ayasushi

Why eat less tasty when you can make it taste better?

Usually it’s only a little more effort required to make food taste better.

I feel good when I can make food taste really good with a little bit of extra effort. We don’t need to over do it. Just a little extra.

What I usually do not skip doing is to roast sesame and grind it on my own. You can make some and store it in a glass jar to sprinkle it on salads and starters. It really lifts up the taste.

I also do not hesitate to wash Rice and Quinoa thoroughly before cooking. It makes a difference and you can really enjoy your meal more.

Another thing worth doing is to wring out the water in a salad wringer after washing the salad leaves ( like lettuce and ruccola). The salad will become crispy and much more tastier.

Yes, I could say that eating delicious food is my hobby 🙂

As far as I know, we Japanese have a tradition to value our time to sit and contemplate in the bath.

We usually just sit and close our eyes in a Japanese bath or have a small conversation with the people you are taking a bath with. This is still an important part of our culture.

This is why there are so many onsen ryokans in Japan.  A traditional Japanese inn at the thermal baths. There is a thermal bath called “Kanzanji onsen” near my hometown, Hamamatsu.

We stayed at the Kokonoe Hotel. A traditional Japanese roykan.

They have many baths to choose from and we sit and relax in them one by one.

We usually take a bath before and after the meal and then one more dip before going to bed. We also take a dip before breakfast when we visit an onsen.

The way to take a bath is:

1. take off your slippers at the entrance of the bathroom
2. take off your clothes at the changing room
3. take the small towel (tenugui) with you
4. wash you body before you go into the bath (there are buckets to splash water on at the entrance of the bath). You can take a shower or sit by the water facettes and wash your body.
5. after you have cleaned your body, take a dig in the bath you like. Sit and relax for about 10 minutes.
6. Go back and wash your body thoroughly because now it is easier to scrup off the old skin.
7. After cleaning your body thoroughly, go and take a dig again.
8. You can explore different kinds of baths if the onsen offers it.

Usually a ryokan provides not only the baths but a fancy kaiseki meal. The menu is usually made up of 10 different bits of this and that decorated in beautiful bowls and plates.

The Japanese usually spend only one night at the ryokan. We are not used to taking many days off.

Here are some images of the Kanzanji onsen I went to on this trip.

I visited my family and hometown, plus a bunch of other places this time when I went back to Japan. Everytime I go back, I am stunned by the delicious food people make in Japan. We are greedy about eating good food.