Just Hungry

I read your blog article about almond powder and it really helped me figure things out.

But I have a related(?)question. What is pomade shape. The recipe tells me to knead into a pomade shape (ポマード状に練る) but what is a pomade. I’ve always thought it was something you put on your hair.

This is more in reference to your “Just Bento” site, however, I do frequent ‘Just Hungry” as well :)
I’m 20 and i live with my parents, helping my mom out with her 4 younger ones, in between my trips to japan(she’s still got two older ones besides me,the second oldest, making 7 in all, i think she’s crazy, she thinks its bliss.. to each her own i guess..). So to help out I make bento for my younger brother and sister to take to school(sometimes for my even younger brother and sister-both 5 yrs- just for fun), and sometimes i also make dinner (it’s a good thing i like cooking haha).In September My parents were in China for two weeks to bring home my little sister. Those two weeks I was basically mom, so my cooking went from just lunch, to breakfast, lunch and dinner. During those two weeks your sites were seriously life savers!!YOU ROCK! I guess my point to all that was that your sites, particularly “Just Bento”, have been extreeeemly helpful in my pseudo “nanny for free” thing i got goin’on, and how really very grateful I am!! The only downside to your sites, are how much they make me miss Japan(which is really becoming like my second home <3 ) and so anxious for my next trip!! I hope you don’t mind reading my text-book of a post with all its lovely grammatical errors…(>.< )

I was reading one of my magazines and I found out that Japan has a special type of Christmas cake. I was wondering if you knew anything about it and had any recipes.

Thanks!

Hi Maki,

I was wondering if you had/know of a recipe for a cold sweet potato and miso salad. The miso isn’t watered down or vinaigrette-like at all, but more paste-like, probably in combination with the starchiness from the sweet potatoes. It’s very mild and just slightly sweet and salty, not acidic, garlicky, etc. There aren’t any other vegetables in the salad (I don’t think), and it is very simple but very delicious! It was also served as part of a bento. I had it a tea shop which serves Asian cuisine, so I’m not sure how authentically Japanese it is, but still, I hope you know what I’m talking about.

In that very bento, there was also this delicious cold cucumber-ginger salad (?). It features thinly-sliced cucumbers, and I think pickled ginger. There is quite a bit of liquid in this salad, but it was still very mild, not overly salty, sweet, acidic, nor gingery or garlicky. Just delicious and refreshing. Again, I don’t know how authentically Japanese this is or if you’ve ever even heard of it in Japanese cuisine, but I’m hoping it is :]

Thanks in advance, and love your site!!

It’s that time of year again where I start planning all the Healthy Seasonal Vegetables I’m going to start eating in January (mounds of cabbage, here I come). Of course I am trying to bribe myself with a new bento box, and I am one of those sketched-out-by-plastic people.

Googling led me to this: http://www.dick.biz/dick/product/719095/detail.jsf , a wooden bento box made in Germany.

It doesn’t say anything about food safety one way or another. I know some “bento boxes” are finished with glues or veneers that are not strictly foodsafe. Any opinions on this one?

Sorry for jumping in so late.

Yosenabe is a fun and delicious winter dish, and I am surprised you haven’t posted any recipes at all for it. I would love to see what you do with it.

I know you prefer to give us recipes that don’t require cooking equipment or ingredients that might not be already on hand or cheaply and immediately available, and I suppose this might be part of the reason you haven’t got around to mentioning it. But it isn’t absolutely necessary to own a donabe or the gas cassette tabletop cooker thingie, and anyway those are not very expensive.

Or maybe you do not like yosenabe, but I would find that hard to believe. It is too good and too fun for that explanation to seem credible.

You are good and fun. Where is the problem? It is winter, and we are hungry!

Doug

Hi, Maki,

Shinnen akemashite omedeto! Happy New Year! I just stumbled onto your site last night and spent hours perusing it. Fantastic! Thank you so much for your delightful work.

Having grown up as a sansei girl on Oahu, my mother (from Hokkaido) would spoil me with bento lunches complete with nori-smiley face onigiri. I was the kid that had the lunch all the other kids envied. ‘Course even as a kid, I knew a good thing when I tasted. Beats P&B sandwiches any day.

Liked your shaved ice pic. Did you try Hawaii’s portuguese sausage? Portuguese sausage and spam were a bento staple.

Anyway, wishing you a great and prosperous Ox year and I’m looking forward to your yummy bento recipes!

Cheers,
Linda
Seattle, Washington (USA)

Hello Maki,
I just wondered if you had any suggestions for making
a good homemade sauce to have with Takoyaki. I hope I’m
not asking something that you’ve already answered!

-Charlie

Hi Maki, I stumbled upon your site when I did a search for hayashi rice which is a feature in a japanese tv drama I'm watching. Anyway, I love your site. I love how you give detailed descriptions and explanations of the ingredients and that you provide japanese characters/kanji characters with them sometimes. It really helps when shopping for ingredients because sometimes on the packets they don't have english and there are so many varieties of seaweed/kombu/wakame or miso that you can't tell the difference just by looking at the packets.
After browsing through the site a bit, I thought it would be really helpful if there was an index type thing that lists all the recipes in the recipe categories as sometimes I'm looking for inspiration and don't have anything specific in mind but just want to browse. It would be easier if there was a page with just the titles of all the blog entries in say the japanese category.
Thanks for such a great resource!

Hi Maki,

I recently bought a bento box from the company(?) Puti Fresh/Lube Sheep and was wondering if you had any idea if those particular bento boxes are bpa-free or contain bpa? I've been worried since I realized that it was possible.

Thanks,

MikaCake