Nabe - Japanese Hearty Soup

By Alisha

     Winter is cold. Winter is especially cold when you live within a culture that still doesn't prioritize home insulation. Heaters of every variety - electric, gas, oil - are purchased in droves throughout the season and mountains of sweaters, coats, and woolly socks go out for sale. While I take advantage of all these winter survival strategies, I also like to integrate something that warms me from the inside out rather than from the outside in: food. In America, winter food consists of roasted meat, sweet pies, mashed potatoes, and chicken soup. Here, what has quickly become one of my favorite cold-weather dishes is a food with many variations that is known by just one name: nabe.

nabe1.jpg     In a nutshell, nabe is Japanese soup. Stick a bunch of ingredients in a pot, add some water, put it on some heat for a while, and eat it when it's done. There's not much more to it than that. There seem to be no real rules for nabe (unless you're a stickler, I guess), but there are variations in nabe names based on the ingredients used.

     There's yose nabe, where you can literally choose anything you like and put it in the soup. Then, there's kimchee nabe (shown pictured), which uses Korean kimchee as a base. This makes a spicy, warm soup, and you can choose your preferred level of spicyness as you go. Additionally, there's chanko nabe, which has traditionally been eaten by sumo wrestlers. This is typically a high protein, high calorie soup. There are many different kinds of nabe - everyone can create their own favorite.

     The cooking pot itself is called a nabe. Typically a heavy ceramic pot with a lid, it's filled with the ingredients and placed over a burner. The burner is often a portable one that can be used in the middle of a table. Once steam begins emerging from the hole in the lid of the pot, your food is probably about ready to eat.

     Nabe is eaten by taking the bits you want to eat out of the pot. This means that everyone gets to choose their personally preferred pieces. Each person has their own individual bowl and can take whatever they like. It's very much a communal dish.

nabe2.jpg     Leftovers (of which there were many, with this particular pot) can be refrigerated and reheated. The pictured kimchee nabe was reheated with a little water the next morning. Egg and rice were added to make a tasty breakfast!

Nabe is fun and easy to make. It's a wonderful winter dish that is great for sharing. There are many, many different recipes to try, or you can simply make your own! Regardless, enjoy - you're in for a treat.



By Martin Faynot

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Mom Bears All in A Shoe Store

By Spring Day

     I've been living in Japan over a decade and last week, my mother came to Japan for the first time. It wasn't planned months in advance as most travel in and out of this isolated island is. Her husband was sent to Tokyo on business and she tagged along.
    
     I was so excited and so nervous. She'd be in town for a week. Where do I take her to eat? Could she handle squid on a Popsicle stick or parts of her sashimi still swimming in the tank? Which temple or shrine should I take her to and what do I tell her when she asks me why they're important? Thank you Wikipedia! I studied Japanese history in university but I never could remember which Daimyo did what or why Jomon pottery resembled chubby, alien gingerbread men. As far as I am concerned, Japanese history is: build a temple, burn a temple, build a temple, burn a temple, build a temple, burn a temple... Then somebody discovered concrete and said, "Let's use this everywhere!"

     Fortunately, Mom proved to be easy to please. We went shoe shopping. I had forgotten that as I was growing up, all of our deepest conversations occurred while shopping. This turned out to be the case in Japan too, only the conversations went much deeper as we felt safe from anyone around us understanding our English conversations. My mother's arms flailed, her nostrils flared and her eyes welled up in tears as she described the current family drama that I've (happily) been missing out on this year. The shoe clerk that was knelling on the floor helping her try on shoes looked alarmed as she asked me, "Is it the shoes? Does she hate them?" I told her, "No, it's not the shoes. They are lovely. We're just having a private conversation in a very public place."

Tokyo: Night and Day

By Alisha

     Tokyo is a cool place to be. We've got food, history, entertainment, and all kinds of stuff to see. Living in Shinjuku I see a fair number of tourists wandering around and taking pictures during the afternoon. These groups are usually couples or families. Then there are the tourists I see when I'm on my way home at night. These pods of people are usually groups of three or four college-age Western men strutting down Yasukuni-dori on their way to Kabuki-cho (a notorious red-light district). For both of these groups Tokyo has something to offer. While these groups do not emerge exclusively at one time of day or another, they do highlight something I find very interesting about this city: night and day in Tokyo are as different as, well, night and day.

