Hanami 2018 花見 2018

Because of a recent Nor'easter, the 30 year old cherry tree  which was the main focus of hanami celebrations in our backyard because it formed a wide canopy of blossoms over the deck, was totally destroyed just when the buds were getting ready to bloom. Although some of the cuttings we brought inside did bloom the tree itself was a "goner". We had to replace it but the replacement was a young "Yoshino" 染井吉野 cherry tree only 6 feet tall. Luckily further back in the yard we have a cherry tree that we estimate must be over 50 years old. Even though it suffered some minor injuries from the nor'easter it rescued Hanami with its full bloom on a Saturday in April. It was very warm, even hot in mid-day on our deck particularly because we lost the shading canopy of the destroyed cherry tree. Nonetheless thanks to the old tree we still enjoyed "Hanami" 花見.

We decide to defrost a package of salmon for sashimi which we bought for the New Year but did not eat. It was a rather large piece of salmon. Since this was Hanami, I served salmon sashimi in a colorful way with ripe avocado garnished with thin slices of radish and cucumber.

The salmon was quit good and went well with the slices of avocado. Both had a nice melt-in-your-mouth texture. We had this with regular wasabi and soysauce.

This was followed with Japanese "dashimaki" 出汁巻 omelet with dried "aonori" 青のりseaweed (upper left), blanched baby "Bok Choi" "ohitashi" お浸しwith dried bonito flakes (upper right) and cold simmered daikon round with ginger miso with Yuzu zest.

We have been making variations of dashimaki using cooked and chopped baby kale and chicken broth but this time, I went traditional with a Japanese broth and dried "aonori" seaweed.

Since it was rather hot, I served the simmered daikon  cold.  It was first boiled with grains of rice and then simmered in kelp broth) with a ginger Yuzu miso sauce (finely chopped ginger, mirin, sake and sesame oil and Yuzu zest). I should have done a better job cutting the chives I used for garnish.

You cannot see well but blanched baby bok choi with dried bonito "Katsuo bush" flakes and soy sauce.

We were glad we could still do hanami in our back yard. The Grand Daddy old tree, while not as spectacular as the one we lost, went a long way to filling the void. Unfortunately, the next day was rainy, windy and cold so it was an only one day hanami this year except for the mini-hanami or the unexpected early hanami we had when the cuttings of now-demised cherry tree bloomed.

Hanami 2026 #2 and #3 花見2026、二回目、三回目

This year, two of our cherry trees (shown in the picture) kept their blossoms for several days, which gave us an opportunity to have multiple “Hanami 花見” cherry blossom gazing celebrations. The weather was a bit too cold to stay outside in the evening but we had a some time during the day to sit under the cherry trees. In the evening, we moved inside but still had a great view of the cherry blossoms. We served several small hanami dishes in the red and gold “jubako 重箱” (stackable boxes) which we have. These boxes were was just the right size and an elegant way to serve the small hanami feasts. 

The picture below shows the various dishes we served in the jubako. In picture #1, the dish in the upper left is a small “chirashi-sushi* ちらし寿司” scattered sushi with “ikura いくら” salmon roe, “uni ウニ” (not fresh uni but “Uni shuto うにの酒盗 from Maruhide 丸秀 which is the next best thing to fresh uni), and slices of avocado and cucumber.

*Since I had hydrated dried shiitake mushrooms left over from making vegetarian broth and “Kanpyo 干瓢” gourd peel from making salmon kelp rolls, I cooked and seasoned them with sugar and soy sauce (sweet and salty “ama-kara 甘辛” ). I chopped them up and mixed it into the sushi rice (this is the classic way of preparing rice for  “chirashi-zushi ちらし寿司” scattered sushi).

The upper right is simmered mackerel in miso sauce 鯖の味噌煮 with small pieces of two kinds of dashi-maki omelettes だし巻き卵, left-over from the first hanami. The left lower is Russian marinated salmon サーモンのロシア漬け topped with ikura. Finally the lower right is an assortment of what I made mostly for the first hanami, all vegetalian including mock tofu 擬制豆腐, persimmon in tofu dressing 柿のしら和え, braised burdock 金平牛蒡, nappa and cucumber asa-zuke 白菜とキュウリの浅漬け,
and marinated qual eggs うずらの味玉.

