New Year's Cards Tutorial (Nengajyo)

I’m not sure how this works in other countries, but in Japan people send out New Year’s cards to each other to wish everyone a happy year to come. While this is not traditional in the US, it’s still a nice thing to do, and your friends will love you for it. In the case you decide to send cards to your Japanese friends (both US and Japan) here is a mini tutorial on the etiquettes behind it.

You can either buy a card which looks relatively related to the New Year, or you can make your own. I prefer making my own b/c it’s a bit more fun (plus I love>

Nengajyo have technically 2 greeting parts to them and an optional 3^rd.

1. Written from the left, first is the header 書出し(kakidashi) saying “happy new year”, of which there are several pre-established appropriate phrases. Pick the ones you like.

恭賀新年	Kyouga Shinnen
謹賀新年	Kinga Shinnen
賀正	Gashyou
迎春	Geishyun
新年おめでとうございます｡	Shinnen omedetou gozaimasu.
明けましておめでとうございます｡	Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu.
謹んで新年のお喜びを申し上げます｡	Tsutsushinde shinnenn oyorokobi wo moushiagemasu

* These all basically say happy New Year, except the last one which whishes the person happiness in the new year. Often justあけましておめでとう is on the more modern cards in hiragana.

2. Second, written to the left of the title, is the 結び(musubi). This thanks the person or wishes for their health. Again there are several expressions you can use that are very common.

今年も幸多い年でありますようお祈り申し上げます。	Kotoshi mo kouooi toshi de arimasu you oinori moshiagemasu	Hope you have another very lucky year
本年もどうぞよろしくお願いします｡	Honnen mo douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.	Best regards for the coming year as well (treat me kindly)
昨年は大変お世話になりありがとうございました｡	Sakunen wa taihen osewa ni nari arigatou gozaimashita.	Thank you for all your help in the last year
本年も変わらぬお付き合いのほどをお願い申し上げます。	Honnen mo kawarane tsukiai no hodo wo oneai moushiagemasu	Hope this year we’ll keep our unchanging relationship (basically, lets me good friends this year too).
皆様のご健康をお祈り申し上げます｡	Minna-sama no gokenkou wo oinori moushiagemasu.	We (I) wish for everyones good health in the coming year.

3. These first two parts are on the front of the card. Sometimes there is no back to the card, but I like to add more stuff on the back, kinda like a postcard ^_^ This can be anything, and you don’t have to choose from a set.

Important Notes

4. Dating Your Card.

Date your card to the left of Musubi. Rather than dating the card like a letter (with the present day) its dated with the word Gantan (元旦)which means New Year’s Day, followed by the Heisei year. The year for 2011 is 23 so you can title it Heisei 23 (平成２3年).

5. Signing Your Card

Sign your card to the left of the Date and ta-da you are done with a basic NY card!

6. Sending Your Card

As usual you write the persons address and your own (to the left). However if you are sending this to Japan, be sure to write 年賀(nenga) on the front. The Japanese Post Office keeps all these cards and delivers them right on New Years then J

Lazy Online Cards

Yahoo Japan is doing free online cards which you can customize, if you don’t want to pay postage. You can even put your face in them!

http://event.yahoo.co.jp/nenga2011/

Please stay away from the Gundam cards…

Ubepo will let you make them and even have them printed via the post office in Japan. Also supports Twitter!

https://webpo.jp/

If You Forgot…

So if you didn’t send one but you receive one, that makes you kind of a jerk. But no fear, its not too late! January 6^th is the official sorry I forgot about you return card day! You send a card which tells your buddy

寒中お見舞い申し上げます。(Kanchuu omimai moushiagemasu), meaning to take care from the cold.

Other options that mean pretty much the same thing:

寒中お伺い申し上げます

余寒お見舞い申し上げます

In Mourning

If a person has had a relative pass away recently and are in mourning, DO NOT send a card. Period.

THE END ^_^

Fusion Filet Mignon

Oh its been a while~ I've been eating a lot of good food lately (i've started exercising again as a compromise kk)

Today I bring you Filet Mignon, but slightly different. Since everything I eat has to have ingredients from the great east, what could you possibly expect ^_~

Looks good right!

