Tokyo - first impressions

Shibuya at night

prayer requests at the Meji Shrine

at the Meji Shrine

simple lunch of miso soup, kukicha and fantastic grilled mackerel at a little family place in Asakusa

view from our room on the 29th floor of the Park Hotel in Shiodome. Somewhere behind the haze sits Mount Fuji, The red-and-white thing is Tokyo Tower, a replica of the Eiffel Tower and several feet taller than the original.

the high tech toilet in our hotel, complete with heated toilet seat and hydraulic lid

off to the mountains to soak in some hot springs - won't have internet access for a few days. More soon!

Chichibu Ondo

You may not be aware of this but apparently the Japanese are a very merry and festive lot. Researching our trip, we've come across no end of festivals - every city, town and neighborhood seems to have a minimum of three big street festivals a year where everything grinds to a halt and people drop everything to celebrate. Kyoto for instance has the Jidai Mitsuri going on while we're there, which we were very excited about until we found out that you can't get a bed in the city during that week. So unfortunately, we've had to push Kyoto into our second week.

One of the most charming festivals we've come across, and again it's not one we'll see because it happens on August 14, is the Chichibu Ondo Mitsui in Minato Town (not Minato the neighborhood in Tokyo I take it). The entire festival is based around over a thousand people dancing to one very popular folk song all day - and the song is adorable! Couldn't find a video of the dancing, but Ritesh dug up the song itself on you tube - a classic, love it :) !

Chichibu Ondo Festival (Minano Town)
Takes place on August 13 and 14. Dancers parade through the town and dance to the tune of Chichibu-ondo, one of the three best traditional folk songs in Japan. Dancing contest and firework festival are also held on the same day.

"Chichubu Ondo (dance song for Chichibu Ondo Matsuri Festival) is thought to be one of the most famous folk songs in Kanto area. At Nagashi-odori competition, 60 teams of over 1,200 people from various parts of Saitama prefecture participate every year, and you will get to hear voices of participants echoing through out the mountain. The fireworks display also adds the excitement to the festival. Chichibu ondo was started by the local valley people about 200 years ago. At the end of Taisho era, Minano town added lyrics that was collected by local people to the sound and performed Chichibu Hohnen (a year of plenty) dance to the public. The performance was renamed later as Chichibu Ondo Matsuri Festival and became one of the most famous fold songs in the Kanto area, along with Gunma`s Yagibushi and Tochigi`s Nikko Waraku Dance. The festival is held every year on Aug. 14 in Minato town."
Quoted from some tourist sites.

Countdown to Japan - One Week to go!

So a week from today, we'll be landing in Tokyo. We're actually leaving on Friday, but that 16h time difference pushes our arrival into Saturday afternoon local time. We're very excited. We've finally managed to book our hotels for the entire trip this week, now we need to tackle in-country travel and dish out for a Japan Rail pass, which may require a hasty trip to Japantown this weekend, we'll see.

We've been a bit worried about the weather, though. As you can imagine, this is what the weather is like in LA:

And this is what it's been like in Tokyo for some weeks now:

It seems to be getting better gradually now that typhoon season is over, but I'm packing a rain jacket!

Chocolate truffles and rice krispy treats

Home made chocolate truffles, made w/ hazelnut butter, raw cocoa, agave syrup, cocoa nibs and some dates, if I recall. This was a variation on Ani Phyo's chocolate truffles -hers are made with almond butter.

And for those of us who love peanut butter (Suzie, are you reading this?) - some maple-sweetened peanut butter rice krispy treats w/ pistachios, from this fabulous recipe.

Japan!

Now that the pops is home safe and sound and solidly on the road to recovery, Ritesh is finally getting ready to leave for his Fulbright year in India. The exciting bit about this from my end is that I'll be going with him as far as Japan, which is sort of half way to India from here, for a two-week vacation to celebrate our anniversary (guess how many years it's been... :) and for some couple time to recover from just about everything that happened this year. He'll then go on to India, and I'll come back to work (did I mention we're getting restructured?) and will fly out to join him in India towards the end of December.

So we're taking the blog to Japan and will try to blog as much as possible about everything we eat, and then some! Yay!


PS: we're having a really hard time deciding where to stay in Tokyo, Kyoto, on Mount Koya, and possibly in Hakone, Nara, Magome and Hiroshima so are grateful for any recommendations...

Ani's Raw Food Desserts

Ever since that fabulous raw peach-pistachio cobbler that I made four times in a row, I couldn't wait to try more of the recipes in Ani Phyo's raw dessert cookbook - here are some of my efforts. They all turned out fantastic and I'm a devoted fan now, to the extent that my official goal is to try every single one of the 85 recipes in her book.

