I Am Completely Serious

I am at the hotel in Nagoya, all prepared to leave in the morning. I am stressed out about this, so I may walk over to the airport (the hotel is attached, but far enough away from the tarmac that you can’t hear the planes) and buy chocolate in a while. I am American and female, this is what I do in these situations.

The hotel room came with an amusing striped nightshirt. I will probably actually wear it tonight, as I think I put my pajamas in the big huge suitcase I don’t want to reopen.

I ate oxtail porridge at a Korean place for dinner, because my one desire in this life is to HORRIFY MY FAMILY. (Apparently it’s actually beef.) Also because it looked good in the picture. It was okay, but kind of bland, so I dumped in the little bowl of spicy sauce they gave me. I don’t know if that’s what that was for? It didn’t really help all that much. I think I will google around for interesting-looking Korean foods, and then tomorrow see if they number among the amenities offered by the Incheon airport. (From looking around online, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s probably too risky for me to leave the airport unless my departing flight gets delayed at least an hour.)

There was a graduation ceremony yesterday, at which I wore a tiara and held a pink scepter with a little heart covered in fake pearls. We had to give speeches, and mine in its entirety was “The Princess has no need to give a speech!” (「姫様はスピーチをする必要がない！」) This was done largely at the instigation of Sensu-sensei and Kuma-sensei, who acquired these items for me at the 100-yen-shop last term, because I am The Princess. It did not appear that they had alerted any of the rest of the faculty to this.

I had it with edamame and niboshi, so as to make the project all cultural in nature (the beer was Kirin), but I still couldn’t finish it.

I think alcohol and I just don’t get along unless it’s totally drowned in juice or chocolate. I got a 700 ml thing of Nikka whiskey in March, and I only finished it this week. (Whiskey belongs in soy cocoa, and sometimes in orange juice.)

People out decorating graves again today. It’s been cloudy, so there were little plastic raincoats on the lanterns. I saw a woman carrying away a box of 100-yen-store incense. The store is right next to the graveyard. I wonder how much of the incense that gets burned there - and how many of the offerings at the parking-lot shrine - come from the 100-yen-store. I’ve seen cans of vending-machine coffee sitting on the graves, too.

(My incense is all from the 100-yen-store. It’s not very good? I’m wondering where around here I can buy Nippon Kodo. I’d like to try their domestic line…)

It came out a lot better than last time I made something like this, I think because I put in approximately Way More Than I Thought I Needed quantities of miso, garlic, and black pepper. One should not be conservative with these ingredients.

(Measurements are totally approximate. Also, sane people probably do not eat stuff like this when it’s 90 degrees out?)

Continue reading “Stuff-That-Was-On-Sale-Yesterday White Miso Soup”

Part of my lunch today involved convenience store food, specifically a banana wrapped in chocolate cake with chocolate cream in it. I was tired, and didn’t realize until I’d eaten most of it that it was horrible. I’m probably going to hate chocolate for a couple days. It’s a weird feeling.

Relatedly: As of today, there exists an audio record of my confession to having deliberately, and with malice aforethought, given a bunch of junk food to a diabetic priest with poor impulse control.

(The assignment was to “tell a funny story about something you did,” and actually, that teacher might very well be collecting blackmail material. Her example story was a recording she had of another teacher’s “and that’s why I’m not allowed back in that bar” story.)

In the middle of my dream about the Demon Kadon and her fight against the Evil Pope, as well as her interpersonal conflicts with fellow protagonists Princess Leddain and Templar Hagen, there was an interlude in which I went into the grocery store to get hot chocolate mix. Because I was nearly out. Reaching the appropriate aisle, I upon further consideration of the matter decided to buy straight cocoa powder instead, as I already had a large thing of sugar with which I wasn’t doing anything else, and because the cocoa would additionally be useful for making pudding.

This resolved, I went to check out, and the dream went back to Kadon and the pope. Except that now Zuko and Azula were there, as well as one of the evil women from Tactics (the one who spilled tea on her leg) and some monsters from Barbara Hambly’s Windrose Chronicles.

I suddenly remembered all this when I went to make hot chocolate just now, and realized that, in matters relating to groceries, the dream was exactly right on all counts. I will follow its advice after class tomorrow.

I’ve been doing some Idiotic Cooking Experiments in the rice cooker. Notable episodes in the saga included Idiotic Cajun Rice and Idiotic Garlic-Salmon Rice Pilaf. We will not discuss these dishes further.

Today it was Idiotic Chocolate Rice Pudding. Which… actually turned out really well. It’s much better than my usual attempts at stovetop rice pudding.

So I post the recipe, for the benefit of people everywhere who do stupid things with their rice cookers. It’s just a modified version of this guy’s recipe for mango coconut rice pudding, rendered sleazier by my involvement.

