Cooking

hey all,

Pretty decent week so far. On Monday I went into Shinjuku to renew my housing contract. I also was struck by an urge to make BBQ sauce, yet another commodity that is hard to find in Japan. After searching around a bit, here is what I made.

1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup sugar
1 medium onion
3 tbs lemon juice
1 cup Dr Pepper
chipotle Tabasco sauce to taste
salt, pepper, chili powder, and cumin to taste
1 tbs corn starch

This is a really simple one. Chop the onion very finely and fry it. Once soft, just mix everything minus the corn starch together in a sauce pan with the onion, and boil it for 10-15 minutes or until it starts to thicken up. To help with the thickening, add the corn starch (dissolved into 1/4 cup of cold water, of course). This makes a pretty decent BBQ sauce. I cut the sugar by half from the original recipe, but it was still a little too sweet. Next time, I'd add some mustard powder and maybe some vinegar.

Yesterday, the cooking spree continued. First, I went swimming for an hour at the local pool, and then my new housemate and I made hamburgers topped with my BBQ. Then we made an apple pound cake, which turned out really well, despite almost burning the house down. We made two batches: one which we tried to cook in my Pyrex bowl in the toaster oven, and the second which we cooked in the pan you see below.

Batter
3/4 cup oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1.5 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 apples, diced
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Icing
1 stick of butter
2 tsp milk
1/2 cup sugar

This one is also really easy. Just mix everything for the batter together, put in a greased baking dish, and bake. I can't really tell you about times, because we used a toaster oven: about 20-25 minutes on 290W seemed to work fine for our half batch. For the icing, just put everything into a pot and simmer it for 20-30 minutes, stirring often. If you have extra apple, add that to the icing as well. Coat the cake with the icing.

Dinner was BBQ beef rice.

Cheers,

Myogi-san, Again

hey all,

Seems like it has been a while, but for once my weekend was really fun. On Saturday, Michi and I made mabodofu, which is a spicy Chinese ground pork and tofu dish. Below is my version of it that I made earlier this week. It is literally just spice, ground pork and tofu, as that is what the recipe calls for. Next to it is my homemade version of ginger ale: Mitsuya cider and whiskey.

400g firm tofu
100g ground pork
2 cloves garlic
chunk of ginger to match the garlic
1 tsp sake
3 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tbs tobanjan
beef bullion
2 tsp corn starch
seseme oil
salt and pepper to taste

1. chop the tofu into 1cc cubes and boil for 1 minute. remove and drain.
2. finely chop the ginger and garlic, and saute them together with the tobanjan sauce in some seseme oil in a soup pan.
3. add the ground pork and 1.5 tbs of soy sauce.
4. when browned, add beef broth (beef bullion dissolved in 1 cup of water), rest of soy suace, sugar, sake, salt and pepper, tofu, and corn starch dissolved into cold water.
5. heat until it reaches the desired consistency.

Serve with rice. Quite tasty, and a lot spicier than the store bought sauces. If you're not careful while cooking it, the tobanjan sauce will start to smoke a little while cooking, and sear your nostrils and throat.

Michi's version is a lot less spicy, because she insisted on adding onion and chives to it, which really dilutes the power of the chili sauce. Still good, but I like mine better.

On Sunday, we got up around 6:30 and took several trains over to Matsuida station in Gunma prefecture in order to hike Myougi-san again. We went there several months ago, but we only saw about 1/3 of the sights, so we came back.

I decided I'd try my hand at meditating under a waterfall. There were subsequent reports of a hairless, pale ape creature seen wandering around Gunma.

What we didn't get to see last time was this: four large stone arches, called sekimon in Japanese (stone gate).

Showing off the muscles.

The second gate is particularly scary: you have to climb the chained paths to get through it, and by that time it had started raining a little.

Michi using her Force powers to hold up the stone arch.

It started raining a little during our lunch break at the 4th gate, and after we crossed the 2nd gate it really started to come down, with some of the loudest thunder that I've heard since coming to Japan. After getting through all 4 gates, we took shelter in a public rest area and called a taxi. I guess we could have tried to wait the rain out, but we had hiked from about 11AM to 4PM, and Michi was tired from the heat and the rain and just hiking for 5 hours in 36C temperatures. If we had waited, we could have hiked back to our starting point, but that would have taken another 2 hours or so, and we needed to get back to Tokyo.

Cheers,

Rikugien, Free Time

hey all,

Things have settled down a little for me. Strange what a day of rest can do for the psyche. Yesterday, I went up to Ageo, my old work town, and hung out with my Michigan friend at his place. We ate some spicy hot dogs and played video games. He decided to pay a small fortune and head back to the US this summer break, so I offered to help eat some of his food so it wouldn't go to waste.

I've done laundry and cleaned my room so far today, and I'll probably study a little Japanese, and then cook some mabodofu from scratch for dinner.

These pictures are from Rikugien, near Ikebukero in Tokyo.

Cheers,

Net

hey all,

What a weird day! I woke up this morning and found that I just couldn't make myself get out of bed to go to the stupid training for my part time job. After a couple hours, I finally convinced myself to go over to their office and hand in all my teaching materials that they'd given me. Officially, I was supposed to work from today until Friday, but I'd really had enough of this company and felt like I was trapped in some insidious net.

I just had to get out of it somehow, so I gave them gave their materials, and sent them a letter of resignation. I guess I could have used the extra money from the 4 days of work that I'll be skipping, but I'd already done the math and I should get by without it.

