Kelly Azuma

I haven’t blogged for a while as i’ve been sick the last 6 weeks. Yasu thinks i’m pregnant, i’m hoping, but 4 tests later i’m still getting a negative. I took myself off to the doctor today and he is making me have a full blood examination including liver, thyroid, diabetes, and kidney function tests. What that has got to do with painful ovaries, i’m not sure. I just hope he finds something!

The problem is, i’ve had all the symptoms of pregnancy. I didn’t even know they were symptoms until i checked online and found other women experienced the same thing and they were pregnant. I was definitely not getting my hopes up, but rather, i was sick of experiencing these things on a daily basis without confirmation of it. It’s not exactly a nice feeling.

We’ve been trying for 2 years, but the last 6 months i kind of gave up and just let it go, as the heartbreak of seeing negative test after negative test just left me feeling an emotional wreck. This time, when i think i just might be, everyone i know has fallen pregnant around me, and i feel heartbroken that everyone else is and can be, when it’s the one thing i want, but can’t be. It’s not their fault, i know that. But, i can’t help feeling depressed over it. I can’t even watch tv without babie’s nappies being advertised, and that is just another knife in my heart. I guess unless you’ve tried to have a baby and failed, you wouldn’t understand my emotions. It’s a hard road.

One of the things about Yasu that has always annoyed me is that he doesn’t know what compassion is, he just doesn’t have it in his makeup, so he never feels sympathy for others. He only sees things in black and white, and sometimes that can be so frustrating. But lately, he’s been Mr Compassion, and he has been saying “he understands my feelings, he understands what i feel” and he has showed tenderness that i’ve never seen from him in nearly 6 years of marriage. I am so grateful, because otherwise i would feel so alone. At least when he says he understands my tears of frustration, it is a little bit comforting to me to know, in emotion he is right there with me.

This is not meant to be a sad post, though it probably seems like it. I’m just letting you know my headspace at the moment. I’ve been carrying on with these feelings and hopefully it will soon be over, and i will know what’s going on with my body.

I was told by a psychic that i would definitely be having children, but she wouldn’t tell me when, because she said if she does tell me, i will focus on it too much. I guess she’s right. It is comforting to know i will have children, but it’s so hard waiting for the time to come!

I recently started contacting companies in order to give them feedback about their products. When i first started out i was only complaining about an unsatisfactory product, which would result in cash back or other free products.

I then thought it would be good to give feedback to other companies whose products i had used and found to be outstanding. It made sense to me, to let the companies know when they were doing something right, instead of just when they were doing something wrong.

So lately when i have come across an outstanding product i have taken a few minutes to email the company about it, giving them my feedback about their products.

I recently did this when i bought a bottle of coffee made by Nature’s Cuppa. It’s definitely better than any of the coffee on the market, in my opinion. It has a full, rich flavour and is helping the environment too. A little bit goes a long way, you don’t need spoonfuls of the stuff just to get some coffee taste like with other major brands.

Nature's Cuppa Organic Coffee

In my email i praised the company for their coffee, and i also mentioned that next time i was at the supermarket i would buy some of their tea to try. A representative from the company responded to me within the day and thanked me for the feedback. She also said that the company would like to send me some tea samples for me to try, which tea would i like to try? I emailed back with a request to try English Breakfast tea thinking that they would stick a couple of tea bags in an envelope and mail it out to me.

Imagine my surprise when a package arrived today with 2 boxes of tea!

2 boxes of tea for me - English Breakfast & Ceylon

Each box has 60 bags. (normally 50 but you get 20% extra at the moment) I checked the price out at the supermarket and they retail for around $5.45 per box.

60 teabags in a box

The great thing about Nature’s Cuppa is that all their products are Certified Organic and use unbleached paper tea bags. All ingredients are genetically non-modified.

Certified Organic by NASAA, USDA

So what does the tea taste like? Well i made my cup of tea with English Breakfast (the one open in the picture), and i am very very happy with the taste. Full bodied flavour, and strong (so the longer you leave the tea bag in the water the stronger the flavour will be), with a dash of milk and a sugar, it is lovely, just what i would expect an English Breakfast tea to taste like. I have been disappointed in the past with Twining’s/Lipton/Tetley etc because their teas are too weak, but this is just right.

I’m not blogging about this because i’ve been paid to do so. I’m simply giving credit to a company who excels in their field, cares about the environment, and their customers! They deserve all the praise i can heap on them. I feel it’s my duty to spread the word as these products are organic, therefore they are not harming the environment, so even if you can’t be a greenie/treehugger, just by having a cuppa you can do your bit.

If you want to know more about Nature’s Cuppa you can go to their website at www.naturescuppa.com

I had no idea what to cook for dinner last night. I had scoured the internet for recipes but wasn’t very inspired. So i got out my Japanese Cookbook and decided to make Niku Jaga. The only problem was i only had one potato. I did have a sweet potato though, so i decided to use both. I also threw in a few runner beans instead of peas. I added some vegetable stock because i was out of dashi.

