好きな物をただ好きに語る

It's steamed glutinous rice (I just cook this normally in a rice cooker) mixed with sugar, roughly mashed, then mixed with soft-boiled sweet potatoes and mashed further, and finally coated with a generous amount of kinako (roasted soybean flour). Apparently, it's called 'Neibo' in my mother's hometown (the same place as that guy from 'Dogeza de Tanondemita' and the beloved Jirou Okamoto), and in Kagoshima, they call it 'Nettabo'. I'm making both plain and red bean paste filled versions. You know how they say 'making sweets is science, cooking is addition'? I just can't measure things... I'm all about eyeballing it... This 'Neibo' is barely addition, so it's one of the few sweets I can actually make.

This is a liquor called 'Invitation to the Demon World.' It's sweet potato shochu. Going back about 10 years… an anime began. It was an anime called 'YURI!!! on ICE,' which became a hot topic for its incredible animation and bizarre premise: a suddenly visiting silver-haired, blue-eyed, handsome, and cool-voiced Russian skater, the world champion, offers to become the coach to a cliffhanger-level Japanese national figure skater who's an introverted glasses-wearer with nothing but pride, all while the skater is naked in the bathhouse owned by the skater's family. The first episode ended like that. It's an anime that now, whether you like it or not, everyone who's into anime knows, produced by MAPPA… or rather, it's said to have supported MAPPA in its early days, boasting record-breaking Blu-ray sales. My husband and I were completely hooked on this anime, and our dream was to one day visit Saga together for a pilgrimage to the sacred sites… though that dream can no longer be fulfilled. The main character, Yuri Katsuki, who has a terrible drinking habit, and the Russian skater Viktor Nikiforov, who loves Japan, were drinking this 'Invitation to the Demon World' from a 1.8-liter bottle in the show~ It's the liquor that holds memories for me, pulling me into the sweet potato shochu swamp from only drinking barley shochu.

Wow, it makes me so happy to see people reading what I post. Feeling encouraged, I'll share something else too. This is a dessert served at a familiar pasta restaurant, called 'Aragosta'. Apparently, Aragosta means Ise lobster (spiny lobster) in Italian. It's made with layers of carefully stacked puff pastry, baked until super crispy and crunchy, filled with custard cream inside. There's also a similar pastry called Sfogliatella. There are even dedicated Aragosta shops that have opened, selling 'sinful' items like anko (red bean paste) butter Sfogliatella. It's frustratingly far away, so I can't easily go. It takes a long time to bake, and most customers order it for dessert after their meal or for takeout, so advance reservation is essential if you want to try it. Carelessly biting into it can leave your mouth bloody, but it's still the best dessert that makes you want it no matter what.

This is a set of Nepalese curry I had at the Indian restaurant closest to my house. Why is Indian restaurant lentil curry (dal curry, right!?) so delicious!? I try to imitate it and put in a lot of effort, but it's hard to get it right. This Nepalese curry had lots of cumin-heavy vegetable side dishes on top, and it was delicious~ It's easy to fool yourself into thinking it's healthy because there are so many vegetables. The chicken tikka, which wasn't very good when they first opened, has become incredibly delicious, and I might end up going once a week if I'm not careful.