Some sweet-smelling flowers and kind food

I’m glad to report that even though I’m still very tired, at least I’m feeling better and there have been more than a few high points to my week at long last.  Not the least of those things was spotting some beautiful bright roses on my way out of the grocery store and following my impulse to buy them.  When

I got home I actually poured through the dictionary trying to determine what word would properly describe them:  vermilion, maybe.  They are a perfect fit to the cloudy white bottle given to me as a gift by the little old lady who is giving me tips about ikebana.

Besides tidying up my apartment, which has not really looked nice for these last two weeks since I caught my cold, I followed the excellent advice of Ryo’s mom at the coffee shop, who as usual was worrying about whether I was eating properly, and made her recipe of a sort of rice porridge.  Yesterday when I went there for dinner, she was kind enough to make it for me because the usual foods there are a bit on the spicy side for someone with a sensitive stomach.  I exclaimed over how delicious it was, so she taught me the recipe.  Here it is, if you’d like to try it, too:

First, steam rice (1 cup cooked per person) while boiling some chicken (however little or much each person would like, but half a chicken breast was fine for me…).  You can use the water you boiled the chicken in as a broth (skim off the fat) or you can make a separate broth, but add a little sake and salt to give some flavor toward the end of cooking.  If you like greens, slice up some scallions and add them in at about the same time you dump your cooked rice into the water.  It’s best if there is just enough water to be mostly absorbed into the rice (I used around 2-3 cups of water and it was a little too much).  If you already have rice and chicken ready, it’ll only take you 5 minutes for the whole thing.  Adding the chicken & rice preparation brings it up to around 30 minutes.  There you have it.  The Japanese version of chicken noodle soup.