09.11.09
Posted in Event at 7:15 pm by jflairhomestyles
We will be attending the JapanFest in Atlanta, GA. The event will be held at the Gwinnett Convention Center. It starts at 10am on Saturday on 9/19/09 and ends at 5pm on Sunday 9/20/09.
It seems like there will be a lot more vendors this year than what we had last year. If you’re interested in Japanese food, culture, anime or products, this event is the place to be! I recommend that you get there early to experience as much as you can in one day.
We’ll have another drawing during the festival, so make sure to stop by our booth. We hope to see you there!
Permalink
08.12.09
Posted in Event, gift idea at 2:09 am by jflairhomestyles
As you know, we had a drawing for a $50 Target gift certificate during the Bon Odori Festival on Saturday, August 1st. We picked a winner randomly on 8/10/09 as planned and the lucky winner is……..
——–Kehlee Walsh from Charlotte, NC !!!——– CONGRATULATIONS!!!
The winner has a week from the notice email we sent out on 8/10/09 to claim the win and give us a shipping address. If we don’t hear from the winner by 10am on Monday, 8/17/2009, we’ll select a different winner.
Thank you all for participating!
Permalink
08.10.09
Posted in Japanese Gift, Japanese Unique Gifts, Tea, gift idea at 12:31 pm by jflairhomestyles
We’ve been advised from the manufacturer that they may not make any more of our popular heart shaped teacups, mugs as well as star shaped and tree shaped mugs… They’re still determining whether or not they’ll make more, but we may not be able to get them in the near future…
This collection has been very popular at J FLAIR and one of my personal favorites as well, so it’s very disappointing to hear the news. Please keep your fingers crossed!!
Until they decide to make more, what we have now is what we can offer to our customers! So, hurry and stock up for your Christmas or any other special occasions! First come, first serve!
Permalink
08.02.09
Posted in Culture, Event at 3:40 pm by jflairhomestyles
What a day! We came back late night night from the Japanese festival in Charlotte. It was just a 5 and a half hour event, but it was a full busy, busy day for us from leaving at 6 AM. Thank you very much for coming to our booth. We really enjoyed interacting with our customers and hearing great feedback. I couldn’t leave our booth until at the very end and I got to catch the last few minutes of Japanese Taiko performance which was incredible.
Sorry that we haven’t been able to to show all the new products on our site, but we’ll upload everything as soon as we can! It’s been crazy here….
Remember, for those who entered the drawing at the event, we’ll announce a winner of a $50 Target gift certificate next Monday, 8/10/09. Stay tuned!
Permalink
07.25.09
Posted in Event, New Products at 5:05 pm by jflairhomestyles
On Saturday, August 1st, we’ll be attending a Japanese festival, BonOdori, at the Wachovia Atrium in Charlotte, NC. It’s a one-day event from 11am-4:30pm. They’ll have a lot of Japanese food, drinks, dance, raffles, creative workshops, gift items and more.
We’ve been ordering a lot of new items from various vendors these past a couple of months. We have anything from cute stationery to Japanese traditional dishware, and many new items will be introduced at the event.
We hope to see you there, but if you cannot make it, no problem. We’ll be attending another Japanese festival in Atlanta in September. Stay tuned for more information.
Permalink
Posted in Culture, Event, Trend at 5:00 pm by jflairhomestyles
We’d never thought that we would be going to an event like Otakon in Baltimore, MD, but we did. We didn’t attend as a vendor, but a visitor this time, and we had a fun! We wanted to check things out and see what the biggest East Coast Anime show was all about.
We were there for only a day and a half, thinking that that would be a plenty of time to browse things through. But it was not that case. I wished we’d arrived there from the very beginning and got to see more of it.
In order to explore the anime world, we decided to take a couple of seminars. One of them was called “Cover Your Bases.” It was an overview of the most important Anime that we should watch before we could call ourselves true anime fans. I could recognize only 10% of what they were talking about just because I used to watch some of the shows on TV as a child. Every time the panel introduced a new title, people would applaud. Everybody in the room was interested and excited about what the panels had to say about each anime. Clearly, we have a lot to learn. I do watch Japanese dramas sometimes, but that’s because it’s easy to hear my own language when my brain is dead after a long day. But for non-Japanese people to watch those shows with subtitles, they would have to have a special interest in the language or culture. Apparently, there are lots of fans out there for Japanese entertainment. From what we learned, there’s a lot of variety in anime and a bit of something for everyone.
