New Year's Foods

2026 has started. May the new year bring you happiness, health and peace.

Mochi (rice cake, 糯米年糕) on pine needles and salmon.

I would like to show you some traditional and new foods below.

Nishime （煮〆）with carrot, radish, lotus root and chicken boiled with soy sauce.

The top yellow ones are herring roe (数之子）. The right is black soybeans（黒豆）. The right bottom is the sliced and vinegared carrot and radish topped with salmon roe（紅白膾）.

The upper right is duck, the bottom is vinegared fish and the left bottom is shrimp.

The top right is walnut, the right is shrimp and the two green fruits at the bottom is candied peaches.

Clockwise from the top: boiled fish paste in a sliced shape (蒲鉾）, rolled omelet mixed with fish paste, vinegared octopus (伊達巻）, candied kumquats (金柑砂糖漬） and pickled vegetables with herring roe and wasabi (山海漬）. The center is the mashed sweet potatoes with chestnuts (栗金団）.

A Cup Of Cafe Latte After Lunch

A man finished training to be a French chef. He loved rural districts in France. The chef bought land to build a restaurant and grow vegetables at a city 100 km far from Tokyo. He still keeps the atmosphere he loved.

Stay warm, friends.

 

A Warm Day

Lots of people come to this park to take a walk. 

Leaves make anthocyanins and change their colors red. The reason of changing red has not been discovered yet. Scientists are still studying it.
 

Take a cup of hot black tea, coffee or puerh.

How have you been? The new flu variant H3N2 subclade K is spreading now. Take care and enjoy winter days.
 

An Old Shrine In The wood

Nowadays it's not easy to find old wooden shrine buildings. I visited this place by car navigation.

a pair of guardian dogs (or lions)

a holy cow

chrysanthemum

a small garden

The winter is coming. I hope you stay healthy and safe.

 

A Porcelain Museum On The Hill 瓷器博物館

The main exhibition building

The guest house

An old Buddhism tower 

The way to the museum is graveled, not paved with asphalt. 

The ways and the gardens are cleaned in every early morning with rakes and brooms before the museum opens. 　

I felt that every beautiful rake mark shows the heart of hospitality.

People's lives in 17 centuries are drawn on a 80cm high big pot.

Women are enjoying seeing autumn flowers. The upper part divided with two blue lines are decorated with cherry blossoms.

Chrysanthemums and kaffir lilies

Peonies

The kiln with stepped chambers installed on the slope

The plastered storehouse 

 

Good Autumn Days

Small persimmons under a mass of cirrocumulus 

This kind is astringent and not suitable to eat raw even when its fruits are  fully ripe. People peel and hang them under the eaves for three weeks. Dried ones are very sweet. 

I found cosmos flowers. I love to see them. What makes you feel that you are in Autumn?

 

Happy Mid-Autumn Moon Festival 桂花纔開了

The 6th of this month is the 15th of August in the lunar calendar. 

 Silver Osmanthus

Golden one has just opened.

 😊

    'I say. You don't know what it's meant to me to have you chaps up here.'
    'We've had a grand time, Harris.'
    Harris was a little tight.

    'I say. Really you don't know how much it means. I've not had much fun since the war.'

    'We'll fish together again sometime. Don't you forget it, Harris.'

    'We must. We have had such a jolly good time.'

    'How about another bottle around?'

    'Jolly good idea,' said Harris.

    'This is mine,' said Bill. 'Or we don't drink it.'

    'I wish you'd let me pay for it. It does give me pleasure, you know.'

    'This is going to give me pleasure,' Bill said. 

                                                                                               -Fiesta-

                                                                 😄

I love to recall this conversation.

Wishing you all good health and happiness.

The Rice Is Ripe

 

The rice harvest time has come. TV news says the crop is still good in spite of the record high temperature this summer. 

The boiled grains are lustrous and smell sweet. You can enjoy this special flavor only within a few month after the harvest.

News also says breed improvement must be hurried to catch up with the rapid warming, which is amazingly exceeded our expectations.