First off, here are the lavender chocolate bars from p.85 - made with unprocessed coconut oil and almond butter, dried lavender, organic cocoa powder, agave nectar and sliced, raw almonds - my first ever homemade chocolate, and it rocked!

the is my first ever homemade raw and dairy-free/vegan cheesecake, made from ground cashews, lemon juice, cococonut oil and agave nectar, with some raw cocoa nibs and a raw chocolate sauce mixed in the top layer. If you have Ani's book, this is the chocolate chip cheezecake swirl from p. 51

the chai-spiced blueberry cobbler from p. 93this is the raspberry ganache fudge cake from p. 49 that I made for Ritesh's birthday, with walnuts, dates, organic cocoa, agave, and a frosting that consists of avocado, dates, cocoa and agave - super rich and decadent in its deliciousness and yet totally dairy and cholesterol free and actually all good for you
and this is the acai cheezecake from p. 54, again made from cashews, lemon juice, coconut agave, with a packet of frozen acai blended in. The crust is any form of nut mixed with dates - this one is salted pecans, almonds, walnuts and some shredded coconut. I cut these into bitesize pieces since they're pretty rich. Plus they keep best in the freezer, so it's easiest to take out just however many little pieces you can handle.

Banana Cream Pie

So Ritesh's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and I had promised I would try my hand at a banana cream pie, his favorite, so here is my first ever effort:

There are so many egg yolks in the custard that I made a meringue top out of the leftover egg whites. So no whipped cream here, but it was pretty tasty.

A few days later, I made a second one, this one vegan and soy based:

The custard is made from tofu and the bananas are actually mixed in, rather then layered under the custard. And the topping is a whipped soy product I found at Whole Foods that actually comes imported from Germany and tastes pretty darn good as well.I haven't been able to extract from Ritesh which one of the two pies he liked better, so may have to make both again next year :)

Indian Smoothies

Mango-ginger lassi, made with ginger-yogurt made from sheep milk, some fresh ginger to boost and a huge, juicy mango

Chai smoothie, made with some Indian masala-spiced tea, ginger yogurt, ground almonds, banana, mango, and some extra ginger for good measure.

mango-red currant smoothieRose-pistachio smoothie with banana and rice milk

And the crowning glory: a mango-cocoa-curry smoothie. If you've had curried chocolate, or dried curried mango dipped in chocolate, you know this is the best!

Where the hell have I been? Part 2.

Then there was Omi and Minal's wedding, which required a very fun weekend trip up to the Bay Area. This is the setting for the ceremony, in a lovely garden in Fremont.

Ritesh doing an Inspector Clouseau with my purse while waiting for the arrival of the groom.

video of the groom's arrival - in an old cadillac, accompanied by his grandmother (she in the blue sari), a little cousin and a bunch of family and friends - and totally stalling since Minal was still getting her make up done... nice energy though, and all this before 9am!

Then, at the end of a long and lovely ceremony, the walk around the fire - this is the part where the bride leads the groom

Alison at the luncheon after the ceremony

two happy couplesand a close up of bride and groomtable at dinner

the wedding photographer, the amazing Nataline Viray-Fong, in action

and some strawberry wedding cake. Perfect weekend.

Then there was also Laura's B-day, feted at Will Roger's State Park: Here's the b-day girl with little Jasper and old best friend Inger (who was at Harvard Law when Obama was there - the stories she can tell :)

some nosy deer, admired by Marzhan and Yuval and Caroline's daughter, whose name sadly eludes me right now (this is why it's not good to wait before blogging about whatever it is you're blogging about).

and more pretty little girls (Christine's twins) all excited about the deer

And finally, there was Ritesh's b-day as well! Here's the happy birthday boy, with a happy mom and - check it out - the pops! Back at home! Ready to eat some b-day cake! Yes, the pops has been back home for almost two months now, and is doing great. Best present ever!

A post or two about food coming soon. Plus some exciting news as well. Stay tuned!

Where the hell have I been? Part 1.

Good question. What can I say? I've been busy. First and foremost, there has been lots of drama at work. I can't really give you all the juicy detail but it involved a team member who narrowly escaped getting fired by quitting, said team member's tragically neglected territories that need to be brought back to some level of normal functioning (guess who's been given that task), and interviewing for a replacement (who, sadly, hasn't started yet), all within a framework of a company hit harder by the economic crisis than we'd like to admit and now officially undergoing restructuring. Ouch. Need I say that I'm spending untold evenings at work plodding away?

Then there was a lot of fun stuff, too, that kept me from blogging. First was Ritesh's 20th High School Reunion, which I was happy to attend since I missed my own back in Germany earlier this year. Here he is happily reunited with some old friends from way back when:

Then there was a weekend trip out to Redlands in the desert to visit my old friend Andrea, who recently moved back to California after years out east in Virginia. Went on a lovely little hike along the shore of picturesque Lake Arrowhead. I can't believe it's been almost two months since then. Where does time go?

Then my old college friend Roger came to visit - well, really, he came for the Visible Evidence conference at USC, where was presenting and on a panel, newly tenured film professor that he is (congrats, Rogie!) but he spent a few days with us before the conference which led to some very late nights catching up and a general sense of happy exhaustion, which made blogging feel somehow less than vitally important. Here we are at the rooftop bar at the Standard Hotel in downtown LA.

enjoying the view

my mojito

we also did some cooking at home: This is Rogie's classy signature daube d'aubergine in the front, a black pepper crusted steak after my Dad's recipe, and a roasted sweet corn and orzo salad - a real feast. Sorry the picture is lame.and here is Ritesh's fantastic signature chutney sandwich, made in Rogie's honor

To be continued - am off for dinner...