Sun, Bread and Music

[You Really Got Me by The Kinks. One of the songs I played on my English Radio Show ;)]

My god it's hot. Perfect weather for airing futons outside and raising yeast dough inside. My apartment block is quite new, so it's made up of more modern materials, and recently solar panels were added on the roof, which sounds good right... until Summer comes. Ventilation is already bad, but for it to be hotter indoors compared to outside???

Well, I suppose I'll have lots of bread on the menu this Summer. For a little variety, the other week I made a steamed chocolate and banana cake for brekky, it wasn't much to look at, but it was so moist and chocolatey with no way as much sugar as the popular prepackaged cakes and breads here in Japan. Absolutely yummy and so simple, just mix together: 1c flour, 1/2c sugar, 1 egg, 2 tbsp oil, 2 tbsp cocoa powder, 1/2 tbsp baking powder, 2 mashed ripe bananas and whack it in a greased tin. Steam on high heat for 10 mins, reduce to medium heat and steam for a further 5 minutes. Tips: For flour, I usually use 1/2c white and 1/2c wholemeal. For sugar, I use brown. For oil, vegetable is fine, I sometimes use olive. If I have condensed milk, I like to add in 1 tbsp.

Business is going well at school, with book displays, club, being examiner for reading tests and helping out with interview practice for Eiken 英検. I am totally welcoming the work, give me more, more, more!!! My English broadcast programme is going well too, I've been introducing a variety of English music to my students - you name it, Rock, Pop, RnB, Alternative, Dance, Country, Modern, music from the past century...etc - which is totally needed with all the AKB48/Arashi stuff they listen to day in day out. By the way, any song suggestions you can throw my way would be most welcome ;)