creamy), condensed milk, or cream cheese to the donuts and sweet rolls on the second shelf to the "weiner roll," "potato France," and "tuna France" on the bottom shelf. Since the shop is in a very officey area and probably does most of its business around lunch time (it doesn't even bother to open on the weekends), there are more filled rolls, sandwiches, and savory options than is usual at a Japanese bakery.
I've tried a lot of the breads at Nagano, but my favorites are the mentaiko sandwich and this cheese roll. Not only is there often a crisp wafer of overflowed cheese baked onto the bottom, but the bread is softer than the baguette, a perfect vessel for the generous serving of cubed cheese held inside.

Nagano Bakery

2-17-31 Akasaka

Minato-ku, Tokyo

A Trip to the Supermarket

I'm the kind of tourist who gets just as excited about going to a supermarket in a foreign country as I do about going to a monument or museum. At a supermarket, I can imagine I live there, and pretend I blend in - just one of the locals doing my weekly shopping. It's a window onto people's ordinary lives, displaying what they eat, how they spend their money, what kind of packaging and advertising attracts them. In Japan, there are piles of picture-perfect, often individually-plastic-wrapped fruits and vegetables near the entrance of almost every supermarket. Inside, there are small, neat aisles of groceries, many with gorgeous calligraphy or cute cartoons on the wrapper. Sales stickers are prominently displayed, and like other kinds of stores, supermarkets often have "point cards" that let you rack up bonus yen as a percentage of your purchase price. I have no idea how my point card actually works, but I dutifully give it to the cashier every time I shop.Of course, a Japanese supermarket has most of the normal foods, drinks, cleaning supplies, and toiletries you'd find in a supermarket at home. But it also has a number of things that are unique to Japan (or at least to Asia). The picture at the top is a huge selection of various brands of natto, the slimy, sticky, stinky fermented soybeans that are every foreigner's (and many Japanese people's) bane. I actually like it, which is a continual source of amazement to people whose first question to any foreigner is, "Can you eat natto?" It's supposed to be extremely healthy, and is therefore popular with tiny, old Japanese grandmas. It's also a common filling for sushi rolls, which are made using the dried seaweed nori, shown in even more incredible variety of brands and packaging in the photo just above. There are actually numerous types and flavors of nori - it can be saltier or sweeter, roasted more or less, air or machine dried, harvested in Japan or Korea - and it comes in various cuts, sized to be rolled into sushi or wrapped around individual onigiri or sliced to be sprinkled on top of rice or other dishes.
Tofu is another thing that comes in a surprising number of variations. It's not just firm or soft, though those categories do exist. There's "fresh" tofu (obviously not really fresh, since it's wrapped in plastic on a refrigerated shelf), which is very creamy and is sold floating in liquid; there's seared tofu, which is firm and brown on one side; there are various types of fried tofu; and there's my favorite - silky, smooth, plain blocks in individual, bad for the earth, packaging. The brand at the far lower right is among the best - silken perfection.
Of course there are all kinds of fish (meat, too) in the supermarket. Fish comes pre-sliced for sashimi, in larger cuts for sauteeing or baking, and in the form of a whole fish (not necessarily cleaned - an unhappy surprise for the American purchaser). There's also a selection of dried fish, shown above. I've seen on TV how they're processed, by being split in half, salted, skewered, and hung in a cage overnight to dry out. But I have no idea what you're supposed to do with them in your kitchen. I think you grill them. But I haven't ever tried it, and probably never will. Tofu is just much easier.

Speaking of easy, most supermarkets also have a deli section with pre-cooked food all ready to be taken home and re-heated. Things on a stick are always popular - here I think we're looking at yaki-tori, grilled chicken, front and center. There are some fried vegetables and fish in the back at left, and in the foreground at right is some braised eel. When I was moving into my apartment and didn't have any pots or plates yet, I ate supermarket food for several days, and it was pretty good - not to mention a great way to feel like one of the locals.