-

Idiotic Chocolate Rice Pudding

1 14 ounce can coconut milk
1/4 cup sushi rice
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons “Valor” house-brand hot chocolate mix (translated from Japanese, this means: “whichever hot chocolate mix is cheapest”)
1 tablespoon sugar
some cinnamon

1. Mix all ingredients together in the rice cooker bowl. Let sit for half an hour to give rice time to soak.

2. Turn on rice cooker.

3. When finished, open and stir, then let sit on “warm” setting for ten minutes.

4. Take out and allow to cool/set.

The only complaint I have about it is that it’s a little heavy - next time I might cut down the chocolate mix to one-and-a-half tablespoons.

-

Incidentally, the cheapest place to buy coconut milk in Okazaki is this liquor store in Wing Town. I have no idea why. They have this tiny little foreign foods section crammed into the back, with the same coconut milk the Valor sells for 400 yen for 100. They also have chickpeas, Earl Gray, and Tabasco sauce for cheaper than anywhere else. And a good brand of instant curry I haven’t found anywhere else.

The liquor store is not, interestingly, the cheapest place to buy liquor. That’s Seiyu, Wal-Mart’s Japanese chain.

(They do have the largest selection of Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark products I’ve seen anywhere in Japan, which I would probably care about were I a proper Kentuckian.)

Sensu-sensei is secretly a twelve-year-old boy. She drew boobs on my homework. The rationale for this was that I had used the wrong word for “milk” - I’d used the one meaning “breast milk/baby formula” rather than the one meaning “cow’s milk.” I am, however, fairly certain that there exist other means of expressing that.

Things learned on Food Vocabulary Day: According to a very scientific survey of like seven people, people in Japan, Taiwan, China, and Korea do not eat mushrooms raw! Ever! Because it’s dangerous! Fretful-sensei was extremely emphatic about this!

The Pierced American and I took several minutes to get past this, while our Asiatic counterparts professed to be astonished that America has not yet gotten itself killed on all these poison mushrooms we keep eating.* The European and Brazilian guys looked upon us all with amused condescension. Presumably they do some secret third ultra-civilized thing with their mushrooms.

Also, according to Fretful-sensei, Japanese people do not eat carrots raw. (Fretful-sensei: “Wouldn’t they be too hard?!”) Also, apples must be peeled and sliced before they can be eaten, and the crusts must be removed from all sandwiches. These tendencies do not, however, seem to be pan-Asian in nature - Myuu-san (Taiwan) said she felt it was okay to eat carrots raw if they were sliced thin, which possibility Fretful-sensei accepted with some dubiousness.

We took a mock version of the JLPT 2 listening test today, and I passed with a pretty safe margin. Yay! Though the listening section is apparently easier than the reading/writing?

* This is the rest of the world’s default assumption about us. “What do you think the Americans are doing today?” “They are probably eating poison mushrooms.”

Cooking Tip: A teaspoon of habanero is too much. It doesn’t matter how much curry you’re making. If you put a teaspoon of habanero in the curry, the results will kill people.

Today I received the results of my chest X-ray. These were, regrettably, not expressed by means of the smiley face/frown face dichotomy. There was a lot of kanji, and some of it, when entered into my dictionary, turned up no results at all. Was my physical state so alarming that it could only be conveyed with the creation of entirely new kanji?!

Me: Sensei, does this mysterious piece of paper mean that I am not dying?

Daigakusei-sensei: What?! It’s blank! There are no results!

It appears that Daigakusei-sensei is easily alarmed over non-Japanese-class-related matters. Sleep-san and Myuu-san, who had this done last year, had to explain the form to her to prevent her from worrying that I had been improperly X-rayed. Being Taiwanese, they could magically read the non-existant kanji, and assured me that I was healthy.

How can people eat natto? Is it some kind of joke?

Never eat anything I have made. Ever. Please. I am worried about lawsuits.

Last night, apparently in reaction to yesterday’s terrible dietary crime, I dreamed about eating sprouts. I had bought several varieties from the store, and I removed the roots and ate them. That was the whole dream. It was pretty vivid. I could taste and smell the sprouts and everything.

Figuring that my brain was probably trying to tell me something*, I bought some sprouts when I went out to buy curry stuff today. Unfortunately, I accidentally got daikon sprouts. Which taste like, you know, daikon. I hate daikon. I’ve covered them with kimchi and am determined to work my way through them today. My subconscious went to a lot of trouble on this one.

-

* Probably an unwarranted assumption. I had another dream earlier in the night where Apollo Justice was a 20’s torch singer. I don’t think that means anything.

There’s a shopping center near the dorm called “Wing Town,” and in it is one of these cafes specializing in cuteness that Japan has a lot of, and it is called “Cat’s Cafe.”

A bunch of us went there today, and the whole time I was very concerned that my clone was going to show up in a shower of feathers and/or flower petals, rip my eye out of my head and eat it, and then disappear into another dimension wielding a massive sword and an unfathomable expression. Fortunately, this did not occur, nor did anyone become a vampire or lose their memory for reasons.

We ordered and consumed most of a bucket-sized 4000-yen parfait.

