Let's Eat Icecream! -Part 2; The History of Haagen-Dazs -

Haagen-Dazs was founded by Jewish immigrant Reuben Mattus from Poland in 1920. Reuben Mattus had worked his mother’s business and peddled ice cream from a horse drawn wagon in the busy street of New York. He insisted on creating distinctive and unique ice creams.
The small family business prospered from 1930's to 50's. By 1961, Mr. Mattus decided to form a new company named Haagen-Dazs.
At first, there were only 3 kinds of flavors; Vanilla, Chocolate and Coffee. But there are over 15 kinds of flavors and many types of frozen desserts line up in the Haagen-Dazs shops now.
The Haagen-Dazs brand quickly developed. Its early success was created by word, and soon spreaded throughout the U.S. finally it expanded 54 countries!
Do you know the ice cream bar was first created by Haagen-Dazs? Since the beginning, Haagen-Dazs has been invented new frozen desserts. Frozen Yogurt and Sorbet was also invented.
By the way, the company used psychology in naming the ice cream Haagen-Dazs. A Scandinavian sounding name was used because Mattus thought that people would think it was foreign. The image of European ice cream sounded exotic to Americans. It worked even today. Many people think that it comes from Europe.
117-1 24 Kano Ihara

The Grace of the Cherry Blossoms

In spring, the season “primavera” – “before summer,” you must recall the cherry blossom trees in their full blush blossom. This is a seasonal sensation of spring in Japan. As the freshmen enter the gates of their new schools, as the juniors take over the classrooms that used to belong to those before them, as the seniors start to look forward to their lives after high school, there are always cherry blossoms at their backs.
But these beautiful soft colors are granted only because of the Japanese environment. For example, you probably won’t see too many people who would come up with cherry blossoms as a symbol of spring in Europe or America. Although there are quite marvelous cherry blossom trees in Washington D.C., America, the festival for the trees is run by the Japanese community, and most people seem to think it is an event that is either Chinese or Japanese.
Although these other countries also have their own wonders and events that are given such attention, what we have right now is the cherry blossoms, petals overflowing from the widely held sturdy branches, backing us up, preparing us for another new start. Though grass on the other side might look tastier, our grass can give us not only the happiness of a new season, but distinguish the prologue to a new life. With the cherry blossoms at your back, may you take a fresh new start with all good tides at your side.
117-2 Shifumi Nagase

Cheese

Once up on a day, an Arabic merchant poured milk from a goat into a flask that was made of a new lamb’s stomach and put it on a back of a camel owing to preparation for a long trip to cross a desert. As the merchant started and walked across the hot desert for a long tome, he was tired and opened the flask to drink the milk, but he found there was no milk but white lumps and transparent liquid, The merchant was surprised, but there wasn’t anything else to drink, so he tried to eat it, then he found it was so delicious, it is said to have been the beginning of cheese.
Now there are many kinds of cheese. How many kinds of them do you know?
At first, we can classify cheese into natural cheese and processed cheese. Removing water from milk by using a lactic acid bacterium and an enzyme makes natural cheese. Mixing some kinds of natural cheese and heating it can make processed cheese. Many kinds of processed cheese can be seen in super markets, such as sliced cheese, 6p cheese, baby cheese, and so on.
Mozzarella, cottage cheese, cream cheese, mascarpone, and Camembert cheese are types of natural cheese. Mozzarella, cottage cheese, cream cheese, and mascarpone are the kinds of cheese that are not matured. These kinds of cheese have much water and a slightly acidic taste, so they taste very simple. Camembert cheese is one of the kinds of cheese that is matured by using white mold. And there is a kind of natural cheese that is matured by using green mold. Natural cheese that is matured by washing its skin by salt water or alcohol has a very strong smell, but it tastes very mild. Making the water in the cheese 38% to 46% during the process of making cheese makes the cheese a little hard. It is very nice for preservation. And by making water in the cheese less than 38%, much harder cheese can be made.
Cheese has much nutrition. By eating 20g of cheese, you can get the same amount of nutrition as you can by drinking 200 ml of milk. So if you do not like milk, find your favorite kind of cheese. As there are many kinds of cheese, I’m sure you can find your favorite one.

A Mild Winter

It was too warm this winter. The average temperature from December 2006 to February 2007 was equal to the highest average temperature in winter, which was recorded in 1949. Also, we had little snow. What happened to the climate?
One possible reason is El Nino. It is temperature fluctuations in surface waters of the offing of Peru. It is called El Nino, the Christ child, because it is usually noticed around Christmas season. El Nino causes abnormal weather in the whole world. It causes a mild winter in Japan.
Another possible reason is a flow of air. Because of the flow at the beginning of this winter, the cold air of the Arctic could hardly go to the south. A persistence of this condition is one reason for the mild winter.
This winter, we have had a little snow on the side of the Sea of Japan, and have had much rain on the Pacific side. Many places recorded the least amount of snow. It caused much damage to business at ski resorts. In Tokyo, we had the first snow of the season on the 16th of March. It became a new record.
What do you think about this mild winter? I gave two possible reasons to you. There are more possible reasons, for example, global warming is a likely reason. Also there have been many effects from this mild winter. The mild winter became a slightly important problem. How about thinking or studying about this more deeply? This problem could be concerned with your future.

116-3 Nanami Miura

Cellular Phones in the Future

Since 1987 when the first cellular phone was sold in Japan, cellular phones have progressed greatly. Things on cellular phones such as playing games and surfing the Internet have become reality. These things were like a dream about 20 years ago. As for them, we'll be able to do more things on the cellular phones in the future. The following are some examples.
/ Change 3G to 4G /
Cellular phones will change 3G to 4G ( "G" means generation). We'll be able to download things such as music and games much faster and much more frequently. If it takes about 3 minutes to download, it'll take 1.6～0.8 seconds on the 4G cellular phones to do it.
/ Advancement of existent functions /
For example, batteries will need less charging or no charging. According to modern research, the cellular phones that use alcohol as fuel will be produced and we'll not need to charge at home. We can charge the battery anywhere if we have alcohol as fuel!
Another example is that we'll be able to use the cellular phones in a wider area. It means cellular phones will be more useful even in bad situations such as getting lost in the mountains.
/ Becoming wearable /
Now, cellular phones are a little bigger than things we can wear. So some of you feel it bothersome to take the phone with you. In the future, however, cellular phones will become smaller and we'll be able to wear them like a wristwatch! I wrote "in the future", but actually such cellular phones have already gone on sale. I expect they will become cheaper and more useful.
/ The ways of communicating on the cellular phones /
Now, we can tell sounds or sights by cellular phones, but in the future, we'll be able to tell not only them but also touch, smells, and taste. If this technology is completed, we'll be able to do many things. For example, we'll be able to see a doctor easily even at home.

Thus, cellular phones will be more useful and more essential for us. So I think we should get as much information as we can when we buy a cellular phone, in order not to repent for our own decision.