I saw the week 1 thread for 海辺のカフカ go live this afternoon and thought, “Woah, I thought that was starting next month, it’s today?!” (I’m no good with dates. Or time in general.) Nope, it’s tomorrow. It’s still the 27th in my time zone. Well, I could have started today anyway when I saw that, but I was already set on trying to finish 夜カフェ, so I’m starting tomorrow. I already got it out, took off the jacket, and set it on my stack of books I’m reading in the living room in preparation, so hopefully I won’t turn myself into a liar tomorrow lol
Yeah I decided to read ahead (some more) and finish 夜カフェ today, mostly because I wanted to finish a Japanese novel this month, and it became clear a long time ago that I was not finishing my current volume of 2.43 this challenge. That the 海辺のカフカ book club is starting now too is just a bonus. I read ch 9-13, which was about 65 pages of text. I kept going back and forth between “Hey, it’s only like 60 pages, that’s not that much” and “Okay this is kind of a lot actually” and “I can totally get this finished today” and “Nope it’s definitely a lot” and “Hey, I’ve already nearly finished it!” lol
I’m thinking, if I had the whole day free and I started it in the morning, reading a whole Aoi Tori Bunko book in a day might just be feasible. Based off how long ch 8 took me on Wednesday, I’d thought I might be able to finish one in a matter of hours like ハイキュー!!, but these 5 chapters today took me a lot longer than I’d expected, so maybe not. But regardless, it feels nice to have finished my third novel!
Even though I’d told myself I wouldn’t buy any novels this past book haul and would only get manga, not long before I ordered them I came across the 朗読CD (read by Enoki Junya) of 明日をくれた君に、光のラブレターを, and since it sounded good I decided to get the novel this time around with the intent of seeing whether I’d want to get the CD sometime for listening practice. I’d kind of been planning on starting it before the 海辺のカフカ book club started, but since I misjudged how much time I had left before then and it’s now, I’m not sure I wanna be starting another novel just yet. Well, we’ll see how reading 海辺 goes first. If I don’t have trouble keeping up with the pace, I may start reading this one on the days that I don’t read that, or I’ll just stick with manga.
Alright I’m invested, it’s official I played more AI: The Somnium Files as you could probably guess, and oh man things are happening. Poor みずき… first people suspecting her dad murdered her mom, and now her dad’s also turning up murdered? And in such brutal ways too, oof. I’m really curious what the deal with the incident 6 years ago is, there are some clear similiarities but also enough differences that they don’t seem directly related, but it’s certainly not a coincidence that 伊達 lost his memory (and his eye ) 6 years ago as well. And why are they being so secretive about it?? So yeah they’ve got me
Plot intricacies aside the dialogue is just fun; the amount of stupid jokes 伊達 makes with the most self-satisfied look on his face is just delightful:
Tomorrow I’ll (hopefully) start 海辺のカフカ with the book club, so that’ll be a change of pace for sure. I’ve still never finished an actual book in Japanese but I should be pretty well equipped at this point (again hopefully lmao). I’m looking forward to giving it a go!
Some parts were tricky to translate for me, but not for a professional translator, I think. I can remember a paragraph that was about the emotions that a character felt about something that had happened before that was omitted in its entirety and there was nothing untranslatable about that. I guess something like that could be seen as non-essential to the plot, but it did explain the motivations of the character at that point…
I read Chapter 8 of 夜カフェ today. The story is starting to move along so I enjoyed it a lot even though it took me about 2 hours to read the full chapter! I don’t think it usually takes me quite so long to read a chapter of this book, so maybe it was a slightly longer one or something - though maybe I’m just a bit tired!
About nose-man, hand-man, and foot-man getting along… it was just completely mad
Such as making a campfire in nose-man’s nose because it is so big and eventually a whole town is pulled from this nose… because?
Places 米山薬師「よねやまやくし」ー Yoneyama shrine, Aira 長岡京「ながおかきょう」ー Nagaoka-kyo, was once the capital of Japan (way back in 784-794)
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Almost forgot about this as well, I don’t really have the money either, and then there’s worrying about not wanting to make a fuss… when did birthdays get so complicated?
