Kelly Azuma

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night because i couldn’t stop coughing. I have been taking antibiotics, and i took one just before bed but i couldn’t get to sleep. So i stayed up and played Jewel Quest on my ipod touch while coughing myself silly. Finally i couldn’t stand any more, and about 4am i took half a restavit sleeping pill. Within 20 minutes my eyes started to get droopy and i crawled into bed and must have fallen asleep because the next thing i knew Yasu was waking me up to say goodbye, he was going to his baseball game at 8:30 am. I said my goodbyes and crawled back into bed, the next time i woke up it was 1:30 pm in the afternoon and i felt pretty shocking.

I got up, got dressed and attacked the big sink of dishes waiting for me from the last two days. Yes no maid here to come and do them for me! No fairies either it seems. Just after i finished those, Yasu came home from his game, his team had lost, and he recanted all the funny things that had gone on.

Yasu’s sister had bought him a Japanese itunes card so he got on the itunes store and created an account and set about downloading some of his favourite bands, including Chage and Aska (or in my words “creepy  music”). I don’t know how i could meet someone with such different tastes in music. Ugh. Anyways, he spent the whole afternoon downloading music onto his ipod, and then uploading music from his cd’s, and then he started singing… ugh. Not again. He always sings in the car, drives me crazy, he’s such a songbird, i wouldn’t be surprised if he was a canary in a past life!

Yasu watched the latest episode of 篤姫 (Atsuhime), the current Taiga Drama on NHK. I love all the costumes on that show and the female lead is such a good actress. Later on Yasu downloaded the soundtrack from the show on itunes so i had to hear the song over and over. Now it’s stuck in my head.

I made a big pot of chunky potato and bacon soup and some home made garlic bread for dinner, though we didn’t get to eat it until 8:30 pm as Yasu was stuffing around on itunes. It was yum though! A couple of pics from my phone below.

Chunky potato & bacon soup

My home-made garlic bread

I watched CSI: Miami, a double episode tonight, then served dessert – fruit and icecream. Yasu went off to bed with his earphones in, very annoying as every time i talk to him now he doesn’t answer because he can’t hear me. Boys and their toys! I guess i’ll just have to bear it until he loses interest in his new gadget.

Looking ahead to a busy week of cleaning, scrubbing and washing until our guest comes from Japan.

As we become more and more aware of Melamine popping up in products that we buy, i thought that the information below was very relevant.

The below information is from a newsletter i receive weekly from unknown country.

“Even though the FDA is finally addressing the possible introduction of Melamine laced dairy into the US market from China, there is still no legislation forcing manufacturers to clearly disclose where products are made. Thankfully, consumers are no longer “buying blind.” There is one way to determine the originating country of a particular item – the barcode.
The next time you are are wondering where a product is made, check out the first three numbers of the barcode. If the digits are 690-695, then it is made in China. A more complete list is below:

00 – 13 USA & Canada
30 – 37 France
40 – 44 Germany
49 Japan
480 Philippines
50 UK
57 Denmark
64 Finland
76 Switzerland and Liechtenstein
628 Saudi Arabia
629 United Arab Emirates
690 – 695 China
740 – 745 Central America”

It’s not actually complete as yet, as it doesn’t list Australia, and i know that we do manufacture goods and export, so i will be looking for that info and update when i find it. At least we can go some way towards protecting ourselves from inferior products.

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!