How to throw a sushi party

During the Australia Day holiday, we invited Paul's sister and her family and had a sushi party. It's a great way to celebrate our multi-cultural country :-)

Over the last ten years in my life in Australia, I noticed that many Aussies worry about handling raw fish. Of course you should be careful about it, but you don't have to be scared!

Go to a fish shop on the day you're serving. They sometimes have sashimi pre-cut in a pack. If they don't, just ask them if they have sashimi-grade fish. A fish shop won't want to risk food safety, so they should answer honestly.

When you get home, keep the fish refrigerated until you serve. If you find it hard to cut soft raw fish, put it in the freezer for a couple of hours and it will make it easier to cut.

We got salmon sashimi from a fish shop in Chadstone shopping centre this time. Also they had a whole sashimi grade king fish, so we asked them to cut it for us.

Paul's sister has a teen-age girl and I wasn't sure if she liked raw fish, so I prepared other options - teriyaki chicken and tuna mayo.

Prepare nori and sushi rice. You can get sushi seasoning from a local supermarket usually. You cut nori into four pieces so that your guests can make their own sushi rolls in their hand.

I usually prepare heaps of cucumber for garnish. This time I prepared some lettuce for tuna mayo too.

For the two toddlers, I made teriyaki chicken rice.

Everyone enjoyed my sushi party except for little kids. They were distracted too much ;-) but they had a great time too.

I hope you feel more encouraged to have a sushi party now!


With love,
Allie

These are my new favourites!

I have a set of beautiful Gense cutlery which I bought years ago. They look so stylish on my table and always make me happy. But I didn’t have chopsticks that I could love as much as my cutlery. We use chopsticks at our dinner table almost 5 or 6 days a week -except for the times we have steak or pasta!

Whenever I go back to Japan, I looked for chopsticks, but I couldn’t find simple, stylish chopsticks that I could match with my favourite Marimekko/Bison bowls and plates.

When I saw these Japanese traditional colour chopsticks on my favourite Japanese online shop, I was so excited! These are what I've been looking for for a long time.

I found the company that makes these beautiful chopticks and asked if nuno and stitch could be their stockist and they were very happy to have stockist in Australia;-)

This company is based in Obama City, Fukui which is famous for Wakasa lacquered chopsticks. 80% of lacquered chopsticks in Japan are made in this city. Traditionally made lacquered chopsticks are not that easy to handle…you can’t use them in the dishwasher, you can’t leave them in the sink for long , you have to avoid sunlight, heat, moisture… BUT if you look after these chopsticks well, you can use them for a long time. It’s like when you have to look after your silverware carefully.

I wonder if Australian people are interested in beautiful chopsticks...but I hope so! As far as I know, Aussies love cooking Asian food and love entertaining people. They are really good at using chopsticks too! You can get cheap chopsticks from supermarkets, but they don’t look nice at all. Disposable chopsticks are terrible for the environment.

We will have these traditional yet modern Japanese chopsticks in 12 colours at the Japanese Summer Festival at Federation Square on Feb 26th.

They will be sold online after this festival. Come and feel these traditional lacquered chopsticks. I hope you will love them!  

2017 started!

As a mother of 2 year old boy, I always had a good excuse not to do my work. After we bought a sand pit for Nico, I have to do vacuuming inside our home at least three times a day. I often need to change his clothes three times a day too, so I have more washing.  I often needed to catch up on my sleeping time while Nico was having an afternoon sleep because he used to wake up a couple of times during the night.

At the end of last year, my friend asked me to go to a business seminar together. A famous Japanese blogger who lives in Hawaii and has a successful business had a seminar in Melbourne. I always had a good excuse not to go to those things too, but when I read her blog, I thought it might be interesting and decided to go…and it was really great!

When I went to a seminar, I even had time to have lunch with my friend..Thanks Paul!

Of course what she talked about was interesting, but I found that she was interesting herself, very energetic and somehow I got power from her ;-)

After her seminar, I’m trying hard to find the time to do my work more. I do more work while Nico's sleeping, I do more work after dinner. It’s quite tiring but I achieved a few things during the last couple of weeks, which I thought I would never have time to do.

During Paul’s Christmas holidays, I finally weaned Nico and he started to sleep through the night, so I don’t have an excuse to have a nap while Nico’s having a sleep now.

Looking after my boy and my shop at the same time is not easy, but I started to enjoy my work more and the energy comes out from my body…then I remembered about my Japanese favourite book written by Hayao Kawai, a psychologist who said that “ people who try to save their energy often look like they're dead. The good example of this is a public servant who doesn’t smile at the counter (note: the customer service of a Japanese public servant is usually pretty bad and unfriendly). The more you use your energy, the more power comes out from your body, like a natural spring.’

In 2017, I will try to find more reasons to do my work and give myself energy!

My birthday weekend

Unlike during my childhood, the last several years I didn't really enjoy my birthdays that much. It's not that I didn't want to get old, but as an adult, I just felt bad that everyone had to buy presents for me and sing "Happy Birthday". I usually don't like to be the centre of attention.

