Gifu, 31 March: Bought some room fragrance called yuki usagi (snow rabbit), shaped like... well, you can see :-)
Gifu, 1 April: Family dinner at Kitayama, with my sister Hiroko and her fiancée Tamotsu.

Right: scallop & tofu mousse with a dash of uni, sansho pepper leaves and other seasonal veg on top.

Assorted appetizers: mozuku seaweed in sweet vinegar (in the glass); grilled wheat gluten cake on skewer (front); various seasonal vegetables & flowers.

Sakuradai (literally cherry bream, it's red sea bream caught at this time of the year) wrapped around a mixture of finely chopped veg, with a crisply fried, wafer-thin lotus root slice as garnish.

Hida beef, rape blossoms and bamboo shoots fried at the table, with soy & miso dips.

Tempura of conger eel wrapped around thick burdock; with some more seasonal veg again.
To Part 3