Welcome to Hirochan's World

One thing I really enjoy in summer is having a cup of coffee on our back porch. There is nothing exciting, but being surrounded by all green trees and listing to birds' singing gives me a special moment. It is so quiet. I dreamed of those kinds of things when I lived in a tiny apartment in Tokyo. Of course I had no back porch during that time. I appreciate how lucky I am. This weekend is going to be sunny and beautiful. So Ronnie-kun, can we have Mr. Coffee outside?

Today, I confess I have an excellent skill which is eating corn on the cob. I am able to clear every single kernel from the cob as you can see in this photo. The clean one is mine and the messy one next to it is Ronnie's. My father is the master of eating corn. He is even better than me. So I have practiced my skill since I was a little. I used to use my fingers before, but now I am skilled enough to use mostly my mouth. I would love to challenge the master, my father, next time if I have a chance.

Jinbei is usually worn as a form of house wear during the summer in Japan. It is kind of a simplified kimono, but unlike traditional kimono, jinbei is a set which consists of a top and matching shorts. This jinbei set is a gift from my friend Ayako and her husband. When they saw us off at Narita airport, they got one pair of this jinbei for Ayako's husband and one pair for Ronnie. Ronnie likes the jinbei very much. He always wears it at home during summer. I use the sack the jinbei came in as my laptop case. It fits perfectly. I say I am a genius!

---Happy birthday to you--- ---Happy birthday to you--- ---Happy birthday dear -- Ronnie-kun--- ---Happy birthday to you--- July 3rd is Ronnie's birthday. We did not have a special celebration last year because it was a weekday. We had supper at home as usual. I prepared natto soba, grated yam over fresh tuna, and miso soup. This year, we had a barbecue party with Ronnie's brother and friends. It was a perfectly hot day for an outside barbecue. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled onions and mushrooms, corn on the cob, rice balls, persian cucumbers, pickle spears, and grilled eggplant. We also had watermelon and birthday chocolate cake for dessert. Whew, we were filled up! I hope we were good hosts. Ronnie, the birthday boy, worked pretty hard.

Hiyashi-chuka is a popular summer meal in Japan. It is a noodle dish composed of chilled ramen covered with various toppings such as eggs, ham, cucumber, tomato, bean sprout, seaweed, and pickled red ginger. It looks gorgeous when all the toppings are on. Hiyashi-chuka is usually served with a vinegary soy dressing and mustard, or sesame based dressing. When I see a sign saying "Now we serve hiyashi-chuka." in front of a ramen shop, I know summer is coming and I get excited. Here is my advice: You should make noise when you eat hiyashi-chuka or any noodle dish. The louder you are, the more people know that you enjoy it.

I have a sad announcement. Koots has closed. I am not able to have their hojicha any more. Ronnie and I went to the one at Roppongi Hills, Tokyo. But the price of a hojicha latte was more than 500 yen, which is twice as much as Koots in Bellevue. Only thing left for me was their apron and T-shirt. Oh, dear, you will never know how much I miss their hojicha latte :(

When I was in LA, my coworker introduced me to pinkberry . I did not quite understand why people lined up for an hour to get a frozen yogurt. But I was told even though the frozen yogurt had no strong impact, once I tried it, I would want to have it again. Red mango is sort of a Washington version of pinkberry. The taste of plain frozen yogurt reminds me of yakult which is a Japanese probiotic milk-like drink. I think most Japanese are familiar with the taste for this reason. I like having the plain frozen yogurt with a topping of fresh berries. Their newest flavor, tangomonium, is also good ;)

Ume's owner, My friend Ayako, baked homemade bread when I stayed at her condo. Ayako said she took a class to learn how to make bread. The whole process takes time. We needed to knead the dough and leaven with yeast, wait for a while, and then knead and leaven again. However, all the effort was worth it when the bread was finally done. It was so fresh, soft, and a little chewy inside. I liked it very much. Thank you, Aya-chan. Remember I always have room for your homemade bread!

Ronnie and I visited my friend Mayumi at her work place. She works at Tokyo Station Conference which is located just next to Tokyo station. The building was tall, modern, and very much in the style of Tokyo. Ronnie was impressed the gorgeous restroom. He explained he was able to enjoy a panoramic view while using the restroom! Ronnie said it was the first time for him to take a photo inside of a restroom. Here is the photo of us. From the left side: Yuki, Me, Ronnie, and Mayumi. I like Mayumi's flight-attendant-like uniform.

Ronnie and I had dinner with my friend Ayako and her husband, Moro-chan, at Kappo Yoshiba in Ryogoku, Tokyo. The restaurant provides chankonabe, a Japanese stew commonly eaten in vast quantities by sumo wrestlers as part of their weight gain diet.  Yoshiba was remodeled from the former sumo training stable and there is a dohyo, the ring in which sumo wrestling bouts are held, in the center of the restaurant. After dinner, the customers are allowed to enter the dohyo once they changed their shoes to zori, a flat and thonged Japanese sandals. The chankonabe was delicious. We were told that the chanko we shared with four people was actually less amount than a single sumo wrestler normally eats. No wonder they are so big!

