One of the good things about food blogs is the way they open your eyes to life in other countries.
Blue Lotus (blue_moon. typepad.com/blue_lotus) is written by a Canadian woman living in Tokyo with her Japanese husband. Integrated into the culture, she shows us what a local housewife cooks for her family, some of which sounds time-consuming and extravagant: an everyday meal might include onsen tamago (egg poached in its shell), tofu lees and cucumber with shiso, ponzu and oil; cabbage dressed with bonito flakes; komatsuna greens simmered in dashi and soy; and chicken drumettes with daikon and shiitake.
She doesn't always give recipes but she has done so, thankfully, in her posts about transforming raw salmon roe sacs into ikura (salmon eggs) with salt or soy sauce and mirin and preserving ume (unripe Japanese apricots) with sugar and alcohol to make umeshu (apricot liqueur).
Also interesting are her posts about how the holidays and seasons are celebrated. She recalls going to Osaka to help her in-laws celebrate the new year with a feast of crabs (sent from Hokkaido) and a breakfast of osechi (traditional holiday foods) that included steamed fish cake, baby sardines cooked with sugar and soy sauce, herring roe, black beans simmered in soy, kelp rolls and mochi (pounded glutinous rice cakes).