TokyoNight.jpg     Walk down any street in the afternoon - a back alley or a giant intersection like Shibuya's scramble - you're likely to see plenty of foot traffic. Stores are open, everyone looks fresh-faced. Mom and Pop shops sell their wares while chatting with friends from the neighborhood. Morning/afternoon Tokyo has a very charming appeal, especially in some of the less-traveled areas of the city.

     Wait around for a few hours, though, and you'll see the landscape change right before your eyes. Lighted lanterns come on in front of restaurants. Neon signs flicker into bright beacons. Shutters fall on family vegetable stores, and signs come out in front of bars and eateries with handwritten messages to customers scribbled hastily on them in chalk. Places you didn't even notice existed in the afternoon suddenly become glaringly obvious at night.

    It's a cool change. To be fair, some people are more suited to morning or evening activities. I have always been a more late-afternoon/evening person myself, which means a 2PM brunch is my preferred first meal of the day. Watching the city gradually, almost imperceptibly come to life in the evenings is still amazing to me. I get goose bumps when my train pulls into Shinjuku station at 9:45 PM and I see the glittering lights of the city center.

     While night time Tokyo and its variety of entertainment options may not be for everyone, it's worth experiencing once at the very least. Just don't let any hosts or hostesses convince you to come to their place. Unless, of course, you've got a fat wallet and a taste for adventure.


Fashionable Girls Are Genius

By Thatjapanesegirl

This is my first blog here on J-Bloggers. I would like to talk about something that I've been wondering about for a long time, because I finally figured out the answer for that.

I have been wondering a recent trend where girls are wearing glasses without lenses. I finally found out why.

I found a advertisement at a popular store the other day. It says that by wearing glasses without lenses your fake long lashes won't irritate your eyes! 

Some girls love fake long lashes. So when they are wearing them, they cannot wear glasses. Those ridiculously long lashes hit the lenses and irritate your eyes. But they still want to be stylish and wear cool glasses. Then, they got a great idea. Yes. They got rid of the lenses.

Genius!

Now it makes sense why they are wearing glasses without lenses. It doesn't stop me wanting to try and poke their eyes though.  Ok... I'm joking.  Maybe.

About me

martin
Kevin Cooney

Kevin Cooney is a long time Tokyo resident. He makes regular appearances on TV as a reporter. He has his own popular internet video series. He performs stand-up comedy regularly in clubs around Tokyo. In his free time he is an avid chef, and hiker.

Claytonian
Claytonian

Claytonian lives in the countryside of Japan. A very different lifestyle to the hustle and hum of urban centers like Tokyo. He takes a look at some of the traditions and settings that make Japan a unique place to live.

Anna
Anna Kunnecke

Raised in Japan, Anna wears many hats: voice artist, international business consultant, life coach, mother. But the hats are nothing compared to the shoes! See Japan through her eyes, a working mother in Tokyo.

martin
Martin Faynot

Martin Faynot a.k.a. Marutan is a french illustrator living in Tokyo since 2002. He has published many illustrated books and his passion for Tokyo keeps him always on a quest to discover and observe how the city evolves. Tokyo as seen from behind his sketch pad.

Emily Connor
Emily Connor

Emily is a young singer, songwriter just breaking onto the Japanese music scene. Mostly self-taught, she became fluent in Japanese and moved to Tokyo at only 18. Following her musical dream, she has already made a name for herself in Japanese entertainment. She shares in this blog her life experiences in Tokyo and a first hand look at someone already becoming "Big in Japan."

Alisha
Alisha

Alisha is a Tokyo resident who works as an English teacher and web marketer. Having studied Japanese in high school and university, she moved to Japan to begin a business career. She explores her life in Japan in depth on her personal blog and via YouTube. In her free time, she enjoys eating both new and familiar foods, playing video games, and adventuring in Tokyo.

Spring Day
Spring Day

Product of hippie parents, American Spring Day (Yes, that’s her real name) left her hometown of Kansas City in 2001 and has called Tokyo home ever since. Fluent in Japanese and English, Spring does stand-up comedy at the Tokyo Comedy Store and around the world.

Thatjapanesegirl
Thatjapanesegirl

Thatjapanesegirl, who often goes by TJG, was born in Kyoto, Japan. She moved to Toyko in 2010. When she's not working she enjoys making fun videos for Youtube. In addition, she loves playing video games, buying cameras and bouldering.

Danny
Danny Choo

Danny registers over two million unique users a month on his very own website and is an expert on his biggest passion: Japanese figurines. In this new Japan themed blog is all the latest from the world of Akiba-culture and society at large.