Yaki-Imo

In Japanese, imo means potato. There's a lot more imo variety in Japan than the U.S. - the white potato similar to a round, brown-skinned new potato called jaga-imo (that's the one you see as a pizza topping), the tiny, soft, furry-skinned taro called sato-imo, the long, beige, almost skinless tuber that you grate raw into a slimy topping for soba noodles or raw tuna called naga-imo or yama-imo. But in the context of yaki-imo, the potato in question is always satsuma-imo, the purple-skinned, yellow-fleshed sweet potato that, from time immemorial, has kept Japanese people going in times of famine and want. There are various types of satsuma-imo, some sweet and gooey, others more like a fluffy, starchy Idaho potato with just a hint of sweetness. They come in all shapes, from two-foot long, skinny cylinders to perfectly round balls. I suspect that they grow as a long, bulbous tuber and get cut into potato-sized pieces before being sold, because you will never see one without the cut-off ends that heal over slightly moldy and have to be cut off again before cooking.
Yaki-imo means "baked potato," and the most common way to cook a satsuma-imo is to bake it, which can be done in a home oven but is much tastier when done in a fire or over hot rocks (this last method, called ishi-yaki-imo, is particularly prized). Yaki is one of those Japanese words that's easy to learn but takes a while to get your head around, since it has no direct English translation. It's used for a variety of cooking methods, and covers almost anything except boiling and steaming. Yaki-tori is grilled chicken, yaki-soba is sauteed noodles, okonomi-yaki is cooked like a pancake on a hot griddle, and you also use the word yaki to describe a variety of baked goods like cakes and cookies.
In the winter months, yaki-imo trucks patrol the streets, cooking sweet potatoes in an oven in back and announcing their presence with a recording blasted over a speaker: two long, sad notes followed by a man's singsong voice calling, "Yaki-imo! Oishii yaki-imo!" It sounds very old-Japan, according to older Japanese people, and since the simple song was one of the first Japanese phrases I learned when I lived in Kyoto, it makes me feel nostalgic, too, despite the fact that I never actually experienced old Japan. The yaki-imo man in the photo above parks his truck near a Starbucks in a well-trafficked pedestrian area, and I hear he often gives away two potatoes for the price of one. That was my experience with him, at least. The guys who drive their trucks around blasting their announcement can get a bit tiresome, but now that winter is coming on, I can't wait to hear their sad, sweet, sweet-potato song again. Meanwhile I've been having to yaki my own imo.

Around Tokyo

No food today - just a few glimpses of Tokyo. The photo above was taken in the park behind Midtown, one of the newest shopping complexes in Tokyo. Like nearly all Japanese department stores, Midtown's basement level is filled with gourmet shops and restaurants, and I love to go there just to look at all the displays of gorgeous pastries, cakes, and Japanese sweets (it's also fun to watch the people, mostly women, lined up waiting to get in for afternoon tea at these places). Out back, there's a Japanese garden with a pond, a playground filled with abstract sculptures like the one you can see in the photo above, and a wooden patio where you can sit and just look at green grass and trees, a nice break from the normal Tokyo views of concrete and skyscrapers. There must have been some kind of festival going on the day I took this picture, because you don't normally find hot air balloons there. Before my eyes, the aeronauts in the basket fired up their balloon and rose into the air. They were tethered to the ground and didn't get very far, but it was still interesting to see, and the colorful balloon was beautiful against the cloudy sky.
The building on the left is where I work. It's made of green glass and I thought it looked very dramatic viewed from the scrappy back streets of Akasaka, with the almost-full moon rising behind it and the sky in twilight shades of gray and violet.

Finally, here's a billboard advertising a movie that I'm not sure is going to make it to a theater near you. It's called "The Rebirth of Buddha" and looks pretty apocalyptic. Japanese people aren't that religious, for the most part, except at big events like weddings and funerals. But there are still plenty of people who light incense on a family altar, whether it's in a nook in the living room or tucked away on a side street. There are often mendicant Buddhist monks standing on street corners in the busiest shopping areas, wearing straw sandals and pointed hats and collecting money for charity as they chant prayers. I guess a movie like this is just one more sign that Japan's Buddhist past still has a hold on the modern psyche.

Singapore

Singapore is only about a six-hour flight from Tokyo, so I decided to spend a three day weekend there last spring. It was still chilly in Japan, but the moment I stepped outside the airport I could tell I was in a tropical country. The towering piles of tropical fruit in the open-air market provided additional evidence of the latitude, as did an afternoon monsoon that encouraged me to slow down in my sightseeing and spend some time under the marketplace's metal warehouse roof, soaking up the exotic sights, sounds, and smells.

