Anna Matsushita

  31st March 2024 marks Easter, a celebration in Christianity commemorating the resurrection of Christ. This widely embraced Christian holiday, now quite prevalent in Japan, is a moveable feast, changing dates each year. Despite the uncertainties of the pandemic, places like Tokyo Disneyland used to host Easter events in pre-COVID times, featuring egg-shaped chocolates and festive treats. The Easter period spans about a month and a half. In Catholic tradition, it kicks off with Shrove Tuesday's Carnival, 41 days before Easter, followed by Ash Wednesday, marking the start of Lent – a period focusing on prayer, fasting, and charitable acts, sharing in the suffering of Christ. During Lent, individuals often undertake acts of kindness or give up indulgences such as sweets. On Shrove Tuesday, known in the UK as "Pancake Day," festivities involve making and flipping pancakes in a unique competition. Towns and villages host pancake-flipping challenges, and some even attempt the

 One of my friend giggled on SNS, posting a photo of shiso ( Japanese Basil ), saying that nature took its course. Her large garden pot was literally covered with a thousand’s sprouts of shiso.   Shiso (Japanese basil ) is a delightful herb which is harvested throughout summer. It is fragrant, has fresh and slightly sweet aroma.  It has two colour varieties, green and deep red. I think you will see lots of green variety at markets and shops. Red one is mostly used to make pickles. You might recall umeboshi ( Japanese plum pickles) which you can find it in some onigiri rice balls. The colour of umeboshi comes from the red shiso. It gives natural colouring.   Shiso goes well with sashimi or sushi, topped with wasabi horse radish. It has small and pretty white flowers, which is also edible. You could pop some shiso flowers into soy sauce, and dip the fish. The fresh aroma simply fills your nostril.   It is easy to grow from seeds. It is prolific so it is best to watch carefull

 One afternoon, I found some beautiful Kogyoku apples at a supermarket shelve. The apple is pretty hard to come by, it only shows up in Autumn. Kogyoku apple is sour apple, perhaps little sweeter than Granny Smith. When you see this apple, it’s time to cook warm apple pies or apple crumble. This year, I tried making apple pudding. Apple pudding is a simple dessert, and simple to make. And moreover, it is delicious – When I made this at home, half of it went to my neighbor. Within 10 minutes, she rang back and said she loved it.   <Recipe> -----------------------------------------------  Butter – 120g Caster sugar – 120g Egg – 2 large eggs Plain flour – 120g Baking soda – 1/2 tsp Salt – 1 pinch Ginger powder – 1 1/2 tsp Milk   - 3 tbs Kogyoku apples – 1   peeled and quartered, thinly sliced. Honey tbs Whipped cream  ----------------------------------------------------- Grease the baking tin with some butter Pour honey at the bottom of tin

  The second state of emergency was declared in Japan at the beginning of January 2021. The number of COVID-19 patient was increasing at alarmingly high pace. This time hospitals were all prepared, so there were at least some beds for new patients contracted to the virus. It was distressing to watch the evening TV news programme to see the number of patients rising day by day, but that was our reality. I think it was almost the same situation across the world. Many businesses, especially food industries such as bars and restaurants were badly hit, requested to close early. One of my old friend who runs Yakitori and wine restaurant was hit hard. His restaurant in Tokyo serves good wines made in many parts of Japan, and wonderful yakitori (skewered roasted chicken). I used to go there with my friends and colleagues, chatted over wonderful glasses of beer and wine with delicious yakitoris and other dishes. His restaurant normally close at around 24:00, but  he needed to close at 20:00. Co