My version of restaurant review!!

Trattoria Pizzeria Gastronomia

NAPOLIMANIA

Here is the link to the site!

NAPOLIMANIA

Thank you for reading:)

Poem Presentation: Sherbet

 As one of the class assignments, I made a presentation about a poem "Sherbet".

*You can read it here!

About the Author

This poem was written by Cornelius Eady who was born in Rochester, New York and is an author of seven volumes of poetry. In most of Eady’s poems, there is a musical quality drawn from the Blues and Jazz. Also, he centers on family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questions of race and class.

His poetry is often praised for its simple and approachable language. 

In this poem, certainly, it is true that many of the words used in this poem seem to be simple. This makes it easy to understand, but at the same time, it makes you think about the meaning of the words.

About the Poem

The title of this poem, and the food it is based on, is sherbet.

The title and motif of the poem is sherbet, a frozen confection made by adding sugar, fruit juice, or acid, and may contain milk fat or milk solids.

In English-speaking countries, the word "sherbet" is polysemous and refers to ice cream (United States) or bursting candy (United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia).

About the Words used in the poem

Now let's get back to the explanation of the poem.

First, let's talk about black and white. This refers to the color of the skin, as in black man, white wife. The author is an African-American, and this poem is about racial issues, which is one of his styles.

Next, let's talk about the name of the place, Richmond, Virginia. This is the place where the capital of the American Confederacy, founded in 1861 during the Civil War, was located. This war was fought between the North, which supported the abolition of slavery, and the South, which advocated the continuation of slavery, and we can see that these are historically important place names in the American black issues.

Next, let's look at the sentence "the end of- dispute, a group of islands, ouor side, the fence". The next sentence, "the end of- dispute," uses the word "border," which may refer to the Cold War that divided the world into the West and the East. Sorbet is a cold food, and the word "cold" is used to describe the Cold War.

The word "a group" refers to the western and eastern countries, and "our side" may refer to the western countries to which the U.S. belongs. However, since "what do we call the rich" is used, the author may be wondering which principle is more appropriate.

Comments

WhenI read the poem, the image of a black man enjoying an elegant moment in a luxurious hotel while the other white people looked at him coldly came to my mind.

Even with the fight of black and white over, the US still had a problem of Cold War.

I thought that the author tells the problems of America through this poem.

Thaks for reading:)

IVE Project

Have you ever heard "IVE Project" before?

This is a virtual exchanging program that is used for university students around the world.

There are several kinds of topics.

We can post anything related to each topic, and get replies from all over the world.

When I posted about ice cream, a Turkish girl replied about Turkish Ice Cream.

It is very famous even in Japan, and I have eaten it before.

However, I didn't know that Turkish people make it in their house so each family has its own taste. 

Posting about what I'm interested in and getting replies from all over the world is a very fun experience.

To access and join, you need ID and password so anyone can see it, but if you are a student, you should ask your teacher to join the project!!

Thank you for reading:)

Additional Information for Recipe Presentation!

In my pasta recipe, I used just only men-tsuyu.

As I said, it is very useful seasoning.

Therefore, this time, I would like to explain the history and production process of this all-purpose seasoning, men-tsuyu.

To begin with, men-tsuyu is a seasoning made by adding dashi (broth) to a base of soy sauce and mixing it with mirin, sake, and sugar.

It is said that the birth of it dates back to the Muromachi period, when udon already existed.

The author of the "Soba Zensho" (Complete Book of Soba) written in the Edo period, Nissinsha Tomo Soba, wrote that he did not use dried bonito flakes because he preferred vegetarian soup (soup without animal protein), indicating that everyone enjoyed making "men-tsuyu" to suit their own tastes.

However, as the name suggests, it is a seasoning designed to be used with noodles, and is used for noodles during the summer such as somen, soba, and udon. It is sold in a very diverse lineup of types, including those used diluted or straight, and types of dashi. However, as can be seen from the ingredients, it is often used as a seasoning pre-mixed with soy sauce and sake in dishes that use them.

There are actually several types of noodle soups.

Honkaeshi

Kaeshi, which is made by boiling down heated soy sauce with sugar and mirin, is called hon kaeshi. it is also characterized by the fact that it is made by letting it sit for about a week. It is said that most kaeshi used in men-tsuyu is hon kaeshi.

This type of kaeshi is generally used for men-tsuyu. It is made by heating the ingredients together, which gives it a mild flavor.

Raw kaeshi

Raw kaeshi is made by heating sugar and mirin to a syrup-like consistency and adding unheated soy sauce. This type of kaeshi is often used for soba noodle soup. It takes two to four weeks longer to make kaeshi than honzuke.

Since no heat is added to the soy sauce, the flavor of the soy sauce itself can be enjoyed.

Hansei kaeshi

Kaeshi is made by heating a small amount of soy sauce, adding sugar and mirin, and mixing it with unheated soy sauce.

The method of making kaeshi varies greatly from store to store, and there is no clear definition.

Gozen gaeshi

Gozen-kaeshi or Kami-kaeshi is made by adding mirin to kaeshi and letting it sit. It is used as a soup for zaru soba (buckwheat noodles) and has a mild sweetness and flavor.

Gozen kaeshi is more advanced and thicker than regular kaeshi, but there are very few restaurants that use it now.