It’s so nice to see people reacting the way they were to parts of the Japanese culture. I think they get into Anime or drama first and then Cosplay or kimono. Then the Japanese language, food and culture….
However that works, I do appreciate when people show an interest towards Japan. When I realized how much more Japan has to offer after attending this event, I was very proud to be Japanese.
We were tired after our crammed schedules, but it was refreshing to see a different world that we’d never experienced before. When we come back as a vendor next year, we should have a better understanding of the culture of anime.
Permalink
06.20.09
Posted in Event, New Products at 11:46 pm by jflairhomestyles
It’s been hectic at J Flair, but we aren’t complaining…We want to give you belated updates on what’s going on!
We attended Animazement in Raleigh this past May. We just knew a lady who was heading the whole event, so we thought it would be fun to try it out and see what that was all about!
Well, we dressed up in a casual attire and showed up in the vendor room. As we pushed our cart to our booth, we saw other vendors setting up their booths. I was thinking to myself “we’re in totally different world!” We saw cat hats, tails, swords, and other costume things that I had no idea what they were for… And that made me worry a bit in a beginning…
As we were setting up our booth, we heard people shouting and making noises upstairs. I thought they were just being loud, but they were just getting excited about the start of the festival! When the door finally opened, everybody rushed downstairs and started heading to each booth. When I saw all these people dressing up in costumes, all of a sudden, I felt very under dressed…. A lady came up to our booth with beaming yellow eyes and trying to ask me some questions, but I couldn’t help, but staring at those eyes at first. It was all new to me. Everybody was pausing in a character and taking pictures of each other, but I couldn’t recognize who they were supposed to be. I watched Anime growing up in Japan, but that was sadly years ago…..I have no idea what people watch these days….
After a while, I got used to those bright pink wigs or blue painted face, and focused on work, which is to sell our J Flair Goods.
We were told before the event that cute items would do good. So we brought newly arrived cute stationery, bento boxes, and mugs, along with some traditional items. There were a lot of occasions where people rushed to our booth from somewhere and saying “kawaii~!” meaning cute in Japanese. Many came back to our booth a couple of times with different friends, talking about what they bought and what their friends should get. It was also nice that many people asked us if we had a store somewhere. Yes, that is one of our goals!
After 3 days, we were ready to go home. We were tired, but felt good about what we accomplished! Thank you everyone for coming to our booth. We plan to attend next year again with more J Flair Goods!
Permalink
04.03.09
Posted in Easter Gift, Japanese Unique Gifts, Japanese sweets, Mother's Day Gift, Tea, Trend, Uncategorized at 8:27 pm by jflairhomestyles
Ever since we introduced Le Patissier’s Towel Cakes at our J Flair store, they’ve been very popular. Our customers love their unique designs, cuteness, wrapping, and most of all, the reasonable price. People purchase these Towel Cakes for wedding showers, baby showers, birthday gifts, tea parties, house warming gifts, etc…
The high quality colored towels are rolled up nicely and topped with a strawberry or cherry magnet. Each then is wrapped in a decorative way to look like a real piece of sweet desert.
When we display these towel cakes at our booth, people come straight to our cake display, thinking that we have some yummy deserts. Then I see surprise faces and smiles, and hear “wow” and “woo” when they realize that these are actually towels. They grab their friends and say “Look!! These are towels!!” and I see more surprised faces.
Some people think that these are too cute to use as a regular towel. No problem! You can use them as cute decorations around your house, and your friends may point out how adorable they look!
Easter is coming up. Instead of giving out (or eating) tons of the same old sweets, why not try something new and buy these cutest Towel Cakes this year? This is a little twist and surprise gift for your Easter gathering! You can give away these towels for your guests and I bet it will be a conversation topic for the day!
