Utilizing green beans ripened in the farm

Now it is the time when a lot of green beans are growing and harvested. I could hardly find any cooking recipe featuring them except for salad and certain simmered vegetables. They were sometimes abandoned in the past.

Cropping them the other day, the idea to freeze them came out in my mind. Why haven't I realized that? Frozen green beans commercially available is a typical material for cooking. 

Collecting dozens of green beans in the farm, I was going to boil them. Another idea lit in my mind. Green beans and carrots rolled up with pork. I have ever made it in the past and possibly have posted the photo here in the past. I was glad to remember of that recipe. This is it;

Seasoned with sweetened sake, soy sauce and sugar, this tasted pretty good. I could spare green beans being withered now. 

It has been too wet and cool for the past weeks. But, hopefully, it may get hot and fine in a week or two. It will be the beginning of midsummer here. 

  

My father's 15th anniversary

On the way to the piano trio practice with my niece a couple of days ago, I have heard of her pleasant memories with her grandfather, that is, my father. She has stayed with her grandparents living at a town near Tokyo where she needed making a train ride travel. On Sunday, she attended a sunday bible class at the Salvation Army Hospital my mother had worked.

My father used to visit this place we are living now once in a while and to develop a land for a house. My father must think of spending retirement at this place which had been sold to the other people and was bought back by my father. That project has come true. He has taken niece here on a small truck. She laughingly told me he had served her curry and rice without any material in it. It was a really unforgettable memory for her.

It was my father's 15th anniversary yesterday. Recalling that, I have talked on him with my niece. This has reminded me of an aspect of his life I didn't know. It was almost 40 years ago when I had started residency at a med school hospital nearby here. I thought, as children always do, I had grown up by myself and had become independent from my parents. I had not spent much attention to how they lived and thought of things those days. Hearing stories from niece, I knew there had been the other aspects of his life which had been unknown to us. I told my niece she and her brother, still very young those days, had been a great comfort to my parents at that time.

As already written elsewhere in this blog, my father has met my mother at the sanatorium for tuberculosis patients which had been managed by our aunt on the Christianity belief at the very same place as we live right now. On the same day when I met my niece, my sister sent me a postal mail. She has told on her memory of our father for the anniversary and has mentioned of a small note book. My father has made it when he was deployed to the WWII. It included the extracts of the words from the Bible, some hymns and the farewell greetings by his Christianity friends and a leader. My mother, his fiancee at that time, has quoted the Psalm 46th in her short farewell sentences. Of course, he could not bring a bible with him to the war. This small notebook must have been a comfort during military service where he has experienced cruelty for himself, the other soldiers and the people in China. My sister told me he had repeatedly told what he had done and had been done there. That experience has lead him to, throughout his life, consider what caused that war and who was responsible for that. We were even bored hearing that story while he was alive. Looking back of his life since those days, I am sure we should take over his thorough consciousness of the problem and his wish for peace for the generation upcoming. Even if it would be gone away when family members remebering of him pass away.

Our parents used to attend to the hospital in their senile days wherever I worked for. I was surprised at that. Raising their children for workers of medical service, I realized recently, they seemed to want, even without saying that to us, to be cared for by us for medical problems especially in the last days of their lives. I have become a pediatrician and younger brother a psychiatrist. We could not do that by ourselves. I still regretfully remember of my father's last days. Oftener, I should have gone to his bed side and have listened what he thought, worried and hoped those days.

In the last part of his life, he could spend peaceful days surrounded by his grandchildren in Tokyo and later here. It is the only relief to me that I could help him living here with us while having much support from him and mother as well.

Even though he was not educated so much as he had hoped for or was not a perfect person with some bias of his character, he was sure an irreplaceable and respectable father for me and for my family.

I have spent the day of anniversary working in the garden farm as he used to do. 
My sister wrote that the epitaph of our tomb is a quote of the Psalm 46th, a choice by father. I could hardly believe it was just a coincidence.

A snap of my father with his grandchildren, that is, my niece and nephew. Almost 40 years ago. After cruel and disastrous years of life, he finally could spend peaceful time with them.

Garden farm and chamber music

We have had a storm with torrential rain since last night. Hard wind was blowing. I found some of the corn plants were leaned in the farm. They were going to bear corn very soon. I have given some soil at the root of the corn leaned by the wind. I have not dared to straighten them up since it might damage the roots. Anyway, keeping something living is like this.

