Chawan Mushi
Wooo Hoooo! I found this lovely photo on Bob and Angies Daily Japanese Cooking.
Bob and Angie’s Daily Japanese cooking also give instructions and very cool photos on exactly how to make it. I’ve seen it done – if you have the ingredients, it isn’t that hard, using a bagno caldo. But I’ve never had mine turn out pretty, like when normal Japanese people make them. I think it is something you learn at your Mother’s knee.
Mom’s Fruit Cake Recipe
Wooo Hooooooo! The fruitcakes are in the oven, and already the house smells wonderful. I’ve been making these cakes since I got married. I don’t think I have missed a year, but I may have. I grew up smelling these delicious cakes every winter. I don’t think my Mom makes them every year any more. I wish I were close enough to pop one into her refrigerator for their holidays.
Mom’s Fruit Cake
Even people who think they HATE fruit cake like this fruit cake. It has a secret ingredient – chocolate!
This is the original recipe. I remember cutting the dates and prunes with scissors when I was little; now you can buy dates and prunes without pits and chop them in the food processor – a piece of cake!
1 cup boiling water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup lard or butter
1 T. cinnamon
1 t. cloves
3 Tablespoons chocolate powder
1/4 cup jelly
1 cup seeded raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup candied citron
1/2 cup cut prunes
1/2 cup cut dates
Put all in a pan on stove and bring to a boil. Boil for three minutes. Let cool. Add:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Flavor with lemon
Bake at 350° in loaf pans for one hour. Makes 2 normal bread loaf sized cakes.
My variations: I put in about three times the fruit, the difference primarily in the candied citron – I prefer using whole candied cherries, because they are so pretty when the loafs are cut. This recipe doubles, or quadruples with no problems.
Pans: Mom used to line all the pans with brown paper and grease the paper. I grease the pans, then dust with more of the chocolate powder. Use a good quality chocolate, not cocoa. When the cakes come out of the oven, let them cool for ten minutes, loosen them with a knife, then they will shake out easily. Let continue to cool until they are totally cool, then wrap in plastic wrap, with several layers, then foil, then seal in a sealable plastic bag. Let them age a couple months in a corner of your refrigerator. I make mine around Halloween, and serve the first one at Thanksgiving.
I never make these the same any two years in a row. This is the first year, ever, that I won’t be using any brandy – alcohol in Kuwait being against the law. Yeh, I have some friends who laugh and say “you can get it anywhere!” but we made a decision to obey the law. Only rarely do I regret it . . . sigh . . .fruitcakes really need brandy.
Update: If you are in a country where brandy is available, and if you want to use brandy, here is how to use it in this recipe. You know how raisins get all dried out and taste yucky in fruitcakes? The night before you intend to make the fruitcakes, take all the raisins you intend to use (depending on how many fruitcakes you intend to make) and put them in a glass container. Pour brandy over them, to cover. Microwave just to the boiling point. Let stand in the microwave overnight.
The next day, you can drain that brandy and use it in a stew or something, and in the meanwhile, you now have plump, juicy raisins to use in your fruitcake, and just a hint of brandy flavor. Yummmm!
Top Posts
The Top Posts column in WordPress statistics disappeared for a few days, and oh! I really missed it. I’m not so interested in the total numbers as in what people find the most interesting. I love the new Top Posts system, where you can click on a little icon that looks like a graph, and it shows you the total history of that particular post – how often people look for it and choose it, not coming from some aggregator, but from somewhere like a google search. I like it that WordPress keeps improving itself, and listens to our feedback.
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
Today’s Grin for today, from, no kidding, The Kuwait Times, page 6:
Brothels’ raids continue
Raids launched against brothels and suspected love dens continued unabated all over Kuwait. A security force yesterday raided two apartments in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh where 34 Asians were caught red-handed in the most uncompromising positions . . . .
Google Earth – It Just Keeps Getting Better
This morning I had an e-mail from my nephew at GoogleEarth. There are days I feel like one of the luckiest women in the world – my sisters and I have the most interesting children, now young adults, and they are all working in areas where they feel useful – stressed, working too hard – but greatly satisfied, greatly productive.
How cool is it to love Geography, and to be working for GoogleEarth? I grin every time I think of my nephew, who loves the work he is doing.
His e-mail a couple weeks ago reminded me that the new GoogleEarth was out and to be sure to upgrade. You can be sure I did. Today, he tells me about another blog that always has the most up-to-date goodies from GE – Google Earth Blog.