Permalink
03.26.09
Posted in Culture, Japan, New Products, Trend, noren at 5:17 pm by jflairhomestyles
Noren have been around in Japan for a long time. They’re made out of fabric and were initially used as signage for stores. When a store is open, Noren is placed up in front of the store and taken away when it’s closed. They come in various sizes, colors and designs. They are usually short and narrow, and hang over your head. You tend to lower your head or put your hand up to keep it away from your face when you enter a store.
Nowadays, people use long Noren inside of their house usually between rooms. By hanging between door frames, you can hide your kitchen or bedroom from your guests. Or a beautifully designed Noren can be used to accent your hallway. At some restaurants, they use Noren as wall art to accent a bare wall or for use on the pathway to the restroom area. Modern Noren come in various fabric textures, but are usually hemp for interior use. Of course, cotton is used as an inexpensive alternative, but the hemp Noren gives you a more soothing and relaxing atmosphere and an authentic look because of the texture.
Here at J Flair, we have selected Hemp Norens that are popular in Japan. We hope you’ll enjoy our collection!
Permalink
02.11.09
Posted in Culture, Japanese sweets, Uncategorized at 3:13 am by jflairhomestyles
There are so many different kinds of traditional sweets (wagashi) in Japan, but when you don’t live there, you have to do what you can to satisfy your taste buds.
Because I missed the Japanese New Year feast (Osechi) and Zouni (clear soup with rice cake), I was craving for something very Japanese. So, I decided to challenge myself to make Mochi (rice cake). I’ve made Anko (sweet azuki bean paste that is typically used with Mochi) before, but making Mochi was my first time.
My only excuse for not making Mochi in the U.S. was because I don’t own a Mochi maker. But when my friend assured me that I could use my bread machine, I thought I had to give a try;
I cooked Mochi rice (Japanese sweet rice) in a rice cooker after soaking it over night. I transferred it to the bread machine and let it knead for a while (as soon as I opened the lid, I could immediately smell and feel the steam of sweet rice, and that made me smile). I put potato starch all over my hands to keep it from sticking, and quickly formed individual small pieces of Mochi in my hands. As a hot Mochi ball started to form in my hands, I was feeling grateful to be Japanese and able to enjoy this unique food. I was also excited and proud to accomplish this task that I’d never done before. I’d never thought that I would make Mochi when I was Japan. It was something that you would buy at a store.
To make this Mochi production be worthwhile, I decided to use this dough for various items:
Daifuku: Flatten a Mochi ball, put a spoonful of Anko in a middle and close it.
Ohagi: Cover Mochi with Anko. You’ll have to use saran wrap to form the shape. It’s opposite from Daifuku where Anko is in the center.
Kinako Mochi: Put Mochi in warm/hot water for a few seconds to get it wet. Cover it with Kinako (roasted soy powder) and powdered sugar mix – you can use regular sugar, but I don’t like the texture when everything else is smooth and powdery.
Ohagi with Kinako: Cover Ohagi with Kinako powder.
Oshiruko: Put Mochi in hot Oshiruko (sweet azuki beans soup). It may sound weird to some people when you hear “sweet”, “beans” and “soup” altogether, but this is a popular sweet dish in Japan. My favorite desert in winter!
Norimaki: Cover with dry seaweed and dip in soy sauce. I like to put butter on hot mochi and add cheese for more flavors!
I stopped counting how many I was eating after a while…..kind of scary to know…. All I know is I was stuffed and my stomach was VERY happy. It’s a good thing that I’m not on a diet…. I can not be, especially when I see Japanese food in front of me…
You can buy pre-made Mochi at a Japanese store, but the big difference is the softness of fresh mochi. Fresh ones are soft and gooey – just the way it should be. I was especially happy with the way that Daifuku and Ohagi turned out. I could’ve eaten 10 of them if I hadn’t been careful. See the photo- don’t they look delicious!
I thought I made enough Mochi to last for a while, but all disappeared very quickly. hummmm…… There are still many other Mochi dishes that I can make with limited ingredients in the U.S. I’m sure my kitchen will smell like yummy Japanese Mochi again soon.
Permalink
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
