白と翡翠茄子 White and Jade Eggplants

I have many WOW moments in Japan, and a lot of them are contributing to the amazing work by Japanese farmers.


This summer, the eggplants are having a revolution.

At the farmer's market, in addition to many sizes/shapes, for the first time in my life, I saw white eggplants and jade eggplants. 





The white eggplants really look like white eggs - making me appreciate the name "eggplants" more than ever.




I have found cookbooks dedicated to eggplants in the bookstores - not 1, but 2. 

One is for Japanese-style cooking of eggplants.

The other is for Western-style cooking of eggplants.


I plan to try them out before the summer ends. 💋

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

鳴かぬなら If the bird does not sing

I was recently given the opportunity to work with a team under the leadership of Mr. Takada. His slogan for this term is  " 鳴かぬなら、そういう種類の  ほととぎす ". As expected, I was quite clueless even after I asked help from google translation. Finally, a friend came to enlighten me. ほととぎす (ホトトギス/杜鵑) means the cuckoo bird . In Japan, there are the 3 famous Haiku Poems（俳句）by Warriors in the Sengoku era（戦国武将）. They are famous because each haiku poem shows warrior’s characteristics. -   Nobunaga Oda（織田信長） said, `If the bird does not sing, I will kill it.’ (鳴かぬなら　殺してしまえ　ホトトギス) -   Hideyoshi Toyotomi（豊臣秀吉）said, ‘If the bird does not sing, I will force it to sing.’ (鳴かぬなら　鳴くのに代えよう　ホトトギス) -   Ieyasu Tokugawa（徳川家康）said ‘If the bird does not sing, I will wait until it starts to sing,’　 (鳴かぬなら　鳴くまで待とう　ホトトギス) There are many followers to imitate this expression including Mr. Takada's version:  鳴かぬなら、そういう種類の    ほととぎす What does it mean? My Japanese-speaking Toastmasters friends helped me after the m
Read more

Dining Club (1) - Le Gourmet Toastmasters Club (Founder's District)

Image
This is a club chartered in 1978 that meets monthly at a different restaurant in Southern California. It belongs to the "Founder's District" as Orange County is where Toastmasters International started, and where the headquarter used to be before 2019.  I was a member of this club, and it was my annual anticipation for the year-end visit to Cafe Mozart, an European Bistro in San Juan Capistrano. Le Gourmet Toastmasters Club has a core group of members who are current or past District Officers. Although it never says so, it feels like an advanced club when you speak among so many DTMs. The special meeting arrangements of Le Gourmet Toastmasters Club are: 1. Restaurant Selection The cuisine selections are never boring: Italian, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Mexican, Chinese, European, Mediterranean, Hawaiian, Peruvian, Thai, BBQ, ... you  name it. The officers did their best to negotiate the menu within a reasonable of price and variety to cater for special diet needs (e.g. veg
Read more

Morning Club (1) - Early Bird Toastmasters Club

Image
This is the club which typically met in the amazing Freemasons Hall in Covent Garden. Nothing really can beat the location! But the club is temporarily meeting on line. The club meeting is 90-minutes, and a few things really impressed me: 1. Flexible Table Topics Time + immediate evaluation The speaking time was 45 second - 1 min 15 second on my visit. This is not the typical 1-2 min duration, which nicely fit into the 90-min meeting. I also like the immediate TT evaluation after the session, which was conducted by an experience member. Many think that impromptu speech is hard to make, and harder to evaluate. However, the well-trained speakers will tell you that impromptu speeches can be practiced and you should practice before you're called upon to talk about important matters. I like the TT master who have a very clear instruction on timing rule at the beginning. He also offer tips for beginners (to just jump in and do it) and for more experienced members (to plan is like a speec
Read more