Happy Holidays!

Best wishes for a wonderful 2007.

the best invention for winter

Other than long underwear, the best winter invention is disposable body warmers! 使い捨てカイロ（つかいすてかいろ）in Japanese, these little packets of heat are great in cold weather. They're apparently made of carbon and other things and are bio-degradable. One packet lasts the entire day. I may go through a lot this winter! It's about 300 yen for a packet of 10.

edited: weird, random span tags sneaked into my post. The dangers of cut & pasting text.

Shopping maps

I just discovered superfuture. It has an awesome amount of detail on the Harajuku/Aoyama area. I had no idea that all these stores were there! I should wander around a lot this weekend. Holiday tomorrow!

Japanese post: new vocab

I'm sure you were all dying to know how to say eyelash curler in Japanese. Your wait has ended!

ビューラー byuuraa

I have no idea where that comes from.

the secret to kara age (fried chicken)

The secret is honey! It makes the chicken tender and juicy, according to a cooking show I watched today. Also, dipping the chicken in egg before battering helps the batter stick to the chicken.

(apologies to any vegetarians reading this)

I haven't run across frozen chicken in my local supermarkets (5). Campbell's chicken soup and chicken broth seems to have disappeared from Kaldi also. They only have cream of chicken soup. They did start carrying risotto too. Has anyone ever used ghee? They carry it! Apparently it adds richness to curry.

creative japanese brands

Some brand names are very interesting.

muenster/munster cheese

I can't seem to find this in Tokyo! I was wondering if it was a purely American invention, but apparently it originated in France's Alsace region, according to the Food Network.

In other news, today is a holiday. I am cleaning up my room and going shopping later. Yay!