Speaking of smells, the reptilian fruit above is the durian, which is so putrid that it's illegal to bring one on Singapore's subways. The smell has been described as similar to decaying flesh or rotten onion. Nonetheless, it's one of the most popular flavors in Southeast Asia, used in everything from ice cream to cookies to milkshakes. The smell isn't really that bad when the fruit is fresh, and the flavor has an intriguing depth to it, in the same way as avocado does (though the flavor itself is not similar to avocado). One of the first things I ate when I arrived in Singapore was a durian-flavored ice cream sandwich. I first had the fruit in Thailand several years ago, when I bought it fresh from a street vendor. It came in a large, shrink-wrapped styrofoam tray, meaning that I had more than I could eat in one afternoon. Foolishly, I left the remainder in my backpack. That night, I was awakened from my sleep by the horrible smell that had permeated my hotel room. Lesson learned.
In a hot, humid, tropical country like Singapore, the market is bound to get pretty smelly, even without durian around. Even though these fish are probably on ice, the top layer at least must be at least at room temperature. It sure smelled like it. Fish head curry is Singapore's national dish. It consists of a normal yellowish curry soup with the front half of a fish, eyeballs, fins, gills, and all, as the centerpiece of the dish. These fish are probably destined for a spicy end. Which may be the best way to hide any putrification ...
I have no idea why there's only one black chicken among all the white ones here. Token de-segregation? I read that American consumers don't go for black-skinned chickens, but they're highly valued by the Chinese. Maybe the Chinese had already been to the market that morning and bought up all the black chickens.

Something else you don't see much of in America - or in Japan, for that matter. Chicken feet, anyone?

More Pastries from Petit Decorer

There is something ineffably pleasing about a roll of cake and sweet whipped cream. The circular shape is soothing to the eye. The equal distribution of flavors and textures, each layer approximately the same thickness, is delightful to the tongue. The above-pictured specimen, the Tiramisu Roll Cake from the pastry shop up the street from me, Petit Decorer, is a particularly exquisite example of the genre. The genoise cake layer, moist and remarkably similar in taste to coffee-liqueur soaked ladyfingers, is rolled with simple, lightly sweetened cream. The top is also given a thin frosting of cream, which is dusted with velvety, finely sifted cocoa powder. It's lighter than real tiramisu since it's made with cream rather than mascarpone and eggs, but has the same amazing milk-and-spiked-coffee flavor combination, plus the bonus of a beautiful swirly shape.

Like the rolled cake, the millefeuille is a popular pastry in Japan, and many pastry shops offer some version of the sandwich of custard cream and flaky puff pastry. It's basically a high-class version of the ice cream sandwich, except that it isn't frozen. The millefeuille from Petit Decorer has rich, black-flecked vanilla custard and shatteringly flaky pastry, which is cutely patterned on top with powdered sugar polka dots. For a couple of months before trying it, I kept an eye on the pastry case as I passed the shop every evening on my way home from work, and noticing that the millefeuille is usually all sold out by the end of the day, guessed that there might be good reason for its popularity. So last Sunday, I made sure to get there mid-afternoon to claim my piece of the pie (or, as the case may be, the millefeuille). The only issue I had with it was the usual downfall of this kind of dessert - it's very hard to eat without the pastry splintering and the cream gushing out the sides. My best advice is to turn it over sideways and cut through the pastry from the top, then use the cream to pick up the scattered crumbs.

Petit Decorer

Minami-azabu 1-4-21

http://decorer.jp

Kinoko (Mushrooms)

In fall, supermarket displays give mushrooms, or kinoko, pride of place, piling them high in glorious abundance. Though of course mushrooms are available all year round, there are certain varieties such as the high-priced matsutake that only come into season in the autumn, and no matter what variety, mushrooms seem especially suited to cold-weather dishes like hot pots (nabe) and stews (shichuu).
There are many more types of mushrooms commonly used in Japan than in the U.S. Above, there are brown enoki-dake in the wicker basket and maitake spread out on the table. The word kinoko, which means "child of tree," covers all mushrooms, while the button mushrooms that are standard back home, but pretty exotic here, are called "mashiruum" in Japanese. A few Asian mushrooms, like the shiitake at the top, have made their way into the American vocabulary, but most of the others would probably be unfamiliar. In fact, the shiitake mushrooms I've seen in the U.S. don't even look much like the big, fat ones here, which you can see both whole and sliced on the left in the photo below.
The ones in the middle above are eringi, which have a lot less flavor than most Asian mushrooms but are very chewy and seem to shrink less than other mushrooms do when cooked. They're often added to stews. I also love their shape, which just looks so ... mushroomy. On the right are white enoki, much more common than the brown ones. White or brown, enoki have a slightly sour flavor and a distinctive smell. Their long, skinny stems make them especially fun to eat - sort of like spaghetti. Shiitake (which is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, not on the "ta" as it's usually said in English) are the most meaty-flavored of the Asian mushrooms, and used for the greatest variety of dishes, from stews to mushroom-rice to side dishes served on their own.

