Gastronomy 101

Sorry guys ... my momentum of posting was shut down by sickness. The long flight, the jet lag, and a contaminated office from a building fire before I left, have combined to overwhelm my immune system and I am ill. I never get sick, so when I do, I'm a total baby about it. Anyway, between Thursday night and last night I slept for about 24 hours so no posting from me. I'm still feeling nasty, but think I'm on the road to recovery now, so I can sit up in bed and post again. So, back to Japan, where I was healthy. On our third morning, we discovered the Caffe Excelsior near our hotel. This place is like the Japanese rip-off of Starbucks, yet, I liked it much better than any Starbucks I have been to. The coffee's better, and they have better food, and they're a bit friendlier. They have a couple options for your "morning set," including a bagel, a croissant sandwich, and the above-pictured ciabatta sandwich, which is what I chose. Definitely the most attractiv...

On our second day in Japan we spent most of the day in Ueno Park enjoying the cherry blossoms. In Japan, the cherry blossoms are a huge deal and everyone comes out on the weekends to be near them. Simply walking around the park looking at the trees and taking pictures, there are thousands of people. And it is worth it. The park has over 1000 trees and when they are all in full bloom it is an amazing sight. I was not at all prepared for how beautiful these trees are. The wood is dark and contrasts with the pink-white blossoms. The blossoms cover the tree densely so that the trees are all flower with not a speck of green leaf. When a breeze blows, blossom petals fly off the trees like snow. And they are everywhere. During the weekends, the Japanese people have hanami parties where they stake out a spot and picnic all day under the cherry trees. It looks incredibly fun, people set up shop on their claimed tarp real estate and sit there all day with friends talking, eating and drinking and...

I'm baaaaaack. I am about to spend several days detailing my trip. I saw so much and more importantly, ate so much, that it was almost ridiculous. I have to share, because I loved Tokyo. Everything in the world is contained in this megacity and I will do my best to convey a tiny fraction of it with my photos. We will also eventually be putting all of our photos (well, not all ... erm ... 800 of our photos, but the best selection anyway) onto Flickr and I'll link to it when they are there. The first thing I took a picture of was the toilet in our hotel room. Yeah, I was that impressed. This is the first time I have gotten to use the Japanese-style high tech toilet and it is fabulous. First of all, I didn't think I would like a warm toilet seat, because I thought it would be too much like sitting down right after someone else had got up. I was wrong, though. The warm seat is awesome. You also have your shower spray and bidet spray that is completely adjustable by you. The bes...

The blog will be temporarily on hold as I am in Tokyo at the moment. I am eating a lot and taking a billion pictures so I will be ready with a plethora of Japan posts when I get back. Please set your calendars to return to Gastronomy 101 on April 10. Arigato gozaimasu!

Sometimes, when I put up these recipe posts, I feel a little guilty. See, I put up these recipe posts, but I don't have corresponding posts for what I eat every other night. So it may seem as if I am just cooking lovely meals from scratch all the time. Um, no. I like to cook, but people, I am a lawyer. I work all day long. I may not work the crazy hours that some attorneys do--I also make about 1/3 their salary--but I still get home at around 6:45 at the earliest most of the time. Cooking from scratch is just not something I'm prepared to do every day. In addition, while I love a home cooked meal, or an interesting, exotic, chef-created masterpiece, I have to say that most of all I love ... ingredients. Yup. Most of what I eat is just "ingredients." I have been told my meals are like elementary school lunches. Okay, I can't argue with that. I took my lunch to work today in a brown paper bag. It was a salad of mixed greens with olive oil and vinegar and sea salt, a...

Spring has sprung, you guys. Look at that flower that has miraculously appeared outside my office window. It surprises me every time I print something out. I often suspect that it is fake, except for the fact that it is growing right out of the ground. Since the weather is nice enough to coax brilliant orange flowers out of their shells, it's nice enough to coax epicureans out of their kitchens and out about the town. Here are some events coming up throughout the next month, should you feel the need to shake off the winter dust and get out for some activity. April 5: Passover Dinner at Angeli Caffe . Angeli's Thursday night family-style dinner this week will be a Passover meal. The meal includes Long-Cooked Eggs Tinted with Onion Skins; Haroset of Dates, Oranges, Raisins, Nuts, Spices; Leek Croquettes; Pesce en Carpione (sauteed whitefish marinated w/caramelized onions in a mustard-champagne vinaigrette); Chicken Soup w/Chicken Dumplings and Matzo Balls; Evan’s Pot Roast; Pol...

Do you ever just get sick of L.A. and want to be somewhere else? Somewhere European? Somewhere ... French? I do, all the time. But I've now found a place where I can go to France temporarily. Please read about The Little Next Door on la.foodblogging .