I didn't buy this soybean sweet for yesterday's setsubun event (we scatter beans to the demons). I just liked the packaging very much but it doesn't look so good without the glassine paper... On 3 February many people eat Ehoumaki (a big rolled sushi) in Japan, but I made the decoration rolled sushi instead. I wanted to make it for a long time. It was quite difficult but this recipe book ichiban wakariyasui! kazari makizushi no tsukurikata (in Japanese) helped me a lot. This book is very easy to follow and lots of photos, but written in Japanese. I've just fond the other book in English by the same author, Sushi for Parties: Maki-Zushi and Nigiri-Zushi. It seems a little bit complicated, too many recipes and information, but you will learn a lot about sushi! These decoration sushi is originally from Chiba prefecture over a hundred year ago, the farmers made it for the special days and they called it Kazari Matsuri Zushi (decoration festival sushi) . We can watch them rolling the beautiful sushi on YouTube!

I've been looking at the recipe book "Mocchiri chiffon cakes, sakkuri cookies, dosshiri cakes (bouncy chiffon cakes, crunchy/crispy cookies, dense cakes)" by Shiho Nakashima. Her recipes use vegetable oil and soy milk instead of butter and cream. I was wondering if they taste good enough. It was such a good timing that my favourite blog Ichinichi Ichizen was writing about Kuromame Gâteau au Chocolat (in Japanese only) - after reading the blog, I had to bake the cakes. Banana cake and Kuromame Gâteau au Chocolat were both moist and tasty, I especially liked the Gâteau au Chocolat, it was better than the chocolate cake I had the other day. I agreed with C that cherries might also work well with this Gâteau au Chocolat, BTW, at the end of the recipe it mentions that I need some extra sliced banana for the decoration. I had some banana left, but I ate it before I read the last part of the recipe!

I'm not really fond of Nanakusa-gayu (rice porridge with seven different kinds of spring herbs) but I cook it on every 7th January. This year I cooked with genmai (brown rice) and I like that the rice don't get too sticky. The seven herbs pack I bought this year contained too much Chickweed, just a tiny bit of Shepherd's purse, cudweed and Nipplewort. are these hard to grow?

Hello everyone, while I haven't been updating LDK, I went to Germany and I also went to Taiwan and then it's already the end of 2008. I've just managed to clean our flat with C's help, prepared for the coming year. It's already after midnight but I made miso soup with the prawn heads, just like we get at sushi restaurants (we had huge prawns for dinner earlier). C would hate to look at this soup, but the slightly grilled prawn head makes really good soup stock. This is the last dish I cooked this year, because I'm not going to cook anything today! I hope you have a happy holiday!

Last Sunday, we went to see a sumo tournament in Ryogoku. I really wanted to get the special tickets on the last day of a fifteen day tournament which is very popular, so I bought the tickets as soon as they came out on the market in August. But Yokozuna (grand champion rank) Asashoryu pulled out the tournament due to injury on the tenth day, and another Yokozuna Hakuho became a winner of the tournament on the fourteenth day. So I was a little bit disappointed, less exciting, but we still enjoyed a lot. The sumo plate I found in a shop made me smile, and I think super thinly sliced Sashimi or Carpaccio will be on the plate!

I've been going surfing in Kugenuma Kaigan every weekend for the last four weeks. I also enjoy finding good places to have lunch after surfing, there are a few great local restaurants in the old shopping street in Kugenuma Kaigan. Yesterday we had a nice pasta at Osteria Barca and then stopped by Chimotoya, a traditional Japanese sweets shop. This tiny old shop has been opened for 120 years. I bought their speciality Warabimochi, which had a kind of elegant brown sugar flavor: quite sweet but not too sweet, I liked it. Amazingly, the old shop owner wrote the hand calligraphy for each packaing paper. I have to go there next week too.

Yesterday the end of the rainy season in Tokyo was officially announced, the summer has started. Actually, Tokyo has been really hot since last week, so we already went to the ocean twice this month. Actually, we went surfing! Our friend S told us she took a surfing lesson. C always wanted to learn how to surf, so we joined her lesson last Sunday. It was so much fun! I could take off after a few attempts, and the teacher was very friendly and encouraging. Last Sunday, Kugenuma beach was really packed, so we had a day off on Friday and went again. There were less people, but the waves were quite a bit higher. It was tough, especially because we didn't have a teacher's help. It's a bit silly to have a wetsuit tan, but I'm a surfer now!