Usually I like to cook mushrooms together with another vegetable, most commonly pumpkin or spinach. But occasionally I eat them on their own, cooked in a little water and soy sauce until all the liquid evaporates and the mushrooms on the bottom of the pot get a little browned.

Domori Chocolate

Last winter, I embarked on what would prove to be an arduous, and ultimately inconclusive, mission: to track down and sample all the fine chocolate I could find in Tokyo. From the Maison du Chocolat boutique in Marunouchi to the plethora of shops - Le Roux, Wittamer, Jean-Paul Hevin, Michel Chaudun - in department shore basements from Ginza to Shinjuku, from the Reine Astride across the street from my supermarket in Azabu Juban to the Bonnat cafe next door to Starbucks in Hiroo, I found them and tried them all. They were all good, of course, but none of them stood out as particularly superior to any of the others, and that disappointed me.

Then I went to Italy, and found the chocolate love of my life: Domori. I wrote about Amadei, another Italian find and the second best chocolate I've ever had, in an earlier post. What gives Domori the edge is the pure intensity of its flavor. Containing nothing but cocoa, cacao mass, and cane sugar, there's nothing to get in the way of the taste of chocolate. The texture is also perfect - even though the bars are quite thin, it takes some effort to bite through them and they break with a satisfying snap, then crunch as you chew them (I'm not patient enough for the melt-in-the-mouth experience). None of the bars is overly sweet, but even in the 100% cacao bar, which contains no sugar at all, the chocolate flavor is savory, not at all bitter. They are expensive - even in Italy, they cost 4.75 euros for a 50 gram package - but so strong that you wouldn't want to eat more than a little at a time.

If you aren't planning a trip to Italy in the near future, Domori chocolate is available in most of the U.S. and Canada from Chocosphere.com.

In My Mailbox: Pizza Strawberry Cones

Yes, you read that right. No, I didn't mix one flyer up with another. The name of this pizza delivery really is Strawberry Cones. When you've lived in Japan long enough, you learn not to ask questions.

The colorful and, to my unimaginative American eyes, absolutely insane pizzas featured on delivery flyers provided me with endless fascination the first couple of years I lived here. I even tried ordering a pizza or two in my time. But to be honest, they didn't impress me and weren't worth the price. So reader beware: this Strawberry Cones report is based solely on the evidence of the shiny ad they placed in my mailbox.
Offering pizzas with a different topping in each quarter (the "Four Seasons Autumn" pizza at the top), or at least a different topping in each half (the "Lots of Cheese Black Pizza" above on the right), is very common here. And no, you can't mix and match - those four quarters are what you see, what you get. But who would want to change when you can get something like the Four Seasons Autumn, which features a quarter Sweet Corn, a quarter Hokkaido Potato and Tuna, a quarter Smoked Salmon and Broccoli with Gratin Sauce, and a quarter Shrimp, Mayo, and Cheddar? The Black Pizza, by the way, is apparently made according to a Japanese tradition that involves kneading bamboo charcoal into the dough, if I translated that correctly, making it crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. Isn't that how all pizza crust is supposed to be, though? Well, it certainly does gives it a unique look!
Since kids don't go for a lot of the weirder toppings in the Japan Pizza Universe, there are little blue smiley kid faces on the kid-friendly ones. Such as Egg, Sausage, and Mayo; such as Teriyaki Hamburger and Potato. You know, the usual. Also, to order as a side with your pizza, there's a whole Appetizer menu including those classic pizza accompaniments like Seafood Sticks, Onion Rings, Basil Chicken, and Apple PIe. For dessert, you can choose among gelato, panna cotta, tiramisu, or ... warabi mochi, which are made of kudzu and topped with powdered sweet soybeans.
Just to be fair, Strawberry Cones does offer more normal pizzas too, on the "Napoli Pizza" page. If you're a purist, you can get your Margherita, your Prosciutto-Arugula, and your Eggplant-Bacon pizzas. But Americans take note - there's not a plain pepperoni pie on the whole menu. You can, however, get a Strawberry Dessert Pizza (the one with the red label on the bottom right). Could this be the missing link with the shop's name?

Fancy Fruit

Gift-giving is a big part of Japanese culture, and one that's been ruthlessly capitalized on by everything from big department stores down to Seven-Elevens. At certain times of year in particular, but on a smaller scale all year around, there are displays of gifts and order forms provided almost anywhere you might be shopping. On the up side, being able to go to your local supermarket and order a box of luxury fruit for your obligors at the same time as you pick up the ingredients for your family's dinner must be a real convenience.

