info for vegetarians
 
 
   
 
 
   
| June, 2001 |
Tokyo Vegetarian-friendly
Restaurant Guide
Diary - Living in Tokyo
as a Semi-Vegan
Recommended Readings
Written in Japanese
FAQ
Articles about Vegetarianism
written by Hiroko Kato
Online Vegetarian/Vegan Handouts
Shopping Guide
Good News & Good News
Links for Vegetarians
 
2000
August: Healthy vegan snack, vegan peach cobbler, stray cats, and so on.
September: Vegan pizza and brownie as well as experiences at several vegan restaurants.
October: New soymilk product and vegan ramen noodle, and so on.
November: Stories about the meeting with Japan Vegetarian Society chairpersons, vegan wedding meal, and experiences in Kyoto and Vietnam.
December: Attended Japan Vegetarian Society's meeting, delicious vegetarian food in YOKOHAMA China town, wasting time and money on staling foods, and trip to Penang.
2001
January: Experimenting some vegan breakfast recipes, receiving an e-mal from the reader, pondering bug's life, and so on
February: Tried a macrobiotic restaurant in Tokyo, and the trip to Laos.
March: Struggling to get a vegan flihgt meals at Malaysian Airline.
April: Having vegan wedding plates again, business trip to Cambodia and Vietnam, and busy days.
May: Nayonnaise discovery and some food disasters.
June: Life is going on.
2002
February: Attended a meeting on refugee issues in Japan held by Amnesty International Japan
March: Fresh soy milk and fasionable fake leather sneakers, etc.
April A conversation with my husband over a TV show and "Meatarians vs. vegetarians."
May A trip to the U.S. for research. Had an opportunity to attend a fantastic vegan wedding of my friend's.
July A thought on eating whale meat.


06/04/2001

After traveling around the U.S. past three weeks, I couldn't stop experimenting on EnerG egg replacer for Sunday brunch pancake. During the travel, two of my American friends treated me wonderful vegan pancakes using EnerG, so I decided to add the box to my heavy luggage with tons of books.

Both of my friends used commercial pancake mix (vegan), soy milk, and EnerG. Since I couldn't find vegan pancake mix at a supermarket, I followed the recipe on the EnerG box. The consequence was a kind of disaster. Compared to my former pancake experiments using cornstarch as an egg replacer, the color was better. However, the texture was too chewy, not fluffy at all. I didn't see the bubbles on the pancakes when I baked them, too.

My husband was generous enough to help to finish those pancakes.

06/16/2001
Went to Osaka to attend Japan Vegetarian Society's annual conference. I was invited as a panelist to talk about my experience with a non-profit vegetarian group in Baltimore. One of my co-panelists was from Brahma Kumaris and another was the chairman of JVS. In front of about 70 people, we discussed how non-profit group can work to improve vegetarian situation.

After the panel discussion, we enjoyed the gathering with other participants as well as vegan buffet made by a professional French chef. (Actually, he used some honey so not all of them were VEGAN.) Among more than 20 kinds of dishes, I was impressed by vegan soba soup noodle, gazpacho style somen noodle, and baked pineapple with vanilla sauce. I missed to try most of fake meat plates because I was too busy talking with people. They were relatively more than middle-aged, somehow business-related, and the ratio of men was high. I wondered where vegetarian movement in Japan would go from this point.

06/17/2001
Stayed in Kyoto after the conference of JVS. With my friend, I had lunch at HANBEY FU, a traditional Fu (Japanese wheat gluten) and yuba shop/restaurant. The lunch set, MUSHI YASHINAI, cost 3,000 yen, didn't include any meat and fish (I doubt they used fish extract soup in some dishes though) but its volume was so full that I never felt hungry till 8 at night. Before coming back to Tokyo, at the food court of Kyoto station building, I bought dried yuba, several kinds of pickled vegetables, and fu sweets that my carnivore husband loved.

06/20/2001
I wanted muffins at midnight and started baking them vegan. Checking through several recipes, I decided to use non-vegan one substituting eggs for EnerG egg replacer, because it was with simplest ingredients. The result was great, and I was so happy with fluffy, healthy muffins. Now I've got guts to challenge vegan pancake again.

06/23/2001
Finally! I had perfect vegan pancakes!! This time I took the recipe in "Vegan Meals for One or Two" by Nancy Berkoff, R.D., and substituted EnerG for silken tofu. I changed some ingredients of apples and cinnamon to blueberries. Anyway it worked. How wonderful to have fluffy, golden brown pancakes Saturday morning!

Back to top
 
Copyright (C) 2002 Hiroko Kato, Tomoko Kinukawa(designer).All rights reserved.