After we went to our usual izakaya (which we also visited the previous day!) to eat Lamb and Vegetables with Blue Cheese Sauce and Soup Curry with Five different grains, we went to SuperDeluxe. It was an opening party for Pina Circus and our friend Y from London played music. And I bumped into R who I hadn't seen for a while. She was just a cute girl but she is a grown up lady now! I was also surprised to see Chika from The Plastics took part in our friend's band unexpectedly. The band's singer was also a familiar face from television.

On Sunday, we went to our friends' wedding party on a Yakatabune boat. The boat left Shinagawa at 6pm. As it got darker and darker outside, the groom became more and more drunk. At the end of the party, the groom said "thank you" and started to cry! I have not seen many men cry like that! So sweet! The crying groom and the supportive bride made all of us so happy. Congratulations!

It's hot! It seems like everywhere in the temparature is over 30°ree; today! I cooked cold tomato and broad bean pasta for lunch. Our local supermarket didn't have Capellini (Angel hair), so I used Sala-Spa instead, which is 1.2mm spaghetti, recommended for salad. And unfortunately I caught a cold, maybe because we've been keeping the windows open at night. We are having a wedding party on a Yakatabune boat tomorrow, but I've got a sore throat, runny nose, fever and dizziness! Oh no!

I bought broad beans at a local supermarket. The offer was 'put as much as you want in a bag for ¥398'. So I carefully layered beans in a bag and ended up with quite a lot of beans (it was 1.3kg)! I could have put at least three more beans into the bag, but I thought that I shouldn't be too greedy. The usual way of cooking is to take the beans out of the pods and boil them, but I just cut off both edges of the pods and grilled them. Nice to eat with salt. It's so delicious when the beans are still hot, but not very impressive if they get cold. So don't grill too many. I still have lots of beans left, I might try to cook some Capellini (Angel hair) with tomato and broad beans!

It is Miffy's 50th birthday today. The main image shows how Miffy looked 50 years ago! Her face has been changing quite a lot, and I love it in the 70's. I don't like her current face, she looks too round, but I still think Dick Bruna is a great artist!

The US Grand Prix in Indianapolis started at 2:50am Japan time. My brain was half sleep before the programm started, but a very unusual situation made me wide awake: 14 cars boycotted the race! If I had been there with C, I would have been very upset, even if we had gotten our money back! I can't believe the audience didn't even get their money back.

The Organic Cafe will be closed down very very soon! So we went there yesterday afternoon, and I had a nice Organic Cafe Sandwiche. This is probably the last time I eat this (Oh no!). It's very sad that we lose the nice cafe where we could pop by on our bikes and we could enjoy huge portions of weekend lunch. Hopefully they open a new Organic Cafe somewhere in Nakameguro!

As I mentioned before, I attended "Just Looking, A Workshop" with my friends on Friday. I hadn't used a sewing machine for ages, but it was fun!

The June issue of Ten-nen Seikatsu featured a sesame grinder which is made at the Kumao Ohta pottery in Koishiwara village, in Fukuoka prefecture. Koishiwara village has 350 years history in the ceramic industry, there are 50 potteries and they are especially famous for sesame grinders. And I really wanted to have the same one! So I ordered it by snail mail. This sesame grinder was also in a magazine called Ajibito (published by the Licensed Cook Society of Japan) and on TV, so I imagine that the Kumao Ota pottery has tons of orders by people who were completely taken in by the media, just like me. I thought that I would have to wait for a few months, but I received it one week after I ordered it. My sesame grinder is 8 sun (sun is an old japanese unit, 1 sun = 3.03cm) and it seems quite big, but I wouldn't mind to have one size bigger, which would be 1 shaku (1 shaku = 30.3cm) size.

Yesterday, I went to a talk about ballistic missiles, and also UFO. It wasn't a dodgy meeting, it was a Science and Technology Lecture by our Russian friends at Caniche Courage. It was an interesting event!

It seems like the rainy season might start in a few days in Tokyo. I bought these miu miu rain boots for the rainy season. They also had red and kahki colours, but I chose the chic black. I regret this choice a little bit because they look very similar to my dad's rain boots. Except for the heel. Last year, we didn't have much rain during the so-called rainy season, so I didn't have much chance to wear them, but this year it has been rainy even before the official announcement, so I will probably get to wear them.

I still had some ume plums left from yesterday, so I made another Umeshu (Ume-liqueur) with vodka this time. Now I have five bottles of Umeshu (from the left to the right: two bottles from 2003, 2004, and two bottles of 2005). Just after I've finished my Umeshu business, our friends popped in with some nice food. The yomogi (Japanese mugwort) bagle from MACOU'S had a real yomogi flavour. It was quite nice.

On Monday afternoon, four of our drinking mates came to our flat to make Umeshu (Ume-liqueur). But we took a long time for lunch before making Umeshu. It was a very hot day, so we decided to eat cold somen noodles. We bought two different brands of somen noodles from a supermarket, to see how different they are. We also tried to tie a piece of string around the very end of a noodles portion, to keep them together during cooking. This is very expensive restaurant style (although cherry decoration is very cheap restaurant style!). I've never tied noodles before, but it was so fun to feel tied noodles in water. I just don't know what to do with an end part!

I expected that if I plant coriander at home, I would get approximately ¥1,500 worth of coriander out of a ¥150 packet of seeds. But I was wrong. On the 37th day after planting my coriander, I was wondering why it didn't seem to grow much although I hadn't forgotten to water it. So I found lots of tiny yellow-green Aburamushi bugs on the stalks and on the undersides of the leaves! No!

I haven't bought anything from an Internet auction for a long time, but the other day I saw these antique bowls. They have beautiful, hand-painted decorations of paulownia leaves. They also look nice from the back. They are ø10cm and a little bit small for rice bowls, so they seem to be 'futa-mukou', which are used for Nimono (simmered vegetables) or Mushimono (steamed dishes) in order to keep the contents warm and aromatic until the lids are opened. I have no knowledge of antiques nor Japanese pottery, but I just loved the design. These days I'm interested in Japanese tablewares, but I keep telling myself that I have no storage space left in the kitchen, and no money!

It's the season for buying Japanese plums to make Ume-shu (called Ume-liqueur or Plum Wine in English). The Ume-shu I made with vodka last year was very nice, I might try to make it again this year. Or Kokuto (brown sugar) Ume-shu, which I had in a bar the other day. It was nice, but I don't really know how to make it. I could use either brown sugar Shochu or actual brown sugar instead of crystal sugar. As I was searching the Web, I found Kukuto Umeshu (in Japanese) by Honbo Shuzou Co.,Ltd (in Japanese). It's additive-free and at 720ml ¥1,240 it is much cheaper than making it at home. I googled more and found an amazing Japanese lesson page!