jello

today is a special day. it’s the tanabata festival. once a year, two stars, ori-hime (vega) and hiko-boshi (altair), are allowed to meet in the milky way.

on this day in japan, people write their wishes on colourful paper and hang them on bamboo trees. some people will put on their yukata (summer kimonos) to take part in the festival. the rustling of bamboo leaves brings a cool atmosphere to the hot summer night.

paul and i were lucky enough to see the tanabata festival in sendai while we were hitchhiking south from sapporo, hokkaido back in 2003. in fact, we made it to all three major summer festivals in tohoku that year: the nebuta festival (aomori) , the kanto festival (akita), and the sendai tanabata festival (miyagi).

we walked through hundreds of streamers in the shopping arcade. everyone ducked and walked through them full of joy. many stores in the arcade were having sidewalk sales. it was a very lively and romantic night.

today i made “tanabata” jello with a star. the star and the base of the jello are made of an’nin tofu (almond flavored tofu). the jello is plain gelatin with one single drop of blue food colouring in it. that’s why it’s so pale, instead of bright neon blue like gatorade or something.

i remember having jello with a star as a dessert for kyushoku (elementary school lunch). i always kept the star for the last bite :)

if you see the milky way tonight, close your eyes, make a wish, and count to three…

to add a fancy touch, i used a knife and a fork to eat the jello last night. you can cut the jello into different shapes — thin slice, square, triangle…

all of sudden, it got so much fun. fine dining with my giant pink grapefruit jello. and hurray! i put the last piece of the giant jello in my mouth! i finished it!
d’n'c (genius!) sent me a link to “bucket pudding“. it’s a bucket full of pudding (creme brulee) made by japanese bakers who wanted to make people’s dreams come true — “i want to eat a bucket full of pudding. a dream from childhood.” apparently it’s very popular in japan. it’s so popular that the bakers have to limit the quantity to sell — limited 60 buckets of pudding a day. it’s all handmade and they use high quality fresh milk called “abukuma kougen milk” from fukushima prefecture, local eggs, local sugar and a dash of vanilla essence. that’s it. yummy.

another great charm of this giant pudding is that you can keep the bucket after eating the pudding. you can use it to keep wine cool or as an ice pitcher. after eating the giant pudding, you might want to celebrate your accomplishment with cool wine and beer. no need for the fridge. you can use the bucket. how convenient! now that’s KIKUBARI.

next time, i’ll try to make a giant pudding. but i think i’m gonna have to have a party for that.

all of sudden, i have too much time on my side. so i decided to carry on with my on-going project, called “do the things that i haven’t done but i really want to do before i die” project. so i made a giant pink grapefruit jello.

it’s made of 2L diet pink grapefruit soda and 4 bars of kanten (agar-agar). it’s 5.5 inches tall and 6 inches wide. originally i wanted to make a bucket-sized jello, but this is still a pretty good size. not bad for my first try.

as you may be able to tell from the photo, it’s pretty dense. you can hold the jello in your hands without breaking it. that’s right. — it’s a tough jello. it took about a day to solidify.

it’s quite healthy as well for a dessert. agar-agar contains no calories but lots of fiber (13g fiber in 16g agar-agar). plus, thanks to the pretty colour of pink grapefruit soda, it doesn’t have the ridiculous colours that packaged “jello” has.

it will probably take a couple of days for me to finish eating this–breakfast, lunch, snack and supper…

i’m not sure if anyone is interested in making this giant jello. but just in case, here is the recipe:

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