Snacks-of-the-Month for March

Both my appetite and my reading addiction disappeared in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake but after bidding a temporary farewell to many good friends I've made up for lost time by crawling into bed every night with an assortment of snacks and one or two books. Few of the books were noteworthy -- I blame that on my general mood and not the authors' shortcomings -- but the snacks were a different matter entirely.

Beard Papa's offered three cream puff fillings this month: custard, strawberry, and banana. Delicious does not begin to describe those banana cream puffs dipped in chocolate. The assortment boxes whispering "Taste test!" appealed to my inner scientist which I did not even know existed prior to the earthquake, proving the existence of that proverbial silver lining for the umpteenth time.

Fujiya introduced several fun new packages to celebrate Girls Day on March 3. The box above contained the usual mixture of hard candies and chocolates, long ago deemed not worth the calories, but the furoshiki (traditional wrapping cloth) featuring a cheerful Peko-chan Cherry Blossom print insisted I part with a few yen. Katherine Hepburn opted for turtlenecks to hide her neck wrinkles as she aged so why can't I conceal my wrinkles in Peko-chans?

The Meiji Corporation had us racing from one convenience store to the next in March. They introduced macadamia and almond bamboo shoot cookies, crunchy honey mushroom-shaped cookies, and cheesecake-flavored bamboo shoot cookies in little snack-size bags. The latter taste more like cheese than cake, meaning not so good, meaning we're glad we only had to polish off the contents of that tiny bag instead of our normal big box portion.

Not pictured and not personally sampled are waffle cookies imported from Holland. I spotted them in the fancy grocery store on the first floor of Sakaiya and picked up both the plain and caramel varieties for Kate and James because their father is three-quarters Dutch and I thought the windmills on the packages would make them smile. Kate doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, go figure, so her unsolicited rave review caught me by surprise. When I asked James which treats he favored in the March shipment, he barely hesitated before ranking the waffle cookies at the top of his list. Now Matt and I are feeling a bit left out, so I'll be marching back to Sakaiya to rectify that little problem the first chance I get.

Which won't be today because I have a date with Misa and Toyoko, two of the original Shonan ladies. By "original" I mean "they remember World War II." I'll be the only person in the car under the age of seventy-five and I'll be in the back seat. I'm a bit nervous about that.

Hot Lemonade: The Latest Thing in Handwarmers

Nothing comes close to piping hot lemonade when you're standing on a train platform and the only thing whistling down the tracks is a bitter wind. Maybe the hot maple syrup drink is even tastier, but we won't know until someone works up the nerve to try it. The fact that a single vending machine offers both hot and cold drinks still amazes me.

The Year of the Rabbit has been delightfully flavorful so far.  Here are a few of my favorite discoveries. 

'Twinkies' for Jim and his banker pals

The seasonal crop of Strawberries and Cream mushroom-shaped cookies are back on the shelves alongside chocolate bamboo shoots with strawberry-flavored icing.

The Ancient Mariner and I inhaled six of these delectable strawberry cream puffs in as many days last week. None of them sat on the counter long enough to be photographed so you'll have to settle for the poster that's propped in Beard Papa's window.

Tully's coffee shops are almost as rampant as Starbucks here. The description on the bag of Dutchman's blend - "deep, spicy, complex" - made me think of my own little Katje and Hans.



"Deep, Rich, Winy" and "Nutty, Sweet, Balanced" for the Ancient Mariner and his bride



Welkom to My Children's Distant Relatives

Dank U wel for stopping by. I haven't a clue why so many Netherlanders have visited my blog in the past couple of months but I am thrilled nonetheless. My two oldest children, you see, are three-eighths Dutch and are saddled with a surname that translates to "keeper of the dyke". Their great-great-grandfather was your Queen's tailor before emigrating to the United States. De wereld is zo klein! De wereld, mijn dorp!

Yes, it really is a small world. The Netherlands and Japan enjoyed a friendship long before Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay. This relationship is described in David Mitchell's book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I recommend to anyone interested in history.

You would probably feel even more at home in Japan than I do. Your ancestors brought tulips here and many of the rivers, especially in urban areas, have concrete banks that make them look more like canals than rivers. I have not yet spied a windmill but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

Although I've never visited the Netherlands corporeally, my imagination has taken me to your lovely country often thanks to authors like Mary Mapes Dodge, John Irving, Jeffrey Lent, and someone else whose name escapes me and I'm too lazy to thumb through my reading log this morning. In my dreams I've raced down your frozen canals on silver skates more nights than I can count.

Zo, dank U wel.