What is your favorite ice cream flavor? It is chocolate-mint for Mei-Shun. Cup, corn or bar, any type would be welcomed. She recently found a chocolate-coated bar — how gorgeous! As rice seedlings grow up, her weight started to decrease. For a success in control, she must make that great taste once-a-month joy.
Mei-Shun reserved a beauty salon in Shinagawa again, not to avoid a phone call from Dr. A. Shin’s schedule allowed them to meet there only today.
A 加賀(=Kaga, current Ishikawa Prefecture) cuisine restaurant always guides them into a room called 寿椿, meaning celebrated camellia. A wooden “pheasant” welcomes them as usual, yet his blue feather is all different from normal ones. You are a peacock, aren’t you?
… Woops, no message was recorded on our home phone.
They have 3 breeds of 八重桜 at 乙戸沼 Park. One looks like holding a lot of 桜餅=sakura-mochi, a seasonal Japanese sweet with leaf-flower combination of brown-violet pink. Another has less browned-normal pink while the last one green-delicate shade of light pink as follows.
Mikan-chan has two watering places; one is a plastic bowl set in her cage, the other is an automatic fountain. The latter has a tank behind, yet the user is better to know time for cleaning. When she tried and walk away, mom has to clean it even if the tank is not empty.
Please take the most profound gratefulness of Mei-Shun, Professor S. This bottle accommodates a perfume from the Sultanate of Oman, called “tarha” meaning a bride’s veil in Arabic. Three respectful professors of the University of Tsukuba kindly held a birthday party for Mei-Shun last Saturday; January 13th on the lunar calendar. The same restaurant they met last year served two glasses of beer instead of wine.
Mei-Shun visited a beauty salon in Shinagawa. She enjoyed many plum trees in blossom along Joban Line. And on the way to the saloon, bright pink color jumped into her eyes — it is 河津桜=kawazu-sakura, a cherry breed which blooms in early spring. After the haircut, she met with Shin at a hotel which accommodates one of their favorite Japanese cuisine restaurant.
… Mei-Shun has grown around her waist. It occurs every year actually, since she has too much sweets, feasts and alcohol of great taste from the end of December to the middle of January. Now she started to reduce carbo, her favorite, in diet. It is the most feared to get weight back immediately, so good cooking to enjoy every necessary nutrient is the key.
Our favorite pâtisserie “Arles” serves the best Galette des Rois. We have made it the birthday cake for Mei-Shun since 2012. And it was she who won the fève clearly this year, while she shared it with Shin last year. Oh? Honey, do you celebrate mom, posing with her crown on the table?
Princess Mikan
Many of us enjoy 七草粥 (=nanakusa-gayu) today. 5 kinds of wild, edible leaves and 2 vegetables are cooked in rice porridge. This simple dish is gentle for our tired stomachs after feasts of new-year celebration.
One morning, Mikan-chan’s mom brought brown rice to a farmhouse to polish. It was so easy to operate the machine that she hummed being a bit careless. Mikan-chan meowed softly when mom showed her a sack of white, shining rice. She looked satisfied with it.
meishunkikunoe 