 

Did you know that men-tsuyu has such a plenty of variety, so that it can work for many kinds of dishes??

When you are worried about making Japanese cuisine, I strongly recommend you to use men-tsuyu as a sesoning.

Thank you for reading:)

Recipe Presentation: Pasta with tuna and many many mashrooms

This time, I made "Pasta with tuna and many many mashrooms".

I live in alone so I had to cook for myself but unfortunately, I am not good at cooking so I cannnot make complex meal so instead of that, I use easy recipe.

This recipe is originally made by my mom.

Both of my father and mother are busy so my mother have less time to make meals even though she loves cooking and also a great cook. Thus, this recipe is guaranteed to taste great and be easy to follow.  

Actually, before I started living alone, she taught me this. 

Here is the recipe.

1. Cut the ingredients (onions and mashrooms)

2.While cutting the ingredients, boil water. When the water comes to a boil, add the pasta and cook according to the time indicated.

3.Then, fry the ingredients.
First, fry the onions, and when they appear to be heated through, add the mushrooms. After they are heated through, add the tuna and men-tsuyu lightly fry.

4.Finally, dress the fried ingredients with the boiled pasta.

Serving suggestions: 

This time I used only men-tsuyu for seasoning, but you can add salt, pepper, or other seasonings.

Brief Description: 

As you know from the description, you can make the pasta very easily. Also, men-tsuyu is enough seasoning to make this so as long as you know its right amount, you can season without any particular fine measurement of it. However, you can add salt, pepper or any other seasoning because you may want to make it saltier or something else, so you can adjust your best taste.

Serving quantity: enough for 1 person

l Ingredients: 1⁄2 Onion l 1⁄2 Shimeji Mashroom l 3 Shiitake Mashroom l 1⁄2 Maitake Mashroom l 1 Tsuna

l Pasta
l Noodle Soup (mentsuyu)

Materials needed: a knife, a cutting board, a pan, a pot, a dish, tongs

I used only mentsuyu to season this dish.

But also I use it as the main seasoning in many other dishes, such as making meat and potatoes or stir-frying something.

If you are busy but have to make something for yourself, I recommend this recipe!

Thank you for reading:)

Italian Family's food custom!

 I gave a presentation about Italian cuisine based on the book Hungry Planet. 

The book focused on families from all over the world, and the life of a family of four living in Sicily, Italy was used to introduce Italian cuisine.

We introduced this family, 

Giuseppe: fishmonger

Piera: Housewife

Pietro: 9years old

Domenico: 7years old

Maurizio: 2years old

They consume them in a week.

They lived near the sea and his father works as a fishmonger, but it does not mean that fish consumption is high.

Their town is very small so that there are a lot of mini shops, however, recently hyper market has been adventing, the survival of these stores is in jeopardy.

I'm from rulal area and actually, this problem happend in my town, too. Such big store is very useful but  I want those stores exists in my town. How can I solve this problem??

If you have good ideas, let me know!!

Thank you for reading:)

Restaurant Reviews: *** A Video Review ***

 

As one of the activity of the class, I watched a video called Leaf Organics Raw Vegan Food Restaurant Review

And this time, I would like to describe how the video was.

What is focused on in the review? :

The explaining of the features of the food. He often praised the meal but he didn’t describe taste of the food so many. 

What features does it have in common with it? : 

Are chefs, owners, managers, or restaurant staff featured in the video? They never showed up in the video.

Do you think this was helpful in providing useful information about the restaurant or did it make the review too biased? : He seems to have enough information of the food so the opinion or general theory that he gave to me was very helpful. 

What criticisms do you have of the video, either concerning the professionalism, production quality or the content? : The information that John gave and the angle of view was also good. However, there was a  concern. This video was posted in 2012 so it might be inevitable that the quality of the video was low, however, John, who created the video could make better quality. Look at the scene of his appearance.

You can only see the sign of the store due to the backlighting. When I played this video, I couldn't help but poke my head in, "What's going on?" When I played this video, I couldn't help but ask myself, "What's going on?

Notice whether the voices of the speakers are monotonous or have a pleasing emphasis on certain (key) words and phrases. How does that affect your understanding and enjoyment of it? : When I listened to his explanation, I felt his passion for the food. Also, he is a raw food person, so all of his videos is related to raw food, thus he used the word “raw” very very often. 

At the 3:38 mark of the video:

In this video, he shared about 5 meals, and the most impressive one was the hamburger. To begin with, a hamburger is made of bread, vegetables, and hamburger. Since this restaurant specializes in raw and vegan food, I understand that the meat can be substituted with vegan meat. So what surprised me? It was that the bread was dehydrated bread. Normally, bread is baked, but the bread used here is dehydrated. I didn't know that such a thing existed in this world, so I really want to try it.　

At the 2:28 mark of the video: 

He zoomed in on the food and it was still blurry.

For those reasons, I think the video was not appropriate to tell about the restaurant. Even though the video was taken 2012, he could have made better quality one. But, although it was not restaurant review, I watched his latest video. The quality of the video seemed grown up and of course his knowledge of the food was very impressive. So the video which I was assigned was not good, though his latest one is useful to know about restaurants.

If you are interested in raw vegan food, his YouTube channnel is the best!

Here is the link :) okraw

Thank you for reading!!