Jun
24

the rainy season

Now we're in the depressing rainy season of June.

Though it's fine today, it had been raining a few days in a row until yesterday. It seems that the unpleasant weather will continue some more weeks before summer comes.

As many of you know, the humidity is very high in Japanese summer, let alone the rainy season. It's hot and humid especially recently because warming by the greenhouse effect is, of course also here, influences the heat of our summer. The temperature is clearly higher than that of many years ago. Still summer is far better than winter for me as I can't stand the cold weather.

By the way, the theme of the handcraft frame in the picture above is the rainy season called tsuyu in Japanese. The items express the old fashioned Japanese summer.

If the cherry blossoms are the flowers of April and the azaleas are that of May, the flowers of June are hydrangeas in Japan. Many of purple ones are in the frame. And at the bottom of them, there is a wooden tarai, which means a wash tub. That is also a symbolic item of old fashioned Japan. A wood rack is also there next to the tub. Some gardening tools are on the rack.

Then there are an umbrella and the beads which are rain drops around the frame. And more, see the small doll is pinned with a brown ribbon at the right top of the frame. It's called teru treu bouzu, which is usually made of paper to pray for fine weather. Though it's a small frame, it contains full of funny items, doesn't it?

Anyway, now summer is approaching. I'm looking forward to go to Gion Festival in Kyoto next month. It's hot and humid but there are also a lot of pleasures in summer here. I love it!

Categories: diary , handcrafts

Jun
19

tsutsuji

The flowers in the picture are called tsutsuji, which are azaleas in English.

Providing that Sakura or cherry blossoms are the flowers of April, tsutsujis are the flowers of May. May is the month of azaleas in Japan.

But as I live in the countryside, azaleas bloom usually in June in my garden. I think that's because the temperature is lower here than in the city.

Since azaleas are strong enough to live almost by themselves, you can see a lot of them are planted along the road. As you see in the pictures, many pink ones are planted in my garden, too. Though the colour is very popular, there are also white or pale pink ones.

The trees are always green except for this season but the flowers bloom in full force at a time everywhere from May to June. It's very beautiful.

As I had no time to take care of the trees in my garden at all in the past few years, they were overgrown and not vital. But I've been trying to take a good care of them after I pruned last year, so they're recovering little by little. Though the flowers are still rather fewer than before, I'll be able to see more of them again next year.

If the trees are very vital, the flowers bloom in full force like in the following picture. Beautiful, aren't they?

when flowers were in full force

Categories: diary

Jan
23

The queen of the cakes

 It's called a "strawberry short cake" in Japan. In reality, the cake does not contain shortening which is the origin of the name "short cake". It seems that the meaning of the word "short cake" is different from country to country, but originally the basement of the cake contains shortening and it tastes crispy because of the material. But in Japan, the basement is a sponge cake and it's covered with fresh cream. So I think it's softer than the original one.

They say that the difference is caused when a Japanese big confectionary company called Fujiya started selling a cake named "short cake" many years ago and the cake was in this style. As Western-style sweets were high-class and novel in those days, people didn't know how the real short cake was. Even now I have no experience of eating it myself. So this is a typical "short cake" for Japanese and it must be with strawberries. The contrast of red and white is the symbol of "short cake" for us and it is the queen of the cakes in Japan.

I often bake and make this cake in spring when strawberries are in season. Because I can get the tiny red fruit easily as a large quantity of them are on the market and less expensive than when those are out of season. But strawberries are on the market earlier than before at resonable prices recently, so I made the first one in this year yesterday.

It smells sweet and tastes good especially with cinnamon tea. See the bulky volume of my cake! There are 18 strawberries inside and 8 of them are on the top. Moreover it's covered with plenty of special fresh cream. I usually make this cake at least 10 while strawberries are in season.

Categories: diary , sweets

Jan
04

A Happy New Year!

Now we're in 2012. Some of you may know, the Japanese biggest annual event is New Year's Day. We celebrate the beginning of the year with special dishes and new year parties, like westerners celebrate Christmas Day.

The photo is an "osechi" plate which contains traditional items for new year celebration. I made these. Traditionally we use "jyuu-bako", literally means "piled boxes", but this kind of hors d'oeuvre style plate is also popular recently. In addition to those dishes, we prepare many luxurious foods and drinks, visit shrines, watch special TV programs during New Year holiday, while many people enjoy traveling, skiing or some other things outside.

The following photo is "nerikiri" which is made of soybean paste called "an" or "anko" and those are shaped like flowers or birds. Aren't they beautiful? "Nerikiri" is not only for New Year's day, but as those are a little bit expensive for daily life, those are rather for special events.

I'm now enjoying lazy New Year holiday with eating, sleeping, watching videos after demanding "oosouji", means "cleaning house totally". (We customarily do it at the end of a year to celebrate New Year's Day and it's not an easy work.) Spending New Year holiday this way is called "ne-shougatsu" means "sleeping away lazily". (laugh)

Categories: diary , events , foods

Jan
03

Pony Cushion

It's a Pony Cushion! Cute, isn't it?

This is a special X'mas gift or a giveaway from my favorite shop "Angelic Pretty". "Pretty" is a Japanese brand which makes fine dresses and accessories. They develop some American and European branches recently, so some of you may know the name as a "lolita brand".

It's difficult to get this kind of X'mas special gifts, because those are very rare. So if you're lucky, you'll be able to get them. Well, I'm lucky this time.

Categories: diary , fashion