Niku Jaga boiling away

When Yasu walked in the door he said “oh smells yum, are we having stew?” It actually tasted quite nice, probably a little more like stew as i was abit heavy on the white wine (instead of sake), but in all, very good. It sufficed for something a little different.

After dinner Yasu shocked me with the news that we might be moving to Dubai next year. The economic crunch has hit the boat building industry, and the only place to go will be Dubai, as their boat building industry is very good. I was kinda depressed at first, the thought of moving all that way. Then i did some research and found there’s a “Daisou” (100 yen store) in Dubai, so i’m pretty happy about that! Yasu is now re-thinking because after i told him that, he must have thought…crap she’s gonna spend all our money at Daisou, he knows my history with the 100 yen stores!! Lucky Dubai though, we don’t even have one in Australia i don’t think. Or any 100 yen stores. I wish we did though, that would be so cool.

So yeah, not much news to report except the above. Yasu is working on a boat at the moment, but it won’t be finished until february 2009, so around that time we’ll be assessing the situation. So no need to panic right now as some of my friends have done.

After Michelle’s post at Desperately Seeking Crab, I decided to try out the recipe for myself.

I’m not sure what happened, i followed the recipe to a T, but they just didn’t turn out looking the same, in fact, they seem more like cakes than cookies. They rose pretty high, so they seem more cake-like, i guess even though i only put 1 teaspoon baking soda, it was a little too much.

I thought the amount of butter was excessive too, though they did taste yummy. I didn’t use the choc chip bits as they were too expensive, instead i used Nestle Melts and chopped them up by myself.

Choc chip cookies cooling on the rack

Cookies arranged in the bowl, before Yasu the cookie monster can get ahold of 'em

Another thing i found hard to guess is the temperature settings, which i suppose could have also contributed to the change in texture and shape between Michelle’s and my recipe. I have a fan-forced oven, which i find is hotter than regular ovens, and in some recipes the temperature setting varies as much as 20 degrees. I guess i will have to play around with this recipe and see what temperature works best.

They taste yummy though, and the vanilla just gives it that bit of extra yum. Thanks Michelle!

A couple of weeks ago Yasu brought home some gyoza skins as we were planning a party with some Japanese friends, and he wanted to make some gyoza. The party has since fallen through because they are having a party at their place instead, so the two packets of gyoza had been sitting in the freezer ever since.

I had been thinking of making some gyoza, the only problem was i didn’t have any pork mince. I decided to use the lamb mince that i had, and scoured the internet for a recipe for lamb gyoza. I couldn’t find any. I thought it was strange, they had chicken, beef, and pork gyoza, but no lamb.

I’ve since found out why there are no recipes. Lamb in gyoza is not a good idea. Quite frankly, it smells. And the smell and taste overpowers the ginger and garlic in the gyoza. I found that out last night when i made them. Yasu has always said that lamb is smelly, that’s why Japanese don’t eat it very much. But i had never noticed, maybe because i grew up eating it. Anyway after i started filling the gyoza skins with lamb and they started to cook, i then knew exactly what he was talking about, and the taste of the lamb overpowered all the other flavours.

Luckily, Yasu loves lamb and he declared the gyoza to be “oishii”, yum, in other words, but for me, it totally ruined the gyoza experience. I will not be making it again with lamb! I’m really such a pork gyoza girl. I don’t really even like the seafood gyoza they sometimes have at restaurants, because i’m not really into seafood.

So, if anyone out there is searching for a lamb gyoza recipe – DON’T DO IT!

Also, has anyone ever put anything other than seafood, or pork into gyoza, and if so, what were the results?

I decided to get creative with Yasu’s lunch today, and i made an Anpanman Bento. I’ve been inspired by a few Japanese ladies’ blogs around the net, who make masterpiece bento’s. Of course, i can’t do it like that right now, as it’s the first time i’ve ever made a character bento. I thought it was ok for a first time, and Yasu knew who it was the first time he looked at it, even though it’s not exactly true to detail. I had a problem with mixing the colour, so the face is a little bit redder than the body. Maybe Anpanman got too much sun (we are in Aus after all), or maybe he had too many drinks after work.

Anpanman Bento

The face and body is sushi rice with tuna mayo as a filling (food colouring for the colour), a cheese star as the belt buckle, all on a bed of lettuce with tomato, cucumber, cheese, red onion, and a cherry blossom shaped carrot as the garnish. Scrambled egg around the sides with orange pieces on the other side. Seaweed eyes and mouth and a tomato nose.

I found this somewhat offensive. The term “gaijin” or “outside person” is somewhat derogatory, they could have used “australia jin” to refer to me.

What gets me is that, once you go out of your native country, YOU become the foreigner! The Japanese people i have spoken to seem not to realise this!

So how do Japanese people feel about being referred to as a “gaijin” themselves? According to our friends, it’s not a word they would use to describe themselves. How about “Jap” then? As alot of people in Aus seem to call them that, unbeknownst to them.

I don’t know about you but it’s just one of those things that really ticks me off. All these double standards. It makes it seem like Japanese people think they are higher than other races because they never refer to themselves as “gaijin”.

What are your thoughts?