My So-Called Japanese Life

That looks like a lot more cheese than it really was. When you live in a rural area, seasonal food means food that is in season in your area...

Despite the fact that Valentine's Day was quite awhile back, my husband received the fun assortment of chocolates above from a student y...

Look at all that carotene . Back when I was working in an office, I used to make goodies for the entire office around Christmas time. Two pa...

"We provide a firstclass taste brought directly from the earth" claims my pastry. It makes me wonder if one of the ingredients mi...

Low fat milk (left) is cheaper than high fat milk but can resembled powdered milk taste-wise. The milk on the right is "ESL" or ...

The picture that launched many entertaining descriptions. Back when I was working in a Japanese office and correcting student (correspondenc...

Image lifted from the seller's site here . In a former post, I wrote about the quest for cheesecake in Tokyo and how there are many var...

Note: Updated below the dotted line on, January 12, to add the answer. Click on this picture to get a good close look at this bit of sustena...

As the New Year's holidays approach, shops start putting food on sale to clear their stock before they close up for a day or two. Usuall...

Last Friday, I had a rare "day off". While I don't work full-time, I usually spend some time teaching most days and a lot of t...

There are various food-related phases one has when living in a foreign country. Most people don't end up hanging around long enough to g...

The spoils of a trip to Hanamasa . When my husband and I first arrived in Japan, there was pretty much no such thing as bulk food shopping f...

The Japanese on this bag says the same thing as the English, "little Santa" (ri-to-ru sa-n-ta). Last year, I picked up a "Ch...

I've been endeavoring to diversify my home cooking menu and it's been rather difficult for various reasons. One of the major reason...

Click this picture to see a larger one with more detail. One of my husband's students gave him the very cute " bento " picture...

A post on " What Japan Thinks " which offered survey results about what sort of chopstick-related faux pas people notice got me t...

A "stick" cheesecake from a convenience store. It looks better than it tastes though it certainly is a testimonial to controlled p...

With the weather changing, my cooking inclinations also change. Instead of trying to cook light meals that take the shortest time and won...

Muffin-shaped Japanese sweet potato cake. Yummy! The Japanese sweet potato (サツマイモ), which I've extolled the tasty virtues of before, is ...