The Little Toaster Oven That Could

Merry Christmas from Japan!

Mochi mo ii (desu ne)

Fresh mochi with real strawberries in 'em from the Koshoji temple fair near Keitorin's place. It was a cold, miserable, rainy December day, but these mochi definitely made it a little more bearable!

Ariel, on How To Drink Ramune

When Ariel and I were in Osaka, which is one of the weirdest places on the planet, we ended up in a bizarre, garish "marketplace" with a store selling strange flavours of ramune. (Pronounce: rah-moo-nay)

We had to try the tako-yaki flavoured ramune, because:

a) what the heck

and

b) Ariel had never eaten tako-yaki.

The first step: breaking the seal.

Wordless Wednesday

Shepherd's pie in the toaster oven

Basically this has been my lunch for the last week, and will be in the coming week as well!

Gluten-free persimmon bread

Well, more like cake, but I digress...

Persimmons have been in season here in Japan for the last month or so: the fruits section of the grocery store is full of what seem to be squashed, bright orange tomatoes... which is definitely what I thought they were on first sighting. Before coming to Japan, I'd never eaten a persimmon; they're not native to, or even common, where I'm from, so I confess that I actually Googled "how to eat persimmon" before tasting my first one.

Wordless Wednesday

More Mochi!

These recently appeared at my hyaku-en Lawson's. They're just plain little mochi balls, but the red bean inside is a tad sweeter, and the outside is covered in toasted sesame seeds.

They're small, but super-delicious. This is my current favourite after-work snack, although I have no idea of the calories, or even if it contains trace amounts of gluten. I suspect they're pretty clean, though.