The price of fruit in Japan is one of those legends whose infamy has spread around the world, and become a little skewed in the process. While the ordinary apples and bananas people buy for daily consumption aren't significantly more expensive than those anywhere else (and are sometimes cheaper), gift fruit is another story. Because a gift honors the recipient in proportion to its price, they have to be expensive to be worthy. Gigantic grapes in a bunch without a single blemish, packaged in a fancy box, cost $30. Voila - a worthy gift.

Forty dollars may seem like a lot for a small melon, however pretty and perfect it looks with the vine still attached. But $40 ain't nothing - they have square and triangular melons in specialty fruit shops that cost three times this much. This is just a supermarket.

To tell the truth, I have no idea what makes one round melon cost more than another. Maybe it's the fancy box. Maybe they only grow a limited number, or they only sell ones that are absolutely round. Maybe they taste vastly superior to all other melons. Needless to say, I'm not going to take this one home and run a taste test against an ordinary musk melon. And luckily, I'm not likely to get one as a gift - because then I'd be on the line to reciprocate with something even more expensive - I mean, expressive - of my appreciation.

Laura Bakes a Cake

With so many wonderful patisseries, bakeries, creperies, and omochiya-sans right in my neighborhood and indeed all over Tokyo, there isn't much incentive for me to bake at home. But once in a while, I get bored with the exotic, and just want some plain old no frills homemade cake. Then I whip out my rainbow-colored mixing bowls, buy some eggs, and get measuring. The recipe I used is Clotilde's for her grandmother's pear cake, which is very simple - just butter, flour, eggs, sugar, a little baking powder, and fruit. Since I had brought home a basket of the summer's last tiny, super-sweet plums a few days before, and they turned out to be so ripe as to need immediate attention, I decided to make it a gateau aux prunes. The first piece, still warm and topped with ice cream (not a very French touch, I'm afraid), was light, moist, and sticky, a lovely dessert.

Although the recipe called for only two eggs, I used four because the ones I had were so small. I bought them at my local produce stand, and they were labeled eggs from "meat birds" (nikku tori). I'm not sure what that means - after I got home with them I had a moment of panic when I thought it might indicate that they were fertile eggs with embryos inside. Luckily, that doesn't appear to have been the case. Maybe chickens bred for meat just lay small eggs, which then sell at bargain prices from produce stands, who knows? At any rate, like all Japanese eggs, they had beautifully orange (though undersized) yolks, and they seem to be fine for making cake. That's melted butter in the Pyrex pitcher on the left - French, salted butter. It's such fun having access to ingredients from all over the world.

The small, overripe plums that star in this cake are another item I'd never seen in any U.S. supermarket, and I'm not sure what their proper name is in English. They're called "prunes" in Japanese, but whether they're actually the variety of plum that gets dried to make prunes, I don't know. They're only a little bigger than a large grape, their pits are the size of a flat almond, and they're much sweeter than the slightly astringent ordinary plum. For the cake, I split them all in half, laid them cut-side down in my buttered 8-inch square baking pan (a change from the recipe, which calls for an 8-inch round cake pan), and poured the batter on top. The cake is meant to be inverted in the style of tarte tatin or any other upside-down cake. I didn't have the nerve to try it, and since it's just me here, there was no need to impress anyone with a stunning (or more likely, patched-back-together) presentation. Turning it over one piece at a time, as I eat it, is good enough for me.

Tasty Tentacles?

Coiled octopus arms, covered with suckers, neatly packaged in plastic trays in the supermarket, still have the power to shock me even after more than four years living in Japan. I guess there are plenty of people who see them, think "Wouldn't that be nice to have for dinner?" and take them home to chop up for stew or the grill. Though I did eat octopus on several occasions back in Kyoto, it was always chopped up by someone else, and often blanketed in batter or sauce, and I never got brave enough to deal with these fat, rubbery tentacles myself. I mean, it's not that hard to see why these guys ended up on the "not kosher" list, is it? At least they're dead ... which is not always the case in certain restaurants, so I hear.

Most supermarkets only carry the standard sized purple-and-white arms at the top, but if you shop at a more upscale place like Precce in Midtown, you can choose from a variety of cephalopod species and sizes. I guess there are some people who especially like the big suction cups, while others will take their suckers small, thanks.

Confession: though I never bought an octopus, I did once buy a squid, much like the one staring out at you from the picture. It was circa the autumn of 2003, I believe, and having just seen a Japanese cooking show on how to gut and slice them, I wanted to give it a try. I won't go into the gory details, but there was black ink involved and a horrendous stench in my drain for days afterward. Now just looking at this picture gives me the creeps. Uugghh... !