The next day, I served similar items including scattered sushi. A notable addition were the fire-fly squid ホタルイカ we got from Regalis foods. We ate half of the quantity of squid soon after we received them. For the other half,  I re-boiled, then removed the tough rock-like eyes and beaks and froze them. I thought they would be a perfect addition to the hanami feast. After thawing them, I briefly sautéed them in butter and seasoned them with a small amount of soy sauce. I also added karashi-sumiso 辛子酢味噌 miso and vinegar dressing with Japanese hot mustard (picture #2).

This has been our cherished once-a-year event. The only problem is that when the blooms are over, we have to wait a whole year before we can enjoy them again. As an aside, the Easter (and late blooming Christmas) amaryllis are also adding to the show.  

Early Hanami 早めの花見

We presently have four cherry trees in our backyard; 3 Japanese style trees and one native choke cherry tree. (The choke cherry tree blooms in late spring with lovely veils of white flowers). There was already one mature cherry tree on the property when we moved in over 30 years ago but we planted two additional cherry trees, so we could have spectacular Hanami celebrations in our own yard. While they provided beautiful flowers and shade for many years neither of them survive today. One never did well and remained stunted for the 20 years of its life. While doing some construction in 2010 we discovered the reason. The poor thing was planted over a giant cement jersey wall such as those used to block traffic on a highway. Unbeknownst to us, and to our utter surprise and horror, the builders had used objects such as that as land fill in our backyard. The poor tree had nowhere to plant its feet so it could thrive. After seeing its circumstances we were amazed it even survived as long as it did. The other cherry tree was more fortunate. We apparently planted it in a more favorable spot and it did very well. It formed a large canopy over our deck and was our main cherry tree for hanami but, it reached its demise in 2018 at the hands of a severe Nor’easter wind. So in the face of this cherry tree devastation, we planted a new cherry tree to replace it. This tree is getting taller but does not yet quite match the grandeur of the destroyed old tree it replaced. Meanwhile, 30 some years ago soon after we moved into the house, I was cleaning out a patch of our backyard heavily overgrown with weeds and thick vines when I came across tiny twig of a tree and recognized it was a very young very small volunteer (i.e. not planted but rooted naturally) cherry tree.  I carefully saved it and nurtured it. Now it is over 2 stories tall. (Shown in the pictures below.)  This cherry tree is perfectly positioned to get full sun in the morning and full sun in the evening this time of year. As a result, it is the first of our cherry trees to bloom in the spring. This year spring came early and this cherry tree is in full bloom in Mid March. To celebrate, we had an early Hanami. Because of the location of the tree, it is most visible from the one of the rooms on the second floor. So despite the cold weather and strong winds of the last few days, we were still able enjoy an early Hanami in the comfort of the warm house. 

We will post more details later but we had five dishes for our early Hanami. Three were made from some newly acquired edible lily bulbs, as well as dishes of edible chrysanthemum and lotus root. Luckily daylight saving time kicked in just last Sunday, so sunset comes later than before increasing the time we have to enjoy the cherry blossoms. Even at sunset, however, the cherry blossoms characteristically glow in the ambient light which is always beautiful to see.

Hanami 2020 #3 with Uni and tuna from Catalina ３日目の花見、カタリナの刺身

After we had our first hanami celebration meal of Tako Grill take out, we received some shashimi items from Catalina Offshore products. It is rare now-a-days that they have gold uni from California but they had it and I ordered it with Pacific bluefin tuna loin, salmon and "ankimo" Monkfish liver. The fish arrived Saturday and we had our second hanami of tuna sashimi and a half of uni that evening. The other items contributed to the third continuation of hanami. I prepared half of the uni as "shio-uni" 塩うに or salted uni. The uni arrived in this plastic container which works much better than traditional wood tray.

The uni was nicely formed (not fragmented or dissolved). It was a nice orange color. Its been a while since we had uni from Catalina. We have been getting some uni from Maruhide but this one was pretty good.

I enjoyed half as sashimi and prepared the other half as "Shio uni" or salted uni. I read that this was a very usual preparation in Aomori prefecture 青森県 which is the norther most part of the main land Japan, "Honshu"本州. Most of the recipes (all in Japanese) call for 100 grams of uni and 12 grams of salt. Place the uni slightly apart in a flat sealable container lined with a paper towel, and sprinkle with the salt (see below). I put on the lid and placed it in the refrigerator for three hours. After three hours, moisture came out and was absorbed by the paper towel. Since we were going to consume the uni the next day, I just move the uni to a smaller sealable container. If you use a sterilized container (a glass jar sterilized  in boiling water, cooled and dried), the uni should last at least 1 week in the refrigerator).