List:

- Beef (medium thickness) - beat this with a back of a spoon for a bit.

- Green Onion

- Mushrooms (try dried shitake and pre-soak them in hot water or microwave, then cut with scissors)

- Tsuyuu or soycause if you don't have it

- Sesame oil

- Garlic Powder

- Black Pepper

Step 1

After beating your steaks, rub them lightly with sesame oil, pepper and garlic powder.

Step 2

Pre-heat your oven to 350

Step 3

In a fry pan fry the top and bottom of your steaks until they look like they were on the grill. (the center should be raw still).

Step 4

Move to foil sheet and pour about 1/4 cup of tsuyuu over it (if you use soysauce mix with water)

Step 5

Add mushroom and onion around the steak (save some onion for topping) but make sure they are sitting in the tsuyuu. Bake for about 15 min. (or longer depending on how well you like your steak done, i like mine pretty lightly)

And voila! c'est facille right? Enjoy this classic with an Asian twist hoho.

-

Token: ZNZNMFZ8SJ2J

Yam Season!

Easy Yams How To~

Its Fall (obviously) and there are many fall foods which are considered popular (such as apples). But often the poor little (fat) yam is disregarded. Why? Because no one knows what to do with it.... or its really complicated.

Luckily for you, I am lazy and I won't put up with that nonsense. Here is a simple, and very tasty way to eat yams! (recipe for 1 ^_~)

You Need:

1. a yam

2. stick o' butter (don't cry)

3. brown sugar

4. nutmeg

5. cinnamon

6. foil

The Cooking:

0. FIRST Pre-heat oven to 375 F.

1. Peel your yam and slice it in half. Slit 4 lines in both pieces (cooks faster)

2. In a bowl add 1/3 of the butter stick and pop it in the microwave for 30 sec.

3. Add 2 dashes nutmeg, 3 dashes of cinnamon, 1 tbs. brown sugar, mix well!

4. lightly brush (or spoon) over the yams (only 1 spoonfull or so, you want the rest for after)

5. Put the yams in the foil and cover (with foil) and bake for about 50 minutes (its ready when you poke the yams and chopstick goes through easily)

6. Take them out and cut artfully (hehe) and pour the remaining mixture over.

* Eat right after as yams cool down fast! I waited to take the photo and what not, so I had to microwave it afterward... sad, very sad, but still delicious.

Shigezo Review + Surprise Guest

Hello! Its been a While!(오랜만!)
No entries after I had my wisdom teeth removed since I lived on smoothies. After that I did cook but did not document! I'll work on that... Anyway, today I bring you a review of the new Japanese Izakaya in Portland called Shigezo (9th & Salmon)

Why I like this place:
1. Very Izakaya-like atmosphere w/ tatami mats and everything!
2. They have 20 Oz. Kirins! (and tons of sake choices)
3. REAL RAMEN (very huge, thats a small)
4. Womens bathroom has a washlet!
5. You will probably run into the famous Mr. Yoshida (of yoshida sauces) and he will probably get you a beer if you're nice.

PS> I don't recommend the Karaage, not enough potato starch.

Secret Shot of Mr. Yoshida

I feel I am entitled to this since he kept making fun of me.

Guess its an Austrian Thing

Look at that beauty! That isn't just a regular cup of coffee, this here be a glass of Viennese Coffee. Although I had an standard recipe, as usually happens, I lacked the common ingredients and therefore this became an R~iginal (bad pun?).
Anyway, this is probably the best damn coffee I have ever made, and comes close in competition to the cafe's back in hometown Europa ^_^.

Here's what you'll need for my "Apollo Viennese"

1/2 Mug of heavy whipping cream
1 tea.s. of powdered sugar 1/2 a box (as illustrated) of appllo choco
1/2 tea.s. vanilla extract
1 cup hot strong coffee
1 tea.s. of liquore de cacao (optional but worth it)

For the cream topping/base beat the whip cream, sugar, vanilla.Then put in the fridge

You have to make the cream topping and base by beating it, but I didn't have a electronic beater so.... I started doing this is a chilled metal bowl with a whisk, and then realized that would take forever. Then, being the clever devil I am I decided to put the whip cream into a mug and roll the whisk between my hands, it worked like a charm!

