Autumn Food in Perth

It’s really getting cold in Perth ~….  (do I say this too much? :p )

I really miss kotatsu: which is a wooden table with electric heater built in, and covered by a heavy blanket.  People in Japan spend most of the day around this kotatsu.  We don’t stay inside of the blanket, as it’ll get really hot, but we keep out legs and sometimes half the body inside the blanket and watch tv.  Most of the case we fell asleep after few hours…

I like winter, love the cold air and the snow.  It was snowing heavily when I was born, my mum says.  I was born in February, and the road was frozen when my mum had to rush into the hospital.  It was very early morning, around 2am, and the outside was pure white because of the snow.

One thing I don’t like about winter is the short daytime.  The sun shows up late, and sun goes down early.  It starts to get dark around 5pm these days.  So, if I want to take some pictures I need to do it before 3~4 pm and it is quite a rush to me.

In this cold weather, what I miss is the hearty Japanese winter food.  You can enjoy some of them, including sukiyaki and oden at some Japanese restaurants.  Or, you can simple make them by yourself!  Check out delicious Japanese beef curry recipe from here , or add tomato and arrange it into a soupy Japanese curry like this recipe here.  I also recommend white stew (in Japan we call it “cream stew”) in winter.  Check the recipe here.  Making them are very easy.  You can buy a packet of roux from grocery shops, and you’ll just need to add some vegetables and meat.  Leave it overnight for deeper, developed flavor.

If you want to make oden, the best place to go for shopping is Emma’s Seafood grocery store in Northbridge, I think.  They sell many Japanese products including oden seasoning, and also fish cakes for oden are available inside the store.  I sometimes buy 1 kg of them and do oden party here 😀  You’ll also need konnyaku, daikon radish, firm tofu and boiled eggs etc for oden.  The best thing to add is gyu-suji (bits of beef tendon) if you can find!  Great with warm sake.