In any case, I forgot to take a picture when we had this the next day. To serve it I made a bottom layer of thinly sliced mini cucumber on a plate and put the salted uni on the top. We folded the cucumber and uni into single serving seasoned nori sheets 味付け海苔 and enjoyed the combination of flavors. The uni became bit more creamy with more intense flavor. Definitely I will use this technique to preserve and enhance the flavor of uni in the future.

In any case, we had the remaining tuna two ways; one is tuna cubes with avocado 鮪とアボカドの角切り(seasoned with finely chopped garlic, sesame oil and soy sauce).

Another was just straightforward tuna sashimi with blanched broccoli with sesame dressing ブロッコリーの胡麻和え, salt broth snap peas スナップ豌豆の塩びたし, Japanese omelet 出汁巻 and "asazuke" 浅漬け of cucumber and daikon.

In any case, we had a very good 3rd hanami.

Unexpected early Hanami 予定外の早めの花見

A Nor'Easter (winter hurricane) tore through our area recently. Winds gusted in the range of 40 to 60 MPH. My wife was standing in the kitchen making a cup of coffee when a branch the size of a small tree split off our neighbor's white pine and crashed into our 30 plus year old cherry tree splintering the trunk in half. My wife who observed the whole thing said the branch did not fall but flew into our tree--it was airborne. The cherry tree died heroically. I would like to think it gave its life to narrowly divert the white pine from crashing directly into our house causing even more damage. Nonetheless this was very heartbreaking. Later in the day our neighbor's 60 foot Leland cypress joined it's collegue by crashing into our backyard taking out our back fence which like the cherry tree gave its life to keep the massive tree from hitting the house with even greater velocity than it did. At the end of the day; death toll--3 huge trees and a backyard so full of dead trees it was almost impossible to move in it.

We tried to see if we could save the cherry tree--it was such an important part of our backyard. It was central to out yearly hanami and shaded the deck from the sun in summer. But it was too severely damaged. We had no choice but to take it down and replace it with a 6 foot tall "young sprout". This was particularly sad because the tree would have bloomed in only a few weeks. We gathered up some branches and placed the cuttings in vases with the hope that some would bloom and they did.

These blooms were a much earlier hanami than we were expecting.

Since this was the last Hanami for this cherry tree, in its honor, we decide to do an unexpected early hanami. I quickly put together six kinds of otoshi dishes for the occasion. They were octopus sashimi タコの刺身 (upper left), cube of silken tofu with garnish of perilla and salmon "Ikura" roe or "hiyayakko" 冷奴 (upper center) and store-bought "Chinese-style" squid  salad (イカの中華風サラダ). On the plate (all heated up in the toaster oven) were store-bought fish cake, spicy tofu cubes, and chicken liver simmered in wine.

In addition, we had just recently received a very thin "usuhari" うすはり glass sake carafe and sake cups from Japan sold by ”Sake-talk"  through Amazon. Several years ago when we visited Japan, we got "usuhari" tumblers and we really like these thin glass vessels. In any case, we opened American brew Shochikubai Yamadanishki Daijinjou and poured it into the carafe.

It was a bit sad to see the remaining few twigs blooming in one last gasp of this valiant tree. We still have two cherry trees in our backyard which were there when we moved in. When they bloom in a few weeks it will provide some solice for the loss our beautiful tree. We will raise a cup of sake to its memory (and maybe pour a cup at the base of the young tree we planted as a replacement, just for good luck).

Update: My wife got the idea that we might be able to root some of twigs we salvaged from the downed cherry tree. We got some rooting medium and set up 5 pots (shown below) in the hope one of them would form roots. We know it is a "long shot" but how sentimentally satisfying it would be to propagate another tree from one of the twigs...we would have to name it Phoenix.

Hanami 2016 花見 2016

Again, Hanami 花見 season has come around. This year it was rather early and our backyard cherry trees were in full bloom on Easter weekend. The only problem for us was that we were out of town that weekend. We came back on Monday afternoon and found these spectacular cherry blossoms in our backyard (We were relieved that they were still in bloom). We have three different cherry trees; one that we planted and two that were already established on the property when we build the house. Usually the three trees reach peak bloom at different times but this year the two main trees bloomed at the same time making it more spectacular than usual. 

