Café Frosch blog in archives - December 2009 -
2009.12.24
 Eigo Night - Christmas Party!
Well, before you know it another 12 months have slipped by and here we are at the end of the year. To celebrate this fact we had a X-mas/Bounenkai party here at the cafe. The holiday spirit was strong this year and even more guests than we could have hoped for showed up to join in our festivities.
The night was filled with fun and games, but the most important place to begin of course is the food. I think the main event of the culinary delights had to be the delicious inoshishi (wild boar) spare ribs which were received by our friend Kayo and then scrumptiously prepared by our resident Sardinian Luca. I do believe that it was the first meal oriented inoshishi experience for most of our guests that evening. After the delicious dinner it was time for the internationally abundant cake-houdai dessert featuring "Shutoren", a crisp German christmas cake, Pannetone, an Italian dessert bread, and my own personal additions of a banana/peanut butter bread, and sweet potatoe cake. I dare say that all four were very much enjoyed by all.
（↑You may notice the impressive artistic abilities displayed on the signboard above. It may have been streneously toiled over by a certain yours truly. I may have ceased progressing artistically at the age of 5.）
   
After everyone had had their fill of treats it was finally time for my much labored over "2000s trivia challenge". Just how much of this nearly completed decade had people managed to keep in mind? Testing such subjects as Christmas, sports, pop culture, and everyone's favorite, world politics. Despite serving up a batch of admittedly difficult questions to our competitors, I was impressed with how much people were able to recall.
 In the end of the four teams, "Kimono Love" proved to be the wisest of the bunch and walked away with some wonderful prizes.
It truly was a wonderful night all in all and I think everybody had a great time forgetting the year we were soon to leave behind (that would be the object of the bounenkai after all). Be sure to joi in the fun next year or at our next special event here at Cafe Frosch.
Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year!!!
-Andrew
2009.12.14
Thankful for the ability to eat Turkey in Japan!
 Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that is fantastic to share with people from another culture. Sure it's American in origin, but the ideas behind it, namely giving thanks to those people and things we are appreciative of, and eating massive portions of delicious food, are in my opinion universally transferable. And so in discussion about the idea of special events for Eigo night the idea of our resident American (me) roasting a Turkey and making a delicious meal for our patrons on November 25th was decided upon. Having once previously roasted a bird succesfully I was willing to give it a go, but the idea of doing so in a Japanese kitchen somehow made me a little nervous. After procuring the required fowl from a pig who happened to be flying by (theflyingpig.com (even here in Japan life  without Costco would be something I don't want to have to think about)) I set about readying it for the oven in addition to some roasted carrots, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and roasted... Wait no, that was it.
Despite a slight over-cooking foul due to a confusion of international temperature measuring methodologies (F˚--> C˚) the bird came out alright in the end and was enjoyed by all. The kicker though was the gravy, and using my father's old recipe I must say I ended up very pleased with the results.
 And so finally everything was set and over my potentially factually hazy recounting of the story of the native americans helping the first pilgrims through the grueling New England winter we all enjoyed each other's company as well as the food. As an American I can tell you that I truly was thankful to have the opportunity to share the meal with such wonderful people some 3,000 miles (ahem... 4,500 kilometers) from my homeland. It truly was a Happy Thanksgiving indeed.
-Andrew
2009.12.07
Wild Boar？！
 It must be our lucky day/week. Kayo, the same wonderful friend who just the other day brought us the delicious deer meat has once again bestowed us with a delectable present. What's more, today's gift is wild boar!
It was just hunted yesterday!" she tells us happily.
（It was actually caught by her brother using traditional hunting methods.）
And with that she plopped down the massive rack of ribs that you see just above these very words.
Next she even told us a delicious way to cook our new bounty in the "spare rib" style. Unfortunately (or fortunately;) rather) today is the cafe's day off and so I'm here alone in the cafe.
Taking a deep breath I faced my meaty opponent. Using a small carving knife I seperated the bones one by one. It most certainly wasn't as easy as you might think. Even though I spent many a year living in the mountains of Wakayama, this was the first time for me to encounter an inoshishi in the kitchen setting. Fondly remembering the many nights I had heard the pitter patter of the little beasts around my home in the hills of Kumano, I took great care in preparing this not quite so noisy boar for our dinner table.
Kayo certainly does have an interesting family, eh?
-Sumi (translation by Andrew)
2009.12.06_2
The Final Day of AG-Bone's Photo Exhibition
Well, we've finally arrived at the final day of Mr. AG-Bone's photo exhibition here at the cafe.
It was wonderful to see just how many people came to view his photos during the run of the exhibition.
Mr. AG-Bone was still just a customer when he first brought up the idea of showing his photos in the cafe. Thinking it was a great idea, we rushed to refit the cafe to properly show off his beautiful photos.
We wish we could have done more, but in the end we were quite pleased with how it ended up looking.
The beautiful shading of his monochrome photos fit in
wonderfully to the overall atmosphere of the cafe's interior.
I know I had a few photos of my own that I loved, and I will be looking forward to seeing more of AG-Bone's works in the future.
-Sumi (translation by Andrew)
2009.12.06_1
らくらくキモノ教室
This month we once again had our monthly kimono fitting lesson from Ms. Katsurako. Everyone who came had a wonderful time learning about the special methods of wearing a kimono.
More than just learning how to wear the kimono's though, Ms. Katsurako was able to show us how one should coordinate the fabrics of the outer kimono with the obi belt as well as outer shawl.
While especially useful for the first time kimono wearer,
anyone can learn from Ms. Katsurako's wealth of
knowledge on the subject. Not to mention that the things that you can learn about wearing kimonos can be applied to other realms of fashion with rather impressive results.
Our next "Kimono Kyoshitsu" will be coming up in January so we'll let you know in this space as soon as the details are decided. See you there!
2009.12.04
鹿？！
Kayo-san (at left), a longtime friend of the cafe, is always bringing us interesting, and often delicious things. This week it was the leg of a deer that her brother had just hunted in the mountains. It seems that her brother is a "matagi" or traditional Japanese hunter, and he had entrusted his sister with dispersing the meat. We then happened to be one of the fortunate beneficiaries.
Then of course the question becomes, just what does one do with a leg of deer meat? You let your resident Italian chef extoirdinaire (in our case Luca) turn it into something delicious
is what!
My goodness though! Give this man a slab of fresh deer meat and he becomes a whole new person. Perhaps it was the surfacing of centuries old carnivorous instincts but the gleeful smile that came over Luca's face as he set about his preparations was a sight to behold (okay, so perhaps that's a slight exageration, but you get the idea).
After thoroughly carving up the meat and bones, Luca decided to create a red wine herb sauce to marinate the meat for use in this week's brunch. I know I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out!
2009.12.03
かえるblog 始動？
Hello and welcome to the Cafe Frosch "Kero Blog". For those and unfamiliar with the term, 'Kero' is the Japanese version of 'ribbit' and since our cafe (Frosch is German for frog) is rather amphibious in its atmosphere we thought it only appropriate.
Since opening the cafe last May there have been so many great things we would have liked to be able to tell you about on this blog, but we've been so busy enjoying them that we've only just now been able to make this blog a reality. So join us here for updates on special events at the cafe, delicious new menu offerings, and any other topics of interest that should occur. See you soon *ribbit* *ribbit*.
Incidentally, the cute little ceramic frog you see above was made by a friend of the cafe's (Jason). It has become our defacto Mascot and is somewhat hidden in the open somewhere in the cafe. See if you can spot him the next time you're here.
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