If you have eight people, this parfait is a slightly better deal than the cheapest individual parfaits, but not if you have seven. I calculated it out. Professor Layton is damaging my ability to engage in activities without doing math at them.

(Edited a couple times to fix the picture’s size. Flickr is maybe changing its interface around today?)

Vegetarians! Especially the one who will shortly be going to college, with Steve, and thus very soon will not have to worry about incompetent high school teaching professionals! Here is a recipe for you! It is easy to make! It is good for you! It has nutrients and thus will make you less broody about the senile-dementia-induced antics of certain unnamed Catholic priests!

The only thing that’s slightly hard to get for it is kimchi. But the new Food City or Super Wal-Mart might have that now? If not, Wild Oats will.

- Kimchi Nabe -

Continue reading “Kimchi Nabe”

I have my Yarrr Card working! I played Diddy Kong Racing today. All those years of playing it on the N64, and somehow I had no idea that this game had a plot. I have no idea why this game needed a plot. The opening cut scene was long and unnecessary.

I think I at some point suggested that Mom play Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I must now rescind this recommendation. Actual lawyers - or even people who live with actual lawyers - or even people who have read a John Grisham book - must never, ever play this game. These people will attempt to act in accordance with basic legal ethics, and will thus be unable to advance in the game. You play a defense attorney, and in the second section, in which you’re representing a woman accused of murder, you have to:

1) repeatedly manipulate a gullible police officer into giving you information and evidence

2) pump a witness for the prosecution for information

3) go through said witness’s things while she’s in the bathroom

It is also strongly encouraged that you,

4) tell a woman who lives on a mountaintop and doesn’t understand how lawyers work “yes” when she says, “Are… are you my lawyer?” (You’re not. You’re not a public defender. This game is down on public defenders.) One of the other dialog options is to say that it’s up to her, but the reaction I got when I did this strongly suggested that I should have chosen to lie.

Also, the game thinks that fuchsia suits are bad. Both the first two murderers wore fuchsia suits. I’m pretty sure Mom has at least one fuchsia suit, and whatever I may think of the choices she’s made in this matter, I can see that this game would only offend her.

-

I’ve been trying to try all the different wagashi at the Seiyu. Today’s was a pink thing with a leaf wrapped around it (I think it’s called a sakuramochi?). They were remodeling, so my wagashi smelled like industrial sealants. I ate it anyway and now fear I’ll never be able to eat a pink wagashi again without associating it with caulk.

Exciting new experience in the apartment: there’s a guy outside selling baked sweet potatoes, cruising slowly up and down the streets in a van, singing a solemn little song consisting largely of “baked sweet potatoes baked sweet potatoes hurry and get one baked sweet potatoes.” The dorm wasn’t in a convenient neighborhood for that sort of thing.

And I think he just gave up and went home. It’s raining, so there probably aren’t many people out walking right now.

I just googled this, and apparently most sweet potato guys actually use recordings now. This one actually sounded to me like he was really singing, but I’m not sure now…

Because I am lazy, tonight’s dinner included two convenience store items - fried meat on a stick (one stick of chicken, one of pork, one of some kind of white fish), and a cream pastry thing. The meat was about $3, and the pastry $1.

You know that whole thing about how Americans eat so much junk convenience food because it’s cheaper than healthy stuff? The other tragedy there is that all that junk convenience food we’re eating is so substandard. That pastry was the kind you’d pay $5.95 for at a Starbucks, and the meat, while not great (I’m not sure which was the pork and which was the chicken), was at least a couple levels better than the sort of fried chicken you get at convenience stores in the US.

Don’t even get me started on the pudding cups. Japan pushes the limits on pudding cup technology. There’s little tiramisus. Some of the mousses have sprigs of mint.

She was “obese.”

In an interesting psychological twist, this destroys all reluctance on my part to eat the fondant.

I made korma, Mom’s PayPal got hacked, and I maybe have a throat infection.

Dad got me a Barney ice-cream cake for my birthday. I think it may have been a bootleg Barney ice-cream cake. I’m sitting here trying to decide if eating a piece of it would make my throat feel better.

There has been an incident.

The school’s holiday-themed meals get more and more disgusting the closer we get to the end of the semester. Highlights of Christmas dinner:

- seasonally-colored glitter on the tables (1)

- “Mexican sushi” - burritos cut up

- cheese and crackers (2)

- “barbecued” meatballs (3)

- wild rice pilaf with secret ingredient (4)

- mint-chocolate-swirl bundt cake, rock-hard-stale

- pumpkin bundt cake, rock-hard-stale

- some kind of pink jellow thing with marshmallows (5)

- crepes with ice cream and fruit (6)

(1) Extrapolating from previous uses of the damn glitter, at least one person will accidentally swallow some before the night is over.

(6) This was the only edible dessert. It has been snowing all day and the wind was picking up and the ice cream was the only edible dessert.

edited a couple hours later because I left out an item of disgust and thus got the numbers mixed up