The sky was blue and sunny but unfortunately it was chilly and very windy.  We couldn't sit outside under the trees, so we had hanami looking from inside the house.

Since we just came back, we did not have anything special for Hanami so I made what I could from the cache in the freezer and also from food leftover from the trip. My wife bought these deviled eggs for a lunch on the road. They were not particularly flavorful and the worse for wear from the travel. 

I made the first snack from these sorry-looking deviled eggs. I just defrosted some cod roe or tarako たらこ. I removed the skin and mixed in sake and a small amount of concentrated noodle sauce from the bottle.

I just put the mixture on the deviled eggs (after cleaning them up a bit) and garnished it with finely chopped perilla leaves and chives. This was quite an improvement over the original and was a perfect first bite with cold sake.

I also defrosted some natto 納豆 and mozuku もずくin sweet black vinegar. I made cucumber cups and placed the tarako mixture remaining from the deviled egg course in the cups (left). I put a small dab of wasabi and a light splash of soy sauce on the top. For the natto I used the sauce in the package and added wasabi instead of mustard and mixed well using my natto mixing contraption, then I added an egg yolk (Davidson's pasteurized egg). For texture I added finely diced nagaimo 長芋 and garnished with nori strips (center). I served mozuki in sweet black vinegar as is (right).

The wasabi on the tarako was "real wasabi".

Natto with egg yolk is a good combination and the nagaimo dice gave a nice texture contrast.

Mozuku seaweed is famous in Okinawa and perfect with sake.

Using whatever I had, I also made a small simmered dish or nimono 煮物 from nagaimo. grilled tofu 焼き豆腐 and shirataki 白滝.

This may not have been the ideal for hanami; if truth be told I was hankering for some sashimi but at least these drinking snacks were adequate and how bad can it be if you can sip sake gazing at a panorama of cherry blossoms?

Pre-Hanami Hanami 早咲き桜の花見

Due to the record warm weather we experienced this February in Washington, DC, the smallest cherry tree in our backyard decided the first weekend of March, although extremely early, wasn't such a bad time to bloom after all. The sun smiled on the little tree for a few days but, as could be expected, the temperature dipped down to seasonal levels just above freezing. (Luckily the other trees in our yard know better and are holding back, although a few more warm days will result in a very early Hanami this year).

Nice blue sky in the background.

This little tree is the furthest from our house. It was a volunteer which has always struggled because it was surrounded by large trees and didn't get enough light. Then, a few years ago a derecho slammed the Washington area knocking down several of those big trees opening up the canopy. Ever since, this little volunteer cherry tree has been extremely happy and thrived. Hopefully this cold snap won't set it back.

Although the other cherry trees are not yet blooming, as you can see in this picture, they are getting ready.

We just couldn't let the little cherry tree's valiant early bloom go without appropriate commemoration so we had a mini- and early-Hanami 花見 . It was far too cold to sit outside so we stayed inside and admired the tree though the window. I served three appetizers in small containers we got at Nishiki market 錦市場 in Kyoto 京都.

I also made dashi-maki だし巻き Japanese omelet (I added chopped scallion this time). I served blanched asparagus dressed in Bonito flakes with soy sauce アスパラのおかか和え, skinned Campari tomatoes and broccoli for color (after taking the pictures I put our home-made Ranch dressing on the tomatoes).

The three appetizers in the small dishes are Marinated cucumber きゅうりのキューちゃん, fine strips of chicken breast meat (barbecued the prior week) dressed in sesame dressing 鶏の胡麻和え and burdock root salad ごぼうのサラダ (from left to right).

I also served another small plate of chicken "Matsukaze-yaki" 松風焼き that I made the day before and seasoned kelp 昆布の佃煮 (recycled kelp from making broth) and my salmon salad.

Despite the cold weather, I also barbecued pork and we finished with slices of pork and my  potato salad. My wife served chocolate Junket for desert. This was perhaps the earliest Hanami we ever had but the best is yet to come.

Hanami #2 花見＃2

After our first hanami 花見, we were expecting bad weather and rain.  However,  luckily, we had a second nice day of hanami and I made another attempt at a hanami bento 花見弁当. This time, I filled the smaller lidded box with scattered sushi or “chirashi-zushi” ちらし寿司 made of smoked salmon, marinated “ikura” salmon roe いくらの醤油漬け(#1).