The Stove
While thats chilling in the fridge, chop up your apollo chocolates as small as you can (so they will melt faster). Leave a bit aside for topping.

When you're done, put about 2/3 of the whip cream in a pot and heat slowly on the stove.
Swirl in the chocolates slowly so they don't burn and mix until its all melted.
Pour in the hot coffee, still stirring, and lastly the liquore de cacao.

You can now pour it into a glass and top with the remaining whip cream (which I have yet to figure out how to do artistically). Then the final touch, sprinkle on your bits of apollo. ENJOY!

Guess its a Repetitive Thing

I know what you're thinking. Fried Rice again?! Well technically yes, but technically no. This time its Japanese Cha-han so it reality its a bit different. Different flavour = different food, therefore different!

--
Whats in it:
1 egg
tomato
shrimp flavored cha-han spice (you might find it at your local asian store, or you might not; there are little dried shrimps!)
daiko and onion fried in Tsuyuu ( note tsuyuu is the master cooking sauce in almost all J. dishes!)
a dash of dashi
tofu - squeeze out the water with a paper towel, and fry in tsuyuu as well

Fairly Simple, Fairly Tasty, Totally Lazy.
Ps. the best thing about friend rice is you can put in anything you have in your fridge, I recommend Broccoli and eggplants!
Ciao for now.
~R

Guess its a Cheating Thing

MICI
I present a staple of the Romanian community, Mici! These are essentially grilled meatballs made of beef and pork, seasoned with secret ingredients. I say secret, because I don't actually know what is in them.
yes sad to say, I did not make them. These were brought into being by my mother who is a pro in Romanian cooking, which is only to be expected. One day I will attempt to make these myself and at that point I will then post a recipe,as is fit. But for now, a teaser if you will.

Blood Something or Other

This here, I did make...pour. Its blood orange italian soda from safeway which depending on the season can be very hard to find. The fact remains that blood orange juice is impossible to find here. In Europe it is widely available, as are many other "crazy" fruit juices. Ah~ I miss the isles of REAL and Carrefour which had massive juice selections. This insufficiency must stem from the US's propensity to drink "pop", also known as carbonated death. Oh, and by the way, that is whip cream on top, which I did indeed dispense from the can myself. I promise real cooking to come ^_~....for real this time.

Guess its a Lazy thing

From last night

To the left we have what I threw together last night. Kimchi fried rice or bokumbop (김치볶음밥)
Except unlike what normal koreans would put in it, I went a little fridge happy and added whatever I felt like eating. The important part is the kimchi, and Kochujang! This also makes for great leftovers!

Whats in it:

- Daikon - 2 fingers thick slice of

- White onion - 1/2 a

- Radish kimchi (not cabbage) - handful

- Kochujang - 1 teaspoon

- Egg - 1

- soysauce 4 tbs

- sesame oil 1.5 tbs

- RICE - guesstimate

- Bulgogi (which i made 5 min before)

` marinate thinly cut beef in 1 tbs sesame oil, 4 tbs soysauce, dash of sugar, and a little water or its too salty.Fry it real lightly so its still juicy. Combine everything with the rice in the pan, and lightly douse with sesame oil. Now its ready to eat! ^_~

Guess its a Food Thing

Well, I have been thinking about what the hell I could possibly blog about.

Sure I'm known for being a tech geek, but I don't really care to write about it. So what else do I do? Well actually, not much T_T Work, school, work school.

When I do have time though, I like to experiment with food. When I don't have time, I just throw things together and hope they don't taste awful. Since I live with several asian girls, we have all sorts of crazy foods made in our place. (We also have a lot of potluck parties). So if any wondering souls out there wish to know what our congregation can make, you have come to the right place. I'll post recipes, pictures, and even the process of our hilarious en-devours.

Also for more random comments you can follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/Raiza_chi

Be back real soon with content