On November 12, Frank Taylor, the blog author, says:
Google has quietly introduced four new Featured Content Layers today. Go to the Layers on the lower left and look for “Featured Content”. Open the folder and look for the new layers at the top. Each is marked with a red “New!”. Here’s a brief overview of the new layers:
Rumsey Historical Maps – This is a collection of historical maps which you can overlay over their location on Earth. If you are not running Google Earth 4, you will not see this layer. Open the folder and turn on the map that interests you. The first link shows you the locations of the different map and each description gives you a few details. You can then turn on each map and they will be overlayed in GE. The maps are “regionated” which means they will load more detail as you get closer (it also means the images are scanned at a very high resolution). I’m sure some of my mapping friends like Jonathan Crowe will be curious to see these.
Tracks4Africa – this is my favorite of the new layers. There are maps of places to go in Africa built by compiling data from GSP tracks. The layer also has lots useful information and photos. Zoom in closer to see more detail. You can read more, and buy the maps for your GPS, by going to Tracks4Africa’s web site.
Spotlight on Africa – This is a collection of placemarks showing the flag of each country of Africa. The placemark description includes an overview of basic information of each country from the CIA World Factbook. The placemarks were developed by the National Geographic My Wonderful World campaign to help kids become more geographically aware. This is nicely done, but you can see the whole world done in a similar fashion in this collection.
European Space Agency – this layer shows ESA logo placemarks of different locations where a satellite photo can be viewed of that location. A small picture is in the placemark description, and a link to a page where you can see a larger picture. I am disappointed that you can’t just view the larger pictures overlayed in Google Earth though.
I am blown away by all the new Africa content. On a day when the sky has turned yellow in Kuwait, there are waves cresting out in the Gulf and the air smells like impending squalls, it is a perfect day to spend in Africa, via Google Earth!
Frank Taylor has all kinds of useful information on GE, and I am adding him to my blogroll.
Targeted
On my way home from a meeting today, there was a guy in a big hurry. First he was behind me, in his great big beat-up black Chevy SUV, then passing me, and then, there he was, right in front of me at the next light. Here’s what gets my attention. On his lower left rear, just above the bumper, are three bullet holes, pretty closely spaced, too. It’s not easy to place three bullets that close together, and I can only imagine that it was done while at least one car was in motion, if not two.
So I’m impressed; someone around here is a sharp shooter.
But why would anyone be shooting at another car here in Kuwait? I can’t remember seeing another car with bullet holes.
Philippa Gregory and Catherine of Aragon
Being sick has one advantage. . . you can catch up on some of your reading. Philippa Gregory is one of my favorite writers of historical fiction.
To my great shame, I have a very difficult time reading history. Unless it is vigorously written, it puts me to sleep. It is particularly embarassing when my husband has a degree in History, and his eyes light up discussing battles and strategems and who said what to whom and why it matters. It has to do with my hard-wiring, it’s not even a gender thing.
So I gravitate toward historical fiction; give me people and motivations and interactions any day, and I can remember it. Sometimes, I even learn something. Philippa Gregory never lets me down. She researches, she documents, and she might speculate, but you always have a clear idea what is real (historically documented) and what is a good story, putting meat on the bones of the history.
Out of sequence, I read The Queen’s Fool and The Other Boleyn Girl. Each of these books is peripheral to the story of Catherine of Aragon. The first features a woman chosen to be a Fool at the court of Queen Mary, Catherine’s daughter. She is of Jewish descent, hiding as a Christian, escaped from the fires of the Spanish Inquisition. She lives in fear of being caught out in her deception. With her father, a printer, she tries to secrete and maintain many of the books of Moorish Spain, the knowledge of the ancients, which the church begins to declare heretical in England. The second book, The Other Boleyn Girl, is about Anne Boleyn, but told from the perspective of her sister, Lady Mary, who was also mistress to Henry, King of England, while he was married to Catherine of Aragon. The Boleyn girls are portrayed as mere pawns in the great game of power in the English court.
So this newest book, The Constant Princess, opens in Spain, as Queen Isabella of Castile, Catherine’s mother, and King Ferdinand of Aragon fight to eliminate the Moors and to unite their lands into one Kingdom. The little girl, whose mother is the chief strategist and who fights in armor alongside her husband, learns battlefield tactics at her parent’s feet and in their camps and learns diplomatic skills in their throne rooms.
We follow Catherine to England, married first to Arthur, then after Arthur’s death, to Henry. She assures them her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, that Arthur was too young, and impotent. Gregory assumes this was a lie. We don’t know. I would guess that it was one of those lies that nobody believes but was convenient to all to pretend to believe, for money, for power, for alliances.
