Newsletter #1: Just getting started...!

The Big Ringo Mama in NY

— 7 min read
Newsletter #1: Just getting started...!
Matsuri is always a fun time for kids... can we do something like this in NYC?

Hi The Big Ringo readers! 

Happy mid-summer! I’m actually loving these summer days in NYC because we usually spend our summers in Japan, where it can get excruciatingly hot and humid - and crowded with tourists from all over the world (that’s a lot to say from someone living in NYC!). In NYC, I love seeing the streets in the city almost empty on the weekends and embracing “summer Fridays” (even though it doesn’t really apply to my job…) until post Labor Day.  One of the biggest surprises when I first moved here was that even investment bankers took summer Fridays seriously (they have to get to the Hamptons somehow) - so I knew it was a real thing :) 

Since I’m still just starting this out, I’m going to play around with the structure of this newsletter for a bit until the right one ‘sticks.’  As always, please feel free to share any feedback / comments!

EVENTS I’m CURIOUS ABOUT

This is where I share activities and events around NYC that are related to Japan and are family-friendly. 

  • Explore Japan in Brooklyn - July 27th, @ Japan Village Industry City
    • Kendama and Taiko performances! Japanese crafts! Industry City is already full of fun Japan things, but this special event features live performances, which makes for a fun outing for families as well
    • Various food options abound - our favorite is the Brooklyn Kura which features Brooklyn-made sake and delicacies (well, not really for kids!) - while you sip on sake, let the kids play outside :)
  • Japan Fes - Japanese food / snacks street vendors; various dates and locations
    • We’ve attended a few of these in the past and they are so much fun, reminding me of Matsuri in Japan - delicious food, great energy to keep the summers going! 
    • There are various days throughout the summer in different parts of the city: East Village (July 28, Aug 24, 25), and UWS / UES (Aug 10, 18, Sept 7), to name a few
  • Mikage Project  - August 6th @ Joe’s Pub 
    • It’s not easy to find traditional Japanese folk songs in NY - and at the famed Joe’s Pub in downtown NYC, you can experience exactly that! 
    • From the website: “MIKAGE PROJECT compose and perform Minyo (traditional folk songs) with a modern sensibility, and connect them to the next generation. This talented ensemble explores the possibilities of Japanese instruments .They are three young and influential players of Shakuhachi, Shamisen, and Koto, and are very much in the spotlight in Japan.”
  • Summer Thursdays Concert Series @ the NYPL “Japanese Family Concert”  - August 15th @ SNFL 
    • What a fun way to spend Thursday morning listening to Japanese songs with your kids! Nobuko Wilson, the NYPL librarian who I emailed back and forth with recently, shared this with me and encouraged me to share with the newsletter broadly. 
    • From the website: “Miwa Gemini is a Japanese born singer/songwriter who happily calls Brooklyn home. She has appeared in theatre productions as well as film productions and performs regularly in NYC. One of her favorite projects to date is collaborating with Steve Buscemi on his web series, Park Bench, where she wrote the theme song and appeared as the house band leader. Her dream is to advocate for all dreams through her songs. She believes even lost and forgotten dreams have an important place in all of our lives.”
  • Family Storytime in Japanese - August 18th @ SNFL
    • Held every third Sunday, this is a great way to meet other parents interested in Japanese culture and for kids to listen to Japanese reading, participate in songs and on your way out, check out Japanese books that are abundant at SNFL. 
    • Make sure to register with the library - it’s a simple call or in-person! 
    • Next one is coming up on September 15th! 

Fun Japan-Related news in the USA:

LET’S TALK ABOUT… JAPANESE SUPERMARKETS in NYC. 

This is where I talk about one theme related to Japan x Family x NYC. 

If you’ve become a Weee! convert, then maybe this topic is so irrelevant for you. 

HOWEVER, if you’re like me and still enjoy going to Japanese supermarkets in NYC in person (nostalgia!), read on! One of the benefits of having kids in NYC is always having a stroller handy, and usually a monstrous one like our Uppababy Cruz - you can literally stuff anything in the lower compartment, like a third child - so there is always an excuse to stop by to go grocery shopping.

Japanese supermarkets in the city have sprung up like crazy in the past few years. Before that, we only had Katagiri, Sunrise, etc. Now we have Yamadaya, Ten-Ichi, in locations usually reserved for those startup brands looking for prime NY real estate.  