One of my favourites is Kladdkaka (Swedish mudcake), there’s also this brownie-like cake with fruit in it that is really tasty but my sister took the cookbook. I’ll have to see if I can find it out or find something similar because it’s really good.
The recipe for kladdkaka I used is just an ICA special - kladdkaka
Google translate from Swedish to English seems to be alright.
But I’ll write it out too with some notes, as I do it a bit different:
Kladdkaka
Ingredients
100g butter
2 eggs
(3 if they’re small)
250g / 2.5 dl sugar
(Personally I find this to be way too much sugar, I usually use brown sugar too and put in about 75g)
3 tablespoons of cacao powder
(Along with this I like to add a 1/4 to a 1/2 of a tablespoon of coffee granules too)
2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
(I just use a teaspoon or 2 of vanilla extract instead)
150g / 1.5 dl flour
Pinch of salt
Additional
I like to crush up some nuts to use as a base, pecans are really good, but any work really. Cashews, walnuts, peanuts, all work well. I’m not sure on the exact measurement as I just get a bag of them and crush them, probably 100g-200g. But there needs to be enough to cover the bottom of whatever tin you’re using to cook it in.
I also like to put chocolate chips on top, I think the ones I get come in 150g bags.
(personally dark chocolate chips are my favourite to use, also any you don’t use can just be eaten while you wait for it to cook)
Serving
It says to serve with whipped cream and berries of your choice, strawberries/raspberries and cream do go well with it, but my favourite is to have it with chocolate ice cream, preferable dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips in it. Also good to have chocolate sauce as well as the ice cream.
Prep
Set oven at 200C
Grease the baking tin, it’s best to use one of those were the bottom is removable, or put in a baking sheet so you can remove it easily. The suggested baking tin is 24cm in diameter, I think mine is a little wider. Basically you don’t want the mixture to be spread too thin or to be too thick.
If you’re going to use the nuts, mash up the nuts into small pieces, and then cover the bottom of the tin with them so you have a nice even layer.
Melt the butter in a saucepan
Whisk the eggs and sugar together - do not use an electric whisk
Mix the cocoa and the flour together, I find it’s best to sieve them first, and then add the salt. If you are using vanilla sugar then add that too, as well as the coffee if you choose. Then add this mixture to the egg-sugar mixture and mix it all together. Add the vanilla extract here if you’re using that over vanilla sugar.
Add the melted butter. Mix it gently until it is all nice and smooth. It should be thick and sticky but shouldn’t be powdery or runny.
Pour into the tin, and spread it out evenly across the tin. (if you’ve gone for nuts sometimes some of the nut pieces like to come to the surface but it’s alright).
Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes. This part is mostly to your own judgement and taste. The less time the more gooey it’ll be in the middle and the more time the more cakey-like it’ll be (it’s very similar to cooking brownies). The perfect outcome (in my opinion) is when the middle is still nice and gooey but the top has a crispy-crunchy edge to it. I think 12 mins worked out best for me.
If you’re using chocy-chips I add them at about the 7-10 minute mark, so they melt enough to stick to the top but not melt completely. You can also add them at the end when you get it out of the oven if you prefer them that way.
Devouring it
The recipe does state that you should let it cool before eating, I usually only leave it about 5 minutes because it is really nice while it’s still warm. Also it’s kinda hard to resist when you have this constant smell of chocolate wafting at you.
Also, if you don’t eat it all in one sitting it is very nice chilled, in the fridge or freezer. The fridge keeps the gooeyness but gives it a nice truffle-like firmness. The freezer doesn’t make it rock-solid but the gooeyness is gone. I usually cut the leftovers in half so I can have the best of both.
夜市 ~ 79-82% ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 40 pages, two chapters
and two chapters from Happiness vol.2
Lack of sleep today has affected my concentration levels. I tried to read more of 夜市, and read the first couple of sentences for both the IBC and BBC book clubs, but in the end I settled on manga for today. I was glad to see 鬼太郎 again, it’s been a long time. The stories weren’t the best (or I wasn’t in a position to fully appreciate them in my half-awake state), but they were still enjoyable. The first one was about a grand hotel having been built on the only remaining habitat of yokai flowers. Kitaro was summoned by the hotel manager to help but in the end Kitaro sided with the yokai. The second one was… extra surreal, even for a manga about yokai. About a body snatching yokai (who also had a cool killing method involving turning your enemies into mochi).