The day before Ronnie was to meet my parents for the very first time, he got a hair cut at Cut Salon Ban  in Shibuya, Tokyo. He usually gets an $8 hair cut at our neighborhood Vietnamese salon, however, this time, he got the 4,200 yen full set which included a shave and a shoulder massage. Ronnie liked the hair cut he got from Tsutomu, the barber. Ronnie was especially impressed with Tsutomu's single-blade-straight-razor-technique and his shaving cream vending machine. He fell asleep in the middle of the shave, though.  Thank you Tsutomu, you did a great job! We want to come back next time when we go to Japan. 

Ronnie and I visited Japan early June of 2008. We stayed at Hotel Dormy Inn Tokyo Hatchobori for a week. The room was rather small, but pretty clean with a washlet toilet. However, the best part of the facility was its natural hot spring. Even though the hotel was located in downtown Tokyo, I was able to stretch out my arms and legs in the open-air onsen during our stay. Awesome! I totally enjoyed bathing twice a day with the utmost comfort ;)  We dropped by Lawson, a convenience store, every night before we went back to our room to get breakfast for the next morning. Ronnie loved Meiji Bulgaria yogurt very much. He might feel as if he were Koto-oh-shu, a Bulgarian sumo wrestler.

Mr. Coffee is the nickname of the tall latte that Ronnie makes for me every morning. Ronnie is an experienced barista. He makes an espresso for himself and a latte for Hirochan with Gaggia , an espresso machine.  When the Gaggia was delivered, Ronnie was so excited that I was a bit jealous. All he talked about was the Gaggia. So I named my rival, the espresso machine, Mr. G.  Anyway, now I hook up with the latte as I start a day with Mr. Coffee every morning. Sometimes Ronnie is able to foam milk into a lovely heart shape on top of the latte. We enjoy guessing what kind of shape the foamed milk looks like. Hey, Mr. Barista. Can I have a cup of tall latte, please?             

---Hi Ho---Hi Ho--- ---It's off to work we go--- Dave, our neighbor, offered free wood for the fire place the other day. So we hopped in his truck and went to the place where we could cut down the trees. Ant Ronnie-kun worked hard preparing wood for winter, whereas grasshopper Hirochan sang songs, picked flowers, took photos, and so on.

In spring, our front yard becomes gorgeous with tall rhododendrons in bloom.  The rhododendrons are so colorful and stand out. You won't miss it.  We have red, white, pink, and white-pink rhododendrons. You see how tall the white-pink bush is compared to She-chan.  It may soon start blooming this year.

Summer = Barbecue This is the equation of Ashlock family. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce our traditional barbecue dinner. It is presented by the executive chef, Ronnie Ashlock. He has a pretty cutie assistant, Hirochan. On the menu, we have beef and lamb hamburg topping with a slice of cheese, sausage, grilled onion, pepper, and enoki mushroom, rice ball, corn on the cob, and pickle spears. Ummm...yummy!  I cannot wait for the barbecue season to arrive ;) 

This might be the first and the last time for me to fix green curry. I usually use a package of Japanese curry sauce mix such as S&B or Vermont. However, this time, I chose to make green curry simply because I wanted to use up the old can of green curry mix sitting in the corner of the cabinet for years. The experiment turned out quite successfully. It was a little bit too spicy for me, even though I added water, milk, cheese, and soy sauce to give it a milder taste. 

We had snow this morning.  Here is the mischievous sky trying to fool us. The sky expects someone to say "My goodness, snow in April." and she would say "April fool!"  That is just my guess, though.

I noticed there are a lot of Thai restaurants in Washington for some reason. By and large, they are authentic and provide good food. Thin Pan is one of the good Thai restaurants located in downtown Kirkland. I always order pad thai, stir-fried rice noodle. Ronnie's favorite is lemongrass chicken. He likes green curry as well.

Soondubu or sundubu is Korean-style tofu stew served in a sizzling-hot pot. Since winter time in Washington is long and cold, it is very nice to have an extremely steamy hot pot or what we call nabe in Japan. At most Korean restaurants, we can chose how spicy we want the sundubu to be. I always order seafood sundubu with no spice. I assume kimchi, a spicy pickled cabbage dish, is the most popular Korean food in the U.S. I, personally, cannot stand kimchi, though. What I want to point out is not all Korean food is so spicy. When I went to Seoul, Korea, I enjoyed a bag of roasted chestnuts and coffee milk in a triangle-shaped package.  The other Korean foods I like are chapchae, potato noodles; jajangmyeon, noodles with a black bean sauce; jeon, many pancake-like dish; and kimbap, a sushi roll. I like Korean seaweed as well. Korean seaweed is prepared with sesame oil, therefore it is softer and stickier than nori, Japanese seaweed.

We went on a day trip to La Conner April 12th, 2008. It is a popular place for tulip field viewing in spring.  To be honest, I don't like tulips very much. I think tulips are sort of disgusting looking when the petals open up. But we picked the perfect day because it was really warm and sunny. We are a little bit too early for full blossoming, though. Overall, I enjoyed the trip. I hope we go back again this year. I posted more photos on Flickr .         