Opening the lid of the smaller box revealed scattered sushi (#2 left upper). I also served Russian marinated salmon 鮭のロシアずけ topped with ikura (#2 upper right) and herring marinated in wine sauce (store-bought) topped with sour cream mixed with the brine from the herring jar and chopped dill (#2, lower left). The smaller box without a lid, I served salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻き, “kinpira gobo” 金平牛蒡 braised burdock root, mock tofu 擬制豆腐, braised spicy marinated tofu ピリカラ豆腐, braised crunchy cauliflower モンパルナスのカリフラワー and crispy marinated  enoki mushroom エノキのパリパリ焼き, skinned Campari tomato, and chicken liver simmered in red wine 鶏肝の赤ワイン煮.

I used frozen rice to make sushi rice. I just microwaved the rice until warm, added the sushi vinegar (from the bottle) mixed and microwaved a bit more to warm up. I mixed it again and let it sit for 5 minutes. It was not the best sushi rice but certainly good enough for the purpose. I marinated ikura with x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce overnight in the refrigerator. I first placed the sushi rice on the bottom of the small covered box then distributed ikura over half of the rice surface followed by smoked salmon (#3). I topped this with a julienne of cucumber and golden thread egg or “kinshi-ran” 金糸卵 and nori threads or “kizami-nori” 刻み海苔(#4). Since we were not expecting to have the second hanami this was a bonus and what I put together for the occasion was pretty satisfying.

Now, our main cherry tree (“somei-yoshino” 染井吉野 which has a bottle brush appearance of numerous blossoms covering the branches (foreground) and the more traditional one like depicted in “ukiyoe” painting of edo time 江戸時代の浮世絵  which is in the background are both in full bloom displaying their individual personalities in the shape and characteristics of their petals. 

Beginning of Hanami 2019 花見の始まり2019

Last year, in a nor'easter (winter hurricane) we lost the 30 year old cherry tree that formed a canopy over our deck and was the foundation of our hanami celebrations. Although we immediately replaced the destroyed tree with a new one it is "just a kid" (only about 7 feet tall). Although it is blooming it's little heart out it has some serious growing to do before it replaces the gap left by the tree that was destroyed.  Luckily we have two other cherry trees which were growing on the property when we moved in.  Some years all the cherry trees sing as a chorus; blooming all at the same time. At the other extreme, some years they perform sequential solos.  This year the small native cherry tree bloomed first. Last weekend, it was in it's full glory. Then the "kid" joined in for a duet. We are waiting to see when the last, oldest tree, will decide to make its voice heard.

The cherry tree blossoms were accompanied by the vibrant pink  of our plum tree. It usually blooms much earlier sometimes even in February. We actually have pictures from previous years of the blossoms covered in snow.  Between the cherry trees and the plum tree we decided there were enough pink blossoms around for us to have our first hanami 花見 or cherry (cum plum) blossom gazing.

So, our hanami appetizers for the evening are shown below. I served 5 appetizers in a 5 well rectangular plate. All except for the asparagus spears with sesame dressing アスパラの胡麻よごし are store bought. I added two more plates of appetizers rounding out the 5 to 7. My wife chose pink sake cups for both of us to commemorate the cherry blossoms.

The first two dishes are our usual ika-shiokara イカの塩辛 and ika-mentai いか明太子.

For the dishes shown below I blanched the asparagus and served only the tips for this dish. The sesame dressing was made using white sesame paste (from the pouch) and grated roasted sesame seeds, soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar.  On the right is "spicy baby clams" which I bought in a plastic container from our Japanese grocery store. It is sort of Chinese flavor with rings of red "togarashi" red pepper and wakame (the root portion). It was quite good and not too spicy if you avoid the red pepper.

The last dish shown here (on the right) is Chinese-style squid salad which also came in a plastic container. All these small dishes were perfect for sake.

I also served my dashi-maki Japanese omelet だし巻き卵, Campari tomato, blanched broccoli and braised cauliflower.

The last dish is boiled octopus leg thinly sliced with su-miso dressing 酢味噌, thinly sliced and salted  cucumber and topped with "ikura" salmon roe.

These were just enough appetizers to honor the first hanami of the year accompanied by sips of cold sake.