My favorite is Dainobu on 6th avenue. First of all, convenience is super important because I have to haul everything back home (duh). So if you don’t live nearby, then it might be a challenge, though what might get you to come despite the distance is their 40% off Frozen Items every Sat/Sun + select days of the month. Saturdays post kids’ swimming class is where I stop by and get all my frozen udon, frozen gyoza, Yoshinoya branded frozen beef sukiyaki, frozen yakisoba mix…. Because I love all things frozen, this is a DREAM come true for me (and I am a deal hunter, just ask my husband). I love that Dainobu offers this deal every weekend without fail, and I hope they never stop this, ever. I also secretly love how packed everything is, with literally no room to glide my Uppababy Cruz through the aisles. Feels like Japan to me! 

Another reason I like Dainobu is that if you walk a few blocks down to Yamadaya on 6th ave and 11th street, there is another Japanese supermarket, much bigger than Dainobu, without the weekend 40% frozen stuff. Basically it’s a two for one deal in this little neighborhood, with these two supermarkets so close by. Yamadaya is so much more spacious than Dainobu, and probably has 5x more products with a variety of brands and sizes (you can explore all sorts of brands of soy sauce here).  Lots of kitchen goodies, kids stuff like stickers, little stuffed animals. Kinda like Daiso except everything is never 100 yen. 

One of my favorite things to buy at Yamadaya is Japanese tissue paper boxes.  The price is actually comparable to what you would find at the local CVS “Kleenex”, but infinitely better quality. SO SOFT, BUTTERY. I feel like my nose is being taken care of by the thoughtfulness of Japanese brands and how they actually think about the consumer. 

In the end, we have weak Japanese yen to thank for, as it seems that the only thing that has not experienced inflation over the last few years is imported Japanese ‘stuff.'

BENTO STUFF 

This is where I talk about…. bento. 

Every morning, I make bento box for each of my two kids, and over the years I’ve learned tricks to make this as pleasant of a process as possible during the busiest time of the day. I’ll try to share one idea per newsletter, and hope to crowd-source them from this community so please share any of your tricks, and I’ll share them here in the future! 

~NANCHATTE HANBAAAG “なんちゃってハンバーグ”

  • 1lb Sweet Italian Sausage (I buy mine from Whole Foods when they are on sale)
  • 1lb Ground Beef (85/15 works best)
  • 1 onion (whatever kind and size you got is fine) 
  • 2-4 tablespoons of panko (honestly, I just eyeball)

Warm up the oven to 370F. Chop up the onion in whatever shape you want, then mix everything together, (take out the sausage out of its casing). Once you’ve let out all your anger and anxiety by smashing everything together with your  hands, find an oven-safe pan (I use a 8x8 square thing I got 10 years ago), and put the smush thing in there, probably like 2cm-3cm deep? You’ll just want to play around with how long you put it in the oven depending on the size of your pan, but mine is done in 30 min. 

Once cooled… cut it up in individual portions, and FREEZE them. Take one out as you need, put it in the microwave for 30sec-1min! They are our bento staple and show up in my kids’ bento box 1-2x a week. 

When I put them in my kids’ bento box, the older one gets ‘sauce’ (because she LOVES sauce and needs SAUCE with everything) - my “SAUCE” for this HANBAAG is a 1:1 ratio of Kewpie mayo and Ketchup. My younger one does not get any sauce because he does not know sauce. 

So… I used to make these individual tiny HANBAAG by rolling each 5cm sized HANBAAG  and putting them on the pan, evenly spaced out. But when it came time for me to actually put in the bento box, I would cut them up in smaller pieces and realized how wasteful my effort in making these little balls were… like, my daughter had no idea that it used to be a 5cm ball that I labored for 15 minutes to roll up.  Meatloaf style is the way to go! 

...Till Next Time!

Hope you enjoyed reading this far! In the next newsletter, I hope to introduce a few of our families’ favorite NYPL Japanese books, tried and tested on my two kids who only take bites at breakfast when I read to them. 

As always, please feel free to share any Japan-related activities in NYC, and will include them in the next newsletter - August 9th! 

Happy Summer! 

Eiko 

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