"This is milk.  Milk must be like this."             -by Hirochan I wondered why milk in the U.S. does not taste as good as the milk in Japan, especially Nokyo milk. Even whole milk in the U.S. tastes too weak for me, as if it were diluted. I can find reduced fat milk, low fat milk, or fat free milk without any problems. The problem is finding good-tasting whole milk. However, after I moved to Washington, I was finally able to find THE milk:  Smith Brothers Farms  whole milk. This local milk company is awesome. Our milkman delivers farm-fresh milk every week door-to-door. Once I had their fresh milk, I knew the difference. It tasted exactly as I expected. I am sooooo happy because having real milk made my life in the U.S. much easier.  Here comes the milk truck to deliver fresh milk day after day.  Honk! Honk!  

Hand roll sushi is different from regular rolls or nigiri. You do not have to use expensive ingredients and it is easy to prepare. All you have to do is place each item on a dish such as egg, can of tuna, imitation crab, avocado, cucumber, pickled white radish, natto, and so on. Then we can pick whatever we like and put it on a sheet of seaweed, roll everything up, and eat it. It is fun. I used to fix hand roll sushi every Friday for Wu family, my Taiwanese host family who lived in Irvine, CA. They loved it, especially the kids enjoyed making a roll by themselves. So why don't you have hand roll sushi party tonight?

Since I am Japanese, I love rice. I mean I love pure carbohydrates such as white rice, white breads, and all kinds of noodles. On the other hand, as an American, Ronnie tries to cut carbo as much as he can for his diet. But he likes Japanese food and sometimes we enjoy rice.  I recently cook rice with a ceramic pot. It works much better than using a rice cooker in my opinion.  This time, I fixed an omelet with a filling of ketchup rice and a lunch box bento version for Ronnie-kun.

Chawanmushi is one of my favorite Japanese dishes. It literally means tea cup steam or steamed in a tea bowl. Chawanmushi is an appetizer which consists an egg custard with numerous ingredients such as shrimp or crab meat, shiitake mushrooms, spinach, and so on. It is generally considered to be a difficult dish to prepare, so if I say I am good at making chawanmushi, people might think I am an expert chef! It is tough to see if the egg is steamed at the right heat, or it loses its smooth texture. Actually, I messed up several times, but once I got the proper heat and time, cooking chawanmushi is not difficult at all. Ronnie loves this dish, too. He does not quite understand the difference, though. Every time he just says "umai!" whether the egg comes out well or not. That is my sweetheart Ronnie-kun.

Duke's is one of the best seafood restaurants in Seattle area. Ronnie always orders his favorite dish, halibut macadamia, which is voted best new seafood entree in Seattle. Oh, Your Highness, no wonder it tastes fabulous. I have tried their award winning chowder sampler, dungeness crab & prawn gnocchi, stuffed halibut, pan seared wild salmon, and of course, burnt cream so far. Oh, Your Majesty, I guarantee it is worth your money. The clock on interior wall saying "It is time for meal." in Japanese. We found it at Lake Union Chowder House location. How cool!  I posted more photos on Flickr .                   

Ronnie makes stamina pancakes every Saturday morning. He mixes Bisquick and buckwheat flour, and adds eggs, milk, and protein powder. That is why we call it stamina pancake. The pancakes hold our stomach for hours. We have yogurt and some fruits such as berries and banana, almond butter, and honey as a topping. I was surprised using peanut butter or almond butter for pancake first. But Ronnie explained it is very common for Americans. Ronnie is a pretty good weekend chef. Matter of fact, he is quite lively in the kitchen. What a lucky wife I am! I greatly appreciate your work, Ronnie-kun. 

It is our tradition to eat out at Kiku Sushi in Bellevue on Sunday night. During happy hour, Kiku provides some appetizers for half price. We usually share several dishes such as ohitashi, boiled spinach; agedashi tofu, deep fried tofu; vegetable tempura; tori karaage, Japanese style fried chicken; and geso karaage, deep fried squid legs. Don't be scared of a squid leg. It is a little bit chewy, but delicious ;) My favorite is ikura oroshi which contains salmon roe with grated radish. Ronnie's favorite is spicy tuna hand roll. What a big smile he makes! Thank you, Hara-san. We will be back.     

I make lunch for Ronnie every weekday. Typically, a Japanese wife makes quite a beautiful looking lunch box, but mine is a little bit lazy one because I just use leftovers from supper the night before. When there is no leftover, then it is the time for fixing an omelet. It needs two eggs, a slice of bacon, cheese, and sometimes spinach. This omelet lunch is easy, quick, but delicious according to Ronnie-kun.

Almost all photos in this blog have gone :( It happened while I had not managed enough time to update my blog for months...and I have not kept those photos copied in any other places. I completely lost them. So before I resume updating a new post, I need to replace the photos in the existing posts as much as possible. Good grief, Charlie Brown!