crouch End

Mochi Stall in a Market

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I have an announcement. This became rather short notice but I have just decided to have a stall in a local Market this Sunday.

 

Never Too ‘Mochi’ Stall in Crouch End

My stall will be in the Food Market as a part of the Crouch End Festival. The Crouch End Festival is actually the biggest community festival in the whole Britain which lasts over a week in this villege-like community of North London. It consists of all sorts of entertainment such as music, open air films, art and even a Zombie walk as well as all kinds of food. This year we are going to have a performance of the world famous Crouch End Festival Chorus too. The Food Market is normally held in the Green square in front of the ‘secretly famous’ Hornsey Town Hall (this special building has been used as a film/TV location for such as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Killing Eve’) which is the central part of this community, but this year the venue will be set in a nearby ‘Stationers Park’ due to the building development work.

I had a stall in this festival several years ago serving all sorts of Japanese sweets. However, this time I wanted to try serving mainly ‘Mochi’ as it has recently became one of the most favourite Japanese sweets for British people lately. I hear so many people saying ‘I love Mochi!’ but I don’t know how much they love it. Although I am a little anxious whether many Mochi lovers would turn up to my stall, I am going to bet it will be great.

Mochi1

 

Heavenly Mochi Stall in the Food Market

  • at : Stationers Park, Mayfield Rd, London N8 9LP
  • on: the 9th of June (Sun), 11:30 –

I know the venue is not the easiest location to reach if you are not from this area but if you love Mochi, please come to try mine at my stall.

I have been planning to make Mochi in several different flavours and this Polar Bear below is one of the Mochi which is likely to be on the Mochi Stall. If you readers can tell me what your favourite flavour for Mochi is it will be a great help to me!

Mochi2

Hope to see many people turn up there on the 9th of June. See you on Sunday!😊

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Christmas Market ’18 Ended Successfully!

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Market6

Christmas Tree seller at the hall entrance

Our annual event of Japanese Christmas Market has just finished! Unlike the last year’s snowy day it was a great sunny day this year! As we expected the great turn out of people I’d say this year’s market was a great success.

We arrived a little earlier on the site even before the doors to the venue opened for the vendors and started preparing our table to be well ready for the arrival of customers … but then I realised that I forgot to bring some of my Japanese sweets products! I had to go home and brings them as quickly as I could since they were quite a big part of my products. Last year I had to go and fetch some stuff on the snowy road on foot. It was so horrible and I had tried to be sure that would not happen this year, however, it did happen again! I was so stupid. Anyway, so I went back home and when I was walking back hurriedly towards the venue I saw a man holding a container that looked like my sweets inside! I thought ‘Wow! Already?!’ It was just a few minutes after the market opened to public and my products were already sold without me. It was a great sign ahead for the day.

Market1

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Japanese Christmas Market is Coming to North London

/ Mutsumi / 3 Comments

There is one annual event that I join as Sakura Junction at this time of a year. It is a Japanese Christmas Market that gets held in North London. This is the only occasion that I sell my Japanese sweets to public and I enjoy chatting and seeing the reaction from people. Last year the day we had the market London woke up in a blanket of snow which continued to fall till the evening. This caused so much difficulty for people driving or parking their car and the public bus services were also all cancelled. So it was disastrous for us that people couldn’t come to the venue even though they wanted to. This meant a very limited number of visitors.

The market is a craft fair so a lot of stall holders sell their own creations which are somethings Japanese related. They will be a great Christmas gift for your friends and families. However, it seems like that the things the visitors are after the most is food, Japanese food! We have several stalls that serve hot meals and sweets so you can have lunch first and look around to find beautiful things, and then enjoy teatime with Japanese sweet in one location.

Poster 2018

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Japanese Themed Christmas Market in North London!

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

The fabulous time has come! It is the season that I am going to have a stall in a Christmas Market in North London. This ‘Jolly Hobbies’ Market is held only once a year during Christmas Time but that is not the only thing this market is special about. It is a Market with a Japanese Theme! It’s organised by a Japanese person and many of the stall holders are also Japanese so the products people are selling there are mostly something related to Japanese culture

2017 Jolly Market E

I got involved in this market about 5 years ago. Since then it is becoming bigger and bigger and the number of the visitors are increasing every year. The Market started as a kind of craft market first and then recently it has been becoming like a Japanese Street Food Hall too. We serve all sorts of Japanese food hot and cold, such as Sushi and Japanese Curry and many other dishes. It includs my Japanese sweets too.😊 So the visitors can have lunch and look around the stalls to pick some great gifts for Christmas and then buy some Japanese sweet and drink for having Teatime there before going home. It is wonderful to see all the visitors seem to be enjoying the time there.

This year as a Japanese Sweet ‘Wagashi’ maker, I am of course putting my Japanese sweets on the stall which most of them are Gluten-free, Egg-free and Dairy-free. I am planning to to take a variety of ‘Mochi’ type sweets for Mochi fans.(^_-)-☆ I am also going to sell Home-made Vegetable ‘Gyoza’ Dumplings on the day. I hope I can serve as many hot grilled Gyoza dumplings to the happy visitors. However, I am still in the middle of preparation and am not sure how many portions can be ready by Sunday.

It will be a fun day for all the visitors and the stall holders too. If you live in the North London or if you can travel to there, please come to say ‘Hi’ to me. I will be most grateful! 😊 See you there then on Sunday!!

Walking into the Queen’s Wood

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When you fly to or from London, where I live, you can see many greenery area from the sky. Although it is the capital city of England, even apart from the famous parks in the central area there are many great woods in London. The further out you go towards suburb, the more woodland there are. There are several woods quite close to where I live as well and I went to one of them at the last weekend for a short walk.

Queens Wood1One of my favourite woods near my house is Queen’s Wood. According to the council’s website ‘Queen’s Wood is one of the boroughs four Local Nature Reserves and one of four ancient woodland in Haringey. These woods are thought to be the direct descendants of the original “wildwood”, which covered most of Britain about five thousand years ago’. That sounds very impressive.

As it’s described as an ancient woodland as soon as you step your foot in the wood, most of the ground is covered thickly with tree canopies. They are all native trees such as English oak, beech, hornbeam, midland hawthorn, hazel, mountain ash, field maple, cherry and holly etc.

Queens Wood2

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Mochi Dango

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As a part of the story of ‘Hanami’ (Cherry Blossom viewing) I have introduced a sweet called ‘Hanami-Dango’ in April. It is a tri-coloured Mochi on a skewer which is a traditional and popular sweet in Japan. Yes, it is a tradition that Hanami-Dango is composed of three balls in green, white and pink colours. I also explained why it has to be in those colours and why in that order. However, It is my nature to try arranging things to create something different and Dango is no exception so I made un-traditional Dango.

Mochi Dango

This is Mochi Dango with two types of Mochi and toppings.

Mochi Dango

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🎄 Market was a Success!

/ Mutsumi / 10 Comments

Our yearly event ‘Christmas Market’ is over!

Thank you very much for the people who came to the Market and stopped by our Sakura Junction stall. My preparation for the market started a week earlier and in the morning on the day I finally wrapped up my sweets for taking them to the venue.

These are some of the little ones.

sakuera-cherry-bloosom

raspberry-mochi-cake

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