Experimental Supper Club #5

As I’ve written before, I use Paprika to organize my recipes, and one of the category labels I use is “Try” for recipes I haven’t made yet. But at some point, I started saving recipes to this category faster than I made them, and it got completely out of control–350 recipes or something like that.Continue reading “Experimental Supper Club #5”

Nakasendo Trail: Post-game show

Two words: SUMO and CAPYBARAS. But not yet. We woke up to a hot, hazy morning in Tōkyō. Just a couple of blocks strolling around Asakusa made it very clear we were going to have to make a plan that involved air conditioning. So, we set off for the Tōkyō National Museum and enjoyed aContinue reading “Nakasendo Trail: Post-game show”

Nakasendo Trail: Day 6 (Oku-Hida and Takayama)

Really, I have no one to blame but myself. I’m the one who insisted on (me at least) catching the 10 am bus to Takayama so I could maximize my time in the traditional lacquerware town before we caught our train back to Tōkyō. True, Cheryl is the one who then suggested we get upContinue reading “Nakasendo Trail: Day 6 (Oku-Hida and Takayama)”

Nakasendo Trail: Day 5 (Kamikochi and Fukuji Onsen)

One word for today: MONKEYS!! But not yet. We decided to take one more dip in the onsen at Higashi Ishikawa and delay our departure for Kamikochi in the morning a bit in order to give the rain a chance to pass over, and our strategy appeared to work—we never suffered more than a sprinklingContinue reading “Nakasendo Trail: Day 5 (Kamikochi and Fukuji Onsen)”

Nakasendo Trail: Day 5 (Yabuhara to Narai and Matsumoto)

What I learned today was that life in the Japanese Alps during the Sengoku (Warring Provinces) period must have been fairly brutal for all involved–the warlords who were constantly having to raise armies to attack their rivals, or defend against those attacks; the reluctant farmers who were forced to leave the rice paddies they hadContinue reading “Nakasendo Trail: Day 5 (Yabuhara to Narai and Matsumoto)”

Nakasendo Trail: Day 4 (Kiso-Fukushima)

Today was my favorite day of the trip even though we just stayed around Kiso-Fukushima, and that was largely because it was my sister’s birthday, so we maximized the fun. The weather had thankfully cooled off a bit, so while the Germans peeled off to go back to a nature preserve on the Kiso RiverContinue reading “Nakasendo Trail: Day 4 (Kiso-Fukushima)”