We stand with Catherine as she sends Henry off to fight the French, then leads her own troops up to vanquish the Scots. We agonize with her as she strives to become pregnant, to carry an heir to the throne full term to birth, and as she loses a seemingly perfect baby boy to infant death. We sit with her in stragegic councils, watch her balance the budgets for court and state, and scheme to protect the English borders against all threats. Whew! Being a Queen of England is hard work!
The book ends with Catherine facing the eccliastical trial as her own husband disputes the validity of her marriage to him and seeks to set her aside for his freedom to marry Anne Boleyn.
I don’t review every book I read, but I was captivated by the cross cultural threads in this book, and by the fact that while we all know the basic facts of the story – Henry divorces Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boeyn – Catherine’s history, her talents, her strengths and victories were news to me. The influence of her upbringing in Moorish Spain and the influence it played on her growing understanding of the world is a golden thread woven throughout the story.
Early in her first marriage, the young princess tells her beloved husband of her childhood in Grenada:
” . . . We walk in their gardens, we bathe in their hammams, we step into their scented leather slippers and we live a life that is more refined and more luxurious than they could dream of in Paris or London or Rome. We live graciously. We live, as we have always aspired to do, like Moors. Our fellow Christians herd goats in the mountains, pray at roadside cairns to the Madonna, are terrified by superstition and lousy with disease, live dirty and die young. We learn from Moslem scholars, we are attended by their doctors, study the stars in the sky which they have named, count with their numbers which start at the magical zero, eat of their sweetest fruits and delight in the waters which run through their aquaeducts. Their architecture pleases us: at every turn of every corner we know that we are living inside beauty. . . . We learn their poetry, we laugh at their games, we delight in their gardens in their fruits, we bathe in the waters that have made flow. We are the victors, but they have taught us how to rule. . . .”
I can hardly wait for a trip to Spain!
Men on Choosing a Wife: Pure Fluff
My husband hates what he calls “male bashing jokes.” I read this one to him this morning, and he snickered, so I guess it is safe to share with you. If you are very sensitive, however, skip to the next blog – I don’t want to hurt your feelings.
A man wanted to get married. He was having trouble choosing among three likely candidates. He gives each woman a present of $5,000 and watches to see what they do with the money.
The first does a total make over. She goes to a fancy beauty salon gets her hair done, new make up and buys several new outfits and dresses up very nicely for the man. She tells him that she has done this to be m ore attractive for him because she loves him so much.
The man was impressed.
The second goes shopping to buy the man gifts. She gets him a new set of golf clubs, some new gizmos for his computer, and some expensive clothes. As she presents these gifts, she tells him that she has spent all the money on him because she loves him so much
Again, the man is impressed.
The third woman invests the money in the stock market. She earns several times the $5,000. She gives him back his $5,000 and reinvests the remainder in a joint account. She tells him that she wants to save for their future because she loves him so much.
Obviously, the man was impressed.
The man thought for a long time about what each woman had done with the money he’d given her.
Then, he married the one with the biggest boobs.
(There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer’s research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.)
What is YOUR Comfort Food?
You know how it is. You’re not yourself. Your throat hurts or your tummy hurts and Mom fixes something something you love, and it happens so often throughout your childhood that when you get to be an adult, and you find yourself sick, it’s the food you think of.
And, of course, it depends on the illness. For tummy things, I remember chicken broth and jello. But for colds and flu, it was always tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Now, even if I just had a bad day, grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup can still cheer me up.
For my husband, raised in another part of the country, it is vegetable soup and cornbread. After we married, I learned to make cornbread in an iron skillet, and it is pretty good. He breaks it up and puts it in a glass of milk, though, and I can’t even watch him eat it.
Our son grew up in Tunis – when he has a sore throat, nothing will do but mint tea.
So what is YOUR comfort food? What did your Mamma (or Papa) make you when you were sick as a child? What do you dream of even now, all grown up, but sick and miserable?
25 Reasons Why You Should Drink Green Tea
I never get sick. I am sick now. I thought it was just an allergic tickle in the back of my throat, but it turned into a full blown cold/flu, whatever it is that is going around.
A friend sent me this. I am drinking Green Tea like crazy. I’m not entirely sure I buy the entire list, especially green tea stopping the spread of Hiv/AIDs, that seems a little far fetched – wouldn’t we have heard about that? But it’s an interesting list.
by http://www.FineGreenTea.com
Green tea has increasingly become a very popular drink worldwide because of its immensely powerful health benefits.
It is extraordinarily amazing what green tea can do for your health.
And if you’re not drinking 3 to 4 cups of green tea today, you’re definitely NOT doing your health a big favor.
