Porch Garden, Recipe, Psalm 23

How cold it is! It has been getting cold day by day. Where did the hot, hot days go away. By the weather forecast there will be no more hot days and the day is getting shorter and shorter.

Well, in this case Hiroko’s porch garden should be closed. At first, shishi-to (Japanese peppers) bushes are taken care.

Harvest shishi-to and its leaves

Wash the shishi-to leaves

Boil the shishi-to leaves and cover the leaves with the bonito stock and add shoyu, sugar and sake. Cook the leaves until most of the water has evaporated.

The large amount of shishi-to leaves becomes only little bit. However, the cooked shishi-to leaves was very delicious. Hiroko ate lots of rice with it.
Shishi-to (peppers) were not grown more than 2 inches, so they can’t cook with charcoal. Hiroko sautéed them with butter and ate it with shoyu. It was also very delicious.
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These delicious vegetables remind Hiroko of Psalm 23
Reading the verse 5 “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” the God’ love and grace fill Hiroko’s heart. God is living and be with people.
Who are our enemies?
Our enemies are the evil spirits and ourselves. Fighting with these enemies God always prepares the foods for us and gives us strength, even though we are in a sin.

Autumn, Opera “Macbeth”, Sorceress

Getting colder day by day an opera season which is one of Hiroko’s pleasures is opened. The Season Opening Gala at the Chicago Lyric Opera House has been held on October 1st every year. We, Mary and Hiroko can’t afford the opening Gala but we hold four opera season tickets. So we went to see 2010 first opera on October 25.

Chicago Lyric Opera House
It can’t be compared with the Paris Opera House which is very beautiful.

It is autumn. There are beautiful chrysanthemum at the front of the Opera House. With this double decker bus people come to see the Opera from the far suburbs of Chicago.

This large space hall way by the entrance door fills with the evening gown ladies and tuxedo gentlemen at the opening day Gala.


From our balcony seats the stage, the first floor seats, and side-view were taken. I wonder why these photos taken in the dark place become reddish color.
“Macbeth” was shown that day. The “Macbeth written by Shakespeare was made into movie called “The throne of the Blood” by director Kurosawa.
In the opera “Macbath” we enjoyed the many singing. The soprano, Nadja Michael from Russia played Lady Macbeth. Her voice was very powerful and beautiful, and the baritone, Thomas Hampson from Germany played Macbeth.
Reading the Bible, Exodus 22:18 “Do not allow a sorceress to live“ two days before seeing the Macbeth, Hiroko thought it is very good theme to write a short-story. However, Shakespeare had already used this theme to write the drama “Macbeth.”
The main idea of “Macbeth”:
“King Duncan’s generals, Macbeth and Banquo, encounter sorceress (witches) who prophesy that Macbeth will be made King of Scotland, while Banquo will be the father of the king. With this prophesy, Lady Macbeth then invokes the spirits of darkness to help her; plotting to murder Duncan. Duncan’s son, has fled to England, and his flight confirms the court’s suspicion that he is guilty of his father’s death. This leaves the throne vacant for Macbeth. He recalls the prophecy that Banquo’s son shall be king and confides to Lady Macbeth his plan to murder Banquo as well as Fleance, Banquo’s only son. Murder after murder, and finally Lady Macbeth sanity has been affected by the recent bloody events and in her mind she relives the crimes she has committed. Macbeth was killed in the war.“
The words from the Bible said that the woman doing the sorcery has to die. However, using the sorcerer to see the future which doesn’t allow by God is sin. Those who practice the sorcerer’s words would also be killed by God. Those example stories are written in the Bible.
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These are some Chicago autumn photos:

This tree has no leaves and the pavement piled with these fallen leaves.

Chicago’s autumn sceneries, Halloween party’s article in Japanese and many photos were posted 2009 at http://ishimaru92.blog105.fc2.com/blog-date-200911.html


The sky was filled with cloud one day, and 100% blue sky next day.
Do you think it is true that the woman’s heart is same as autumn sky?

Rev. Oyama’ Recipes - continued from the article of Rev. Oyama

The article about Rev. Oyama was posted on September 25, but Hiroko forgot to include Rev. Oyama’s recipes.

I. Here Foo Yo Tan recipe written by Rev. Oyam posted. The other name of this is Egg Foo Yang. His Writing is very good. He taught brush writing and painting.

Ingredients for Foo Yo Tan
1. Garlic
2. ½ small onion – cut in pieces
3. 2 stalk of celery – cut in pieces
4. ½ lb. beans sprout – cut in pieces
5. 6 or 7 eggs
6. Shrimp – can or fresh, small size
7. Oil

Cooking
With reference to Rev. Ohyama’s recipe the Foo Yo Tan in the photo was made by Hiroko.

1) Brown the garlic and sauté the vegetables 2, 3, and 4 in the garlic
2) Pour water to cover the vegetables, and cook until vegetables are soft
3) Take out the juice from the vegetables
Put aside the juice (about 1 cup) for gravy
4) Mix eggs and shrimps into the vegetables

5) Fry the vegetables and eggs mixture
Put 1 cooking spoonful of the mixture into boiling oil

6) This step is NOT mentioned in Rev. Oyama’s recipe, but it is a better way to take out the excess oil in Foo Yo Tan
Prepare boiling water and put the fried Foo Yo Tan into the boiling water

7) Stack newspaper and paper towels. Take out the Foo Yo Tan from the boiling water, and put them on the stacked paper.
8) Make the gravy with the setting aside juice and pour the dissolved corn starch water

One Foo Yo Tan with Gravy (Hiroko put ½ cup of green peas in the gravy)

II. Shu-mai
Ingredients
1. Ground pork - 2 lb.
2. Ground beef - ¼ lb.
3. Sugar and pepper – pinch
4. Green onion 1 bunch – cut into pieces
5. Water chestnuts – 1 small can – cut into pieces
6. Beans spout – 1 lb. – cut into pieces
7. Shiitake – 3 or 4 – cook with 1 Tbsp sugar and ½ Tbsp soy source and cut into pieces
8. Shoga – cut into pieces 1 Tbsp
9. Egg – 1
10. Red Wine
11. 3 inch square egg roll skin – 1 lb.
12. Dissolved corn starch in water (close the skin tight)

Cooking
1) Mix ground meat well with sugar and pepper
2) Put green onion, water chestnuts, beans sprout, tasted shiitake, shoga, egg, and red wine into the meat mixture one by one and mix well


3) Wrap 2) mixture with egg roll skin
Cover the mixture completely with the skin and close the skin tight with the cornstarch water
The wrapped mixture in photo done by Hiroko is so bad that do NOT be example

4) Steam – This Japanese steamer is very good, so within 15 minutes it can be done.

5) Can you see? Because of this Hiroko’s wrapping is NO good. The meat mixture out from the skin and it isn’t become Shu-mai.

However, Hiroko’s family loves the meat mixture and this is very healthy. The meat served with green peas.
The other dish by the meat is Tofu Noodle Pence