• Daily Life

    Paws Before Thinking

    Times are tough and Mrs. Kangaeroo implored me to tighten my belt to cope with rising prices and crippling wage cuts, but I don’t think she was too impressed by my belt tightening efforts involving gargantuan eating practices and getting fatter. It’s been a gloomy year in many ways so far, including literally, which has had an effect on the plants I’ve been growing in Kangaeroo Corner, and which are providing incalculable amounts of joy. As I’ve mentioned before, I got to realize how little sunlight we’ve received in western Tokyo this year because of the performance of our solar-powered…

  • Daily Life - Strine Tucker

    Sweetie Pies!

    Australia doesn’t really occupy a prime place in the mind of most Japanese people’s eyes, and the same goes for Australian cuisine. But for a short while, meat pies here were, well, the flavor of the month. オーストラリアは、多くの日本人の目から見ると、あまり重要な位置を占めておらず、オーストラリア料理も同様であった。しかし、一時期、ミートパイが流行ったことがありました。 Meat pies are, of course, probably the Australian national dish, or at least an iconic item on the everyday Aussie menu. ミートパイはもちろん、オーストラリアの国民食、あるいはオージーの日常的なメニューの象徴的な存在でしょう。 They’ve been pretty hard to come by down through the years, though. My first memory of Aussie pies in Japan came from watching a World of Sport segment on Channel 7 in the 1980s which showed Four ‘N Twenty pies…

  • Strine Sports - Unknown Nichigo

    Up There, Kazari!

    Australian Sports Day was a fantastic event held at Komazawa Olympic Park yesterday, and I got to go and enjoy some of the proceedings that were a decorative display, (or should I say kazari?), of some of Down Under’s favorite pastimes. The day itself was a ripper, starting with explanations, demonstrations and games of cricket, moving on to games of footy and then ending with a netball exhibition, with sales of Aussie foods, wear and fare such as meat pies and banana bread and cuppas from Club Australia‘s Tad Watanabe and the Australia Cafe van. Needing to deal with duties…

  • Daily Life

    Little Bit Chuffed!

    Today I got a message from someone who really inspires me to be a better person, and it has thoroughly made my day. That message has now gotten me away from writing in the third person because doing so makes me sound like an even bigger tosser than I am. As I sit here with a warm, fuzzy feeling, it was also a nice reminder that I should tell people how they’ve made my life better. Cold, bleak, dark and windy, with not much else nice about the day, I’ll brighten it up a bit more with a snot block,…

  • Strine Biz - Strine Tucker

    Punk Doily Full of Heavenly Aussie Tastes Made by a Saint

    Punk Doily, a recently opened cafe, offers a heavenly touch of Australia made by a Saint in a small nook in Oyamadai, Setagaya-ku.  最近開店したパンクドイリーがセイントが作るオーストラリア風素晴らしいご馳走を提供している。 Punk Doily’s sausage rolls are authentically Oz, faithfully providing not only the flavor of the tuckshop, but also adding pleasures for the gourmand that the Japanese excel at.  パンクドイリーのソーセージロールは本格的なオージー味であり、学校売店の懐かしい料理を誠実に再現する上に日本人の特異な上質なグルメを加える。 Available in sage and fennel flavors, the sausage rolls use pork from exclusively potato-fed pigs, and have a hearty, mouth-watering meat that tastes perfect without the need of excessive herbs, spices or other additives.  セージとフェンネル味があり、ジャガイモが飼料の豚から得る豚肉使用によって濃厚な美味しさがあり、余計なハーブやスパイスなどが使用不要。 Wash down the delicious savory snack with one of the selection of…