After that, I went over to Rikugien, which is a public garden near Ikebukero, and just tried to get my head straight. Why can't I seem to find a good company? Why doesn't my own company offer higher pay or other benefits? And then on to the deeper questions: Where did my patience and appreciation go for all things Japanese? When I turn on the TV, I find TV shows where a panel of Japanese people don fake over-sized latex noses and speak really broken stupid sounding Japanese. Why? Because they're making fun of foreigners. There's a McDonald's commercial which features a similar dumb sounding foreigner, and of course I often catch my students doing the "I'm a dumb foreigner" Japanese accent. I love the food, the artwork, and the mountains here. But why am I living in a country that has so little regard for foreigners?

How am I supposed to succeed in the face of this kind of system? I found myself thinking that if I went back to the US, maybe it would be a one-way trip. After all, why come back to this country where I'm loved so little, except perhaps by one person. I guess there are three points that I'd lose out on, since I'm not sure how to answer them. First, if I go back to the US, what job would I do? Second, where would I go? Lastly, what about my girlfriend?

Cheers,

Not All Work

hey all,

I'm sure lately it seems like it's been all work and no play, so I'd like to mention that I got to see Predators with a new roommate on Friday, which was pretty enjoyable. Not very original, but way better than the Alien Vs. Predator movies that were inflicted on the public twice. I'd say that the structure of the movie is also revealed a little too easily. The characters seem to catch on to what is going on way too quickly.

Today after skyping with the 'rents, I and another roommate went over to a sports club. I went swimming, and he used the weight machines. Pretty fun, but I'm so out of shape. I haven't really swam for almost 2 years, so I can't do distance, my flutter kick is even weaker than ever, and I can't even do a lap of butterfly.

Something a bit interesting about Japan: everyone probably knows that in the rest of the world, men tend to favor brief or box brief type swimsuits (commonly called "speedos"). This is also true of Japan, but what surprised me was that I was also required to wear a swim cap. I didn't have one, and had to buy one from the store at the club, which was annoying. I don't have long, permed, dyed or styled hair, or lice, or even some scalp disease that could be passed through water. What good is a swim cap going to do me? None.

Apparently, they require them to prevent hair from clogging filters, but that is really just bullcrap. A swim cap might reduce the frequency that the filter has to be cleaned, but you're going to have to clean the filter eventually, and when you do, it won't be my fault: my leg hair and arm hair is about twice as long as my head hair, and thus more likely to clog a filter. Yet I'm not required to wear a full body suit or shave my arms and legs to swim in the pool. It is only the (very short) hair on my heady head head that concerns them, which is rather stupid but there you have it.

For me, this is just another piece of equipment to be totted to and from the pool, and just another piece of cloth to permanently absorb that oh so wonderful smell of chlorine.

Anyway, it was fun, even if I had to buy the swim cap. I think I'm going to try to make this a weekly ritual for August. I'll be needing something to help structure my time.

Cheers,

PS3, Recipe, Work

hey all,

It looks like my best option is to buy another PS3 here in Japan, transfer my data from one to the other, and then sell the broken one to a recycle shop. I might get around to that in a couple weeks.

For those interested, I finally made a dairy free tiramisu that I don't consider a failure, so here is the recipe.

300 g soft tofu
3 tbs. non-diary powdered coffee creamer
3 tbs. beet sugar (white is fine too)
2 g gelatin
120 cc soy milk
2 tps. lemon juice
1 cup strong coffee
2 tbs. Cointreau
cocoa powder
about 24 lady fingers

1. break up the tofu in a bowl and microwave on low for 3-4 minutes.
2. separate tofu from the water in the bowl, and scoop the tofu into a blender or food processor.
3. add 1/2 the soy milk, and all the sugar and creamer to the food processor.
4. Mix the coffee and Cointreau together in a wide shallow bowl, and add 1 tbs to the tofu mixture.
5. blend the tofu mixture.
6. heat the other half of the soy milk on low in the microwave. make sure it doesn't get too hot, or it will separate.
7. add the gelatin, and stir to dissolve.
8. add the soy milk and lemon juice to the tofu mixture, and blend.
9. dip the lady fingers in the C/C mixture for about 3-5 seconds, and line the bottom of a pan (about 4 in X 8 in seems to work well) with them
10. pour half the tofu mixture on top of the lady fingers, and sprinkle with cocoa powder.
11. dip more lady fingers and cover the tofu as above.
12. pour the second half of the tofu mixture on top, and again sprinkle with cocoa powder.
13. refrigerate for at least 2 hours, then enjoy.

I finally finished my last 6 day work week. That's all for now.

Cheers,

Ugh

hey all,

This seems to be the week for failures. The failed tiramisu recipes, and then my mp3 player volume button broke, and now my PS3 doesn't read discs of any kind. I actually already found a work around for the mp3 player, but there could be one of several things wrong with the PS3. Either there is some kind of file corruption somewhere, for which I'll have to backup my data and reformat everything. Or something is wrong with the laser or lens that actually reads the discs, which will necessitate sending it in to get fixed. At this point, I don't know if I can send it into a shop here in Japan or if I'll have to send it back to the US, and in any case, I don't have the time or the money to mess around with it too much right now.

I also quit my second part time job today. They gave me a really low full time salary offer, and refused to give me Saturdays off, so I'll be completing my part time contract for this month and then saying goodbye and good riddance. As I'm sure I've said before, they did seem like a decent company, but there you have it.

As I was talking it out with one of my fellow ALTs, we decided if I was living with Michi, things would be different. I'd get to see her all the time, and getting a Monday or a Tuesday off in exchange for working on Saturday wouldn't be too bad. That would be MY day, and we could make sure to spend Sunday together. As it is, Saturday and Sunday are all we have, and we don't even get to hang out for every weekend, so our time is even more limited.

On top of that issue, is the fact that I'd have to travel more, do more paperwork, and basically be more responsible than in my current job, but for less pay. I'm already not paid enough, so who would want to do more for even less pay? In any event, I've started another round of job applications.

Cheers,