I can’t believe there’s only 3 days left on this challenge. It feels like it only started a few days ago. I’d really like to finish 夜市 by that time (not impossible, as long as I don’t have other slow days like today). If I manage that, I will have started and finished three books in two months (not counting the manga). Not bad.
What comes after this challenge then? On the one hand I’d really like to keep reading more or less as I have been now. On the other hand, maybe a break wouldn’t be a bad idea. I would still read, but I’d allow myself to skip days and maybe focus on grammar a little more. I guess I’ll see where the mood takes me.
I read six pages of 浦島太郎. Taro was told by the younger princess that he could eat no more of the delicious food and must now leave. She gives him a beautiful box and he leaves with a “Thank You”.
Then he hops onto the turtle and the turtle takes him back home, where Taro gets off the turtle. He still has the box, and we will find out what’s in the box tomorrow.
Been sporadic with posts because it’s been a bit of a discouraging time (and my hand has never fully healed, though it’s better right now with me taking several measures), but I’ve kept reading. A few hard days might’ve slipped to ~3000 or so characters just to do something, but most have hit 7000-8000. Doing that takes me a few hours and I’m very much plateauing on speed right now, but it’s ok for the moment. I’ll probably think more about pushing myself when the next challenge rolls around, if I haven’t already seen improvements before then. Of course, that’ll depend on the difficulty of what I read next too.
I’m decently past the “committed to Shiki’s route” point, but probably have a while to go before I finish that and hit the true route. As of now, what I said before about her very much applies – this remains the character that I like the least. Her story itself hints at having some potential, but she blows out my eardrums with shrieks too often. This heading in somewhat a romantic direction (which I assume it will? everyone other than Umi has and I think that will hold) is going to be… uncomfortable too, but I’ll leave it at that! Mostly looking forward to breaking into the endgame at this point, heh. Which doesn’t help me break through the slump when what I’m reading at this moment feels like a means to an end in more ways than one. I’ve enjoyed the rest of Summer Pockets overall though!
I wanted to start reading at 11pm, but then I repeatedly got distracted for about 2h… Then I was only going to read 1 page, but I ended up reading 10 lol
Whoops, last post was Wednesday. Hmm… I’ve mostly been reading about Japanese than in Japanese. Although Thursday I did prep for Haikyuu book club and today was the read aloud.
I had finished chapter 2 of Kiki’s. I need to print chapter 3 vocab list.
Only a few more days to read the rest of the tadoku book too…
I finished 夜カフェ２ on the 26th! On the 27th I read a couple pages of my next book: 霧島くんは普通じゃない, but I didn’t really earnestly start it until today, when I read 11 pages and finished the first chapter! It feels much easier to read than 夜カフェ partly because of the language difficulty level, but also because outrageous things start happening pretty much right away. I mean, our hero Miu gets a papercut and the brand new 超イケメン transfer student grabs her wrist and licks the blood off her finger! Then face plants into his desk muttering やっちまった………
study log update (open if you like pictures of books)
I did not make a liar of myself today! Although I didn’t read very much, either; I only read 4 pages of 海辺のカフカ, not even the whole prologue. I’m intrigued by this “boy called Crow” character.
Some vocab of note:
隅から隅まで (すみからすみまで) [expression, adverb] in every nook and corner; from A to Z; from head to toe; from page to page; every inch
回りくどい (まわりくどい) [い-adjective] circuitous; roundabout; indirect
義務教育 (ぎむきょういく) [noun] compulsory education
控えめに言う (ひかえめにいう) [expression, ワ五] to speak with restraint; to understate; to downplay; to put it mildly; to say the least
細々した (こまごました) [expression, prenominal] sundry; various; assorted
Ah thanks, I guess I also need to think about how I’m counting days since I count each day even if I don’t read, but then I mark that I didn’t read that day
I played more AI: The Somnium Files as you could probably guess, and oh man things are happening. Poor みずき… 
) 6 years ago as well. And why are they being so secretive about it??
but I should be pretty well equipped at this point (again hopefully lmao). I’m looking forward to giving it a go!
Japanese found in the tall grass 
. I now want to go there and participate in all-you-can-eat cherry picking sessions.