But this year, I really enjoyed my birthday because my boys enjoyed it very much. My birthday became an excuse to have fun together and celebrate this happy family.

Thanks to Paul, I had a nice sleep in and brekky.

On my birthday, Paul took the day off and we went to Mornington Peninsula. Paul's parents came with us too. Paul found a lovely pie shop called Johnny Ripe in Red Hill. With a 2 year old boy, having lunch at a nice restaurant can sometimes be just torture, so this choice was great and their pies were really lovely.

After that we went to my favourite homeware shop "Red Hill House" in Red Hill South and bought a couple of things there, then we went to a farm called "Rain, Hayne & Shine" in Balnarring. This place was really great!

It was a Friday, so not many people were there. Nico had his first pony ride and he really enjoyed it. There were many baby animals and Nico loved touching and holding them. It sounds like Nico's birthday rather than mine, but when Nico enjoys himselves, we enjoy ourselves most.

The next day, we went to Brighton beach. The last time we went there, Nico was still a tiny little guy in his pram and he was just gazing at the beach. This time he enjoyed digging in the sand and putting his feet in the water. We had a lovely walk along the beach too.

For dinner, we went to a new restaurant called "New Shanghai" in Chadstone shopping centre, with Maria, my sister-in-law and her family. It was my favourite Chinese restaurant in Sydney. The original restaurant was in a dingy looking shopping arcade in Chatswood but now they have shops in Brisbane ,Shanghai and Melbourne too! Their fried pork bum is really yummy!

marimekko placemats I got for my present

My birthday wasn't only about presents (although I got some really lovely presents) but more about spending time with my favourite people. I'm already looking forward to my next birthday!

With love,
Allie

Little Keeper's Market

Now we've finished our (maybe) annual Little keeper's market this year. Phew!

When we organised this market in April, some people asked if we were having it again, and we said "maybe before Christmas". It wasn't a promise or anything, but I was feeling a little bit of pressure that we had to do it. Now I'm so glad that we could do this again. I feel free from the pressure!

Last time, I organised the venue, stalls and my sister-in-law Maria helped me with the preparation. This time Maria got even more involved, and she organised the venue and stalls!

Yet Paul and Maria were still calling this market "Allie's market", so I felt a bit strange. This is becoming more "everyone's market". We could raise some money for wonderful causes (this time we raised funds for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and El Salvador Action Group) with everyone's generous offer of money, time and effort. Our friends helped us with coffee making. Paul's parents, their friend and Paul's uncle did the sausage sizzle. Fr Dave at St Benedict's offered the venue for free and our lovely friend and one of the stall holders, Charmian donated all her workshop money. How generous they are! The people who came along to support this market were great too! Some of them brought their family and friends too. Paul's workmates also came to support us. Some friends helped us with packing up and cleaning the venue after the market too.

The preparation wasn't easy, but I think this became a really great event.

Are we doing it again? Well I don't want to make a promise, but I hope so! We had great fun ourselves in the end :-)

Our little boy turned 2!!

Last week, our little boy, Nico, tuned 2. My sister visited us from Sydney and spent whole weekend with us. We went to Healsville Sanctuary on Saturday, an indoor play centre on Sunday, and Collingwood Children’s farm on Monday. It was full of fun!

I was so excited about his birthday and was singing and dancing whole week. He doesn’t get new toys often, so we knew he’d get super excited about his presents.

It’s funny that now his happiness is our happiness. We enjoy Nico’s birthday more than our own birthdays. He changed our life completely.

Since he came, I lost my

Sleeping time

Work

Some pleasure – shopping, movie, catching up with friends, fine dining etc…

But I found none of them are important compared with the time with my little guy. He sometimes makes me cry and upset, but he always makes me happy.

Thank you very much for coming to our home and making us your parents.

We love you so much!!!

Handy Japanese baby goods!

I think Japanese people are the "laziest hard working" people. They love something handy, so to make things easier, they try their best to make something convenient. Whenever I go to Japan, I check the local pharmacy's baby section to see what's available there and end up buying heaps of handy baby goods.  When I read a Japanese person's blog and found that she's starting a Japanese baby goods online shop in Australia, I thought it was a great idea. As far as I know, Australian people are sometimes a bit lazy too, so they should love these handy Japanese goods!

photo from "Little Snook" This 360 degree tooth brush looks amazing!

Then one day, I got a message from the online shop owner. When you get message from your favourite blogger, it's like you're getting message from a celebrity! It was a lovely surprise. I know how hard it is to start up business in a foreign country, especially when you're a mum with small kids. She has 16 mo boy and works a couple of days a week too. We decided to meet up and exchange some information while our kids made friends.

I wanted to ask her a lot about her interesting products but we ended up chatting about all sorts of different things. I always liked her Japanese blog because her writing was always positive. It is really nice to see someone with good vibes. It was a shame that I had to admit I was a bit lazy with my business, using Nico as my excuse, but I got good energy from her, so I will try my best again ;-)

Are you interested in Japanese handy baby goods? Check her online shop "Little Snook".  If you like her products, please share this with your friends! Word of mouth is really important for new small businesses. I hope her new shop will be loved by many Australian people for a long time!

With love,
Allie