Making onigiri

Hey, it's my birthday today! And my friend Katy's, too! My sister's taking me out for dim sum today, yum. Jeff and I are going out for dinner this evening.

Logged onto my e-mail this morning to find an early morning birthday greeting from my father as well as a notice from Livejournal saying that Allison had sent me a virtual gift. The latter told me to check my LJ User Profile, which made me curious. I checked my page, and was surprised to find a virtual bouquet of colourful balloons waiting for me. Thanks for the morning smile, Allison! :-D

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. In addition to the new comic, I have a column about writing collaboration with a profile of Chery O'Donovan and Tom Wolferman, the co-authors of The Estrogen Underground ("subversive humor for the woman over forty").



I spoke too soon when I said I wasn't all that sore after my first run. Yesterday afternoon I felt like I had just leg-wrestled with a crazed Thighmaster. Despite the soreness and the fact that I felt more like napping instead of exercising after work, I went running again. Yes, I'm nuts, but the weather was too great to pass up. Still sore this morning, but not as much as yesterday.

While browsing Sanko's with Ray and Jeff on the weekend, I bought a package of pickled plums. My mom used to make onigiri (rice balls) with pickled plums (umeboshi) when I was a child, so I decided to see if I could recreate one of my favourite childhood snacks.

Historically, onigiri was used as a quick meal and used to be a simple ball of rice flavoured with salt. Nori wasn't used until later (Meiji period), when the process of nori farming and sheet-making became more widespread. Many samurai apparently stored rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaves as a quick lunchtime meal at war. The word onigiri, meaning rice ball, comes from nigiru, a verb meaning "to grasp or grip". Nowadays, onigiri is still a popular snack in Japan and can be found in local convenience stores and train stations. Here's a page with photos of various convenience store onigiri.

I've also noticed a growing interest in onigiri because of its frequent appearance in anime series. Here's an amusing (and informative!) report of someone who tried making onigiri for this reason.

For more historical info about onigiri, see this Wikipedia entry.

Here's my rice cooker, which was a gift from my parents when I first moved out:



While I waited for the cooked rice to cool just enough to handle, I removed the pits from a few of these pickled plums and then chopped up the fruit:



I only used a few, but the helpful guy at Sanko (730 Queen St. W, Toronto, ON, M6J 1E8 Tel: (416) 703-4550) told me that these will keep in the refrigerator a couple of months.

I had some nori left over from a sushi-making session:



I used a clean pair of scissors to cut a few pieces off. I'm sure purists would be horrified at my technique but hey, it worked for me. :-)

I filled a small bowl with cold water and added some salt. I used this salted water to dip my hands into during the shaping process, so the rice wouldn't stick to my hands. Some recipes recommend sprinkling salt on one's hands first, but I think this would make the onigiri too salty for me.

Here's a good photo description of how to shape rice balls. I made a couple of triangles and some cylinders. For each, I poked a hole in the center, stuffed a bit of a pickled plum, covered the hole with rice. Then I wrapped the shaped rice in a piece of nori. Here are a couple of my finished creations:



If I had more time and patience, I would have toasted some sesame seeds or bought black sesame seeds as garnish. You can also use other fillings, like salmon, eel or pickled vegetables.

Here's a recipe for how to make onigiri, with photos. Note that you need to use Japanese rice, or the rice won't stick properly. I also opt to put salt into the water rather than by itself because I don't like my onigiri too salty.

And of course after writing this entry, I'm hungry. I think it might be time to make myself some birthday onigiri. If you use a rice maker, the process really doesn't take all that long. Even with my fumbling newbie skills, it only took me about 20 minutes. I'm sure I could cut that time down with practice.

I leave for FilKONtario tomorrow!

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Our Mystery Package

When we came home from our adventure up North on Sunday, Jeff and I found a mysterious-looking package in our mailbox with no note attached. Inside the bag: the Japanese crackers that we've been looking for! They are almost exactly like the ones my Dad brought from Japan. Yum.

So 'fess up...which one of you out there left this package? We'd like to thank our kind benefactor.

And a complete aside: check out this article about the return of the Evil Rat Squirrel! Ok, maybe not evil. But they certainly do fit my whole demon squirrel paranoia fantasy, don't they?!

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Daniel Cook, Stripe and meat floss

TVO sent Ruth a DVD with her This Is Daniel Cook episode, so we got to watch it last night. To my surprise, Daniel seems like a pretty normal kid.

Here's Daniel with Stripe:



And I love the fact that they listed "'Stripe' - The Guinea Pig" in the credits at the end of the show:



You can check out when This Is Daniel Cook is airing in your area here.

I took a break from work yesterday to have dim sum at Asian Legend with Jeff, Parki and Ray. Among other items, we ordered Meat Floss! See Ray's photo below:



The anticipation outweighed the actual experience; I found the Meat Floss to be a bit too dry for my tastes, reminding me of flavoured shredded wood.

After brunch, we visited the Pacific Mall, North America's largest indoor Asian mall and browsed the shops; I especially enjoyed seeing the wide variety of snack foods available...where else would I be able to find "Varied Cow Organ," for example?





And a survey: if you were to choose ONE item from the menus above, what would it be?

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Tea and writing and music and more tea

The picture above was taken at GAfilk. From left to right: Dave Clement, me, Tom Jeffers. Thanks to Tom for letting me post the photo! Do check out Tom's GAfilk photos, now up on Flickr.



I've posted a new Will Write For Chocolate. In addition to the new strip, I've also posted a column on setting goal's in one's writing, and invite you writerly types out there to answer my survey: What kind of goals do you set in your writing? Number of words per day? Per month? Number of hours? Pages? Please post your answer at the bottom of my Will Write For Chocolate column.

I'm having lots of fun preparing future strips about the various writers living in Eliza's house, by the way. I'm modelling the house after Dave Clement's Bhigg House, which I've always thought a wonderful idea: a bunch of like-minded individuals sharing living space but also each other's company.

Spending a LOT of time in hermit mode these days, happily sequestered in my basement office, writing and drawing and making music (with my new penny whistle, of course). It's a pretty miserable day outside today, but perfect weather for tea and writing. My current favourite tea is Celestial Seasonings Teahouse Chai Honey Vanilla White Tea. Yummm. I tend to go through tea phases, drinking nothing but one kind of tea for weeks at a time.

What's your current favourite tea?

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