Looking at the corn farm of the neighbor professional farmer, I found very few were damaged by the storm. Maybe, I should have covered the roots with more soil or should have given more nutrients to accelerate their growth. I still have many things to learn about farming.

While it was drizzling a bit, I was pulling and cutting the weeds in the yard. I fould some apricots were fallen on the ground under an apricot tree. 

Not so many but a few were grown on the tree. Maybe, some of them could be harvested soon.

I have cooked potatoes home grown with beef. Seasoned with soy sauce and sweetened sake. Not bad.

In 4 days, I will have a practice of piano trio with my niece and a friend of mine who have let me enjoy chamber music for the past 2 decades. I am planning bringing chestnut rice for the lunch at my friend's home. It wil be a fun. 

A bubble is going on

The prices of land adjoining the major roads have been increased by 20 or even 30% per a year in Japan. The authority explains this rise with the increased inbound. It could hardly explain it. Or even if could partially explain this rise, the inbound demand would end soon, especially after the Tokyo Olympic Games. Only quantitative easing is the main cause. The money released by easing is heading to investment to the properties.

It is an economical bubble. The banks, especially local ones, are in very hard financial condition right now due to the historically low interest rate. Bubbles are destined to be ruptured sooner or later. It is the beginning of the economical/financial collapse in our country. Our central bank, BOJ, could do little for such a situation because of its too much commitment in quantitative easing and monetization of the debt.

Now the public pension is questioned as for its sustainablity. However, it is not the only problem but the national finance is in danger of bankruptcy.

Modern monetary theory, which both right and left depend on, won't save us. It would prove there is no free lunch in the world.

I haven't expected to live in such a situation for the retirement.

Tortilla with potato first cropped in the garden farm

Some potatoes were harvested in the garden farm. The very first harvest this year.

Several times of this amount are expected to be cropped for the coming few weeks. 

Using some of this potatoes, I have tried tortilla. It has lost its shape when cooked on a fry pan. It tasted, however, good.

I still regret that this blog has been like regarding only foods or cook! I still would like to maintain it as a highbrow as well as intelligent blog handling politics, economy or history. Reality won't go that way. Never ending struggle between ideal and reality in my mind. Sorry for that. Maybe, next post would do with something more intellectual.

Simmered pumpkin and growing tomatoes

Having bought too much minced pork, I made this simmered pumpkin with Japanese broth and minced meat sauce. It has been years since I cooked this. Forgot the recipe. Looking it up in the internet, I have done with it. A pretty good result.

There are a few pumpkin plants growing in the yard farm. Hopefully, they will bear good pumpkin in several weeks. 

Tomatoes are getting ripe now. I have already harvested some. They were so sweet and delicious. Even in our mouthes, they would retain their shapes since they are fresh. I and my wife express that state like they retain their cell membranes in good shape. Soon, fresh tomatoes will be on the table every day for a while.

 

A 2nd Tonkin Gulf incident?

The tension between the US and Iran is increasing. The US Secretary of State, Pompeo, has declared the tanker attacks were made by Iran as soon as the event happened. The photos of limpet mines were not convincing but might rather seem fake. As the Iranese military top said, Iran could have completely closed the Strait of Hormuz if they wished. In the present situation the US has sent out the 5th fleet into the Persian Gulf, a real threat for the Iranese, together with the military deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems unlikely for the Iranese military to dare to cause a military conflict with the US.

This crisis is directly due to withdrawal of the US from the nuclear agreement between Iran and the western countries. Agreements could never be perfect for each side. But withdrawing or giving it up could cause such a serious crisis as they have there. Why not going on negotiation to make the agreement more agreeable one? I could not help but feeling that the US had aimed to support the side of the countries like Israel which stood against Iran. Who knows there could be a movement for military conflict wherever it might be from the military industrial complex?

Once there occurs a military conflict or a war in that area, it may damage not only the people in the Middle East but also the world economy. News sources say the US government sould organize an allied fleet force together with the other western countries including Japan, which would fight against Iran. It could be a serious threat for our country which has spent the post war years as a country of peace. We could serve the problem with non military measures. And the deficit of oil might destroy our economy. We depend on oil imported mainly from the Middle East. 

Either side should stop playing this Russian roulette promptly. The US government should never cause the 2nd incident of Gulf of Tonkin in the Middle East.