Here Are The 25 Reasons Why You Should Start Drinking Green Tea Right Now:
1. Green Tea and Cancer
Green tea helps reduce the risk of cancer.
The antioxidant in green tea is 100 times more effective than vitamin C and 25 times better than vitamin E.
This helps your body at protecting cells from damage believed to be linked to cancer.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-cancer.html
2. Green Tea and Heart Disease
Green tea helps prevent heart disease and stroke by lowering the level of cholesterol.
Even after the heart attack, it prevents cell deaths and speeds up the recovery of heart cells.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-and-heart-disease.html
3. Green Tea and Anti-Aging
Green tea contains antioxidant known as polyphenols which fight against free radicals.
What this means it helps you fight against aging and promotes longevity.
4. Green Tea and Weight Loss
Green tea helps with your body weight loss. Green tea burns fat and boosts your metabolism rate naturally.
It can help you burn up to 70 calories in just one day.
That translates to 7 pounds in one year.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-weight-loss.html
5. Green Tea and Skin
Antioxidant in green tea protects the skin from the harmful effects of free radicals, which cause wrinkling and skin aging.
Green tea also helps fight against skin cancer.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-skin.html
6. Green Tea and Arthritis
Green tea can help prevent and reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis.
Green tea has benefit for your health as it protects the cartilage by blocking the enzyme that destroys cartilage.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-and-arthritis.html
7. Green Tea and Bones
The very key to this is high fluoride content found in green tea.
It helps keep your bones strong.
If you drink green tea every day, this will help you preserve your bone density.
8. Green Tea and Cholesterol
Green tea can help lower cholesterol level.
It also improves the ratio of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol, by reducing bad cholesterol level.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-and-cholesterol.html
9. Green Tea and Obesity
Green tea prevents obesity by stopping the movement of glucose in fat cells.
If you are on a healthy diet, exercise regularly and drink green tea, it is unlikely you’ll be obese.
10. Green Tea and Diabetes
Green tea improves lipid and glucose metabolisms, prevents sharp increases in blood sugar level, and balances your metabolism rate.
http://www.finegreentea.com/diabetes-and-green-tea.html
11. Green Tea and Alzheimer’s
Green tea helps boost your memory.
And although there’s no cure for Alzheimer’s, it helps slow the process of reduced acetylcholine in the brain, which leads to Alzheimer’s.
12. Green Tea and Parkinson’s
Antioxidants in green tea helps prevent against cell damage in the brain, which could cause Parkinson’s. People drinking green tea also are less likely to progress with Parkinson’s.
13. Green Tea and Liver Disease
Green tea helps prevent transplant failure in people with liver failure. Researches showed that green tea destroys harmful free radicals in fatty livers.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-liver.html
14. Green Tea and High Blood Pressure
Green tea helps prevent high blood pressure.
Drinking green tea helps keep your blood pressure down by repressing angiotensin, which leads to high blood pressure.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-and-high-blood-pressure.html
15. Green Tea and Food Poisoning
Catechin found in green tea can kill bacteria which causes food poisoning and kills the toxins produced by those bacteria.
16. Green Tea and Blood Sugar
Blood sugar tends to increase with age, but polyphenols and polysaccharides in green tea help lower your blood sugar level.
17. Green Tea and Immunity
Polyphenols and flavenoids found in green tea help boost your immune system, making your health stronger in fighting against infections.
18. Green Tea and Cold and Flu
Green tea prevents you from getting a cold or flu.
Vitamin C in green tea helps you treat the flu and the common cold.
19. Green Tea and Asthma
Theophylline in green tea relaxes the muscles which support the bronchial tubes, reducing the severity of asthma.
20. Green Tea and Ear Infection
Green tea helps with ear infection problem.
For natural ear cleaning, soak a cotton ball in green tea and clean the infected ear.
21. Green Tea and Herpes
Green tea increases the effectiveness of topical interferon treatment of herpes.
First green tea compress is applied, and then let the skin dry before the interferon treatment.
22. Green Tea and Tooth Decay
Green tea destroys bacteria and viruses that cause many dental diseases.
It also slows the growth of bacteria which leads to bad breath.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-tooth-decay.html
23. Green Tea and Stress
L-theanine, which is a kind of amino acids in green tea, can help relieve stress and anxiety.
24. Green Tea and Allergies
EGCG found in green tea relieves allergies.
So, if you have allergies, you should really consider drinking green tea.
http://www.finegreentea.com/green-tea-allergy.html
25. Green Tea and HIV
Scientists in Japan have found that EGCG (Epigallocatechin Gallate) in green tea can stop HIV from binding to healthy immune cells.
What this means is that green tea can help stop the HIV virus from spreading.
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