AAAAAAAAchooooooooooo.....

Greetings from Germland!

As is my custom everywhere I live, as the weather changes from warmish to cold, I catch one of my two yearly illnesses (the other illness being when cold weather changes back to warmish in the Spring).

Oddly enough, however, it was not I who started gathering up the germs. It was Aya. Around Tuesday afternoon sometime she began to get disturbing dark circles under her eyes (which she always gets when she is feeling ill), and, even more disturbing, did not want to really eat. By Tuesday night she was officially sick. Oh goody.

By Wednesday afternoon she was feeling worse and I was rapidly joining her. So, while she alternated between trying to do her on-line classes and sleeping, I put together my arsenal:

--Japanese hot vitamin C lemon drink (sold in powdered form in little packets)

--Apple tea (while this contains vitamin C, I mostly drink it because it is tasty)

--multi-vitamins (yeah, I really should be taking these all the time, shouldn't I?)

--Tylenol (required some research and translation to figure out the word acetaminophen in Katakana (アチタミノプァン), and then to figure out which commercial products contained acetaminophen.

--tissue

--as many mikan (Japanese satsuma mandarin oranges) as I could purchase and snarf down.

By Thursday morning it was quite obvious that I wouldn't be attending Japanese class. Instead I stayed home, sipping endless teacups of lemon drink and apple tea, and sneezing every few minutes.

And by Thursday night, joy of joys, Patrick was, yes, stuffed up and feeling poorly.

In fact, the only one who managed to escape this horrible attack of ravenous germs was Bob, who, to his credit, only gloated a little.

So for now I shall be concentrating on blowing my nose and sucking down lemon drinks. I am hopeful that by tomorrow morning, I'll feel well enough to do some serious blogging.

Until then......achoo!

Myth-terious Obsessions

Hello all,

I'm fessing up: I tend to go through minor obsessions.

If I'm reading a tremendously wonderful book, I'll finish it and then re-start it, and repeat this process 3 or 4 times, until the entire thing lives, nearly word-for-word, in my memory. If there are sequels to this book, I'll read them 3 or 4 times each as well. Bob thinks this is utterly insane of me, but he has learned long ago to just ignore me as I read the last page in a 700 page book, scratch my nose, then turn back to page 1 and start all over again.

If I am in the mood for a specific food, say ochazuke (white rice, topped with a mixture of flaked salmon, sesame seeds and seaweed, with hot green tea poured over the whole thing, turning it all into a lovely soup. Typically served in Japan as the final course at a dinner or get together and a subtle signal to guests that it is nearly time to go home), well, I'll have ochazuke every day for breakfast or lunch....until the obsession passes.

This pattern of minor obsessions continues for movies, tv shows, beverages, writing topics, drawing subjects and especially comfortable t-shirts. If I'm in the mood for something, I delve into it all the way.

This personality disorder of mine lends itself well to teaching. If I have to cover a subject, I'll pour myself into it 100%, researching, creating lessons, buying all sorts of weird stuff to make the subject exciting for my tots.

At home, this approach typically gets me teased. If I'm on one of my BBC show kicks, Bob (and now Patrick, but not Aya, who typically remains my staunch ally), will pop his head in and taunt me in a voice that, oddly enough, resembles a mixture of Julia Childs and Emma Thompson.

(But that's okay. I can handle it. And I have ways to get my revenge if they get too annoying....)

This week's obsession has been the Discovery Channel show 'Mythbusters'. I absolutely love gulping down science trivia and facts. And Netflix has nearly 80 Mythbusters episodes all lined up, just begging me to watch them. Add to this Youtube's library of outtakes and follow up snippets, and, well, my obsession has been well fed.

This morning, however, I stepped out of my obsession further than I usually do. I actually submitted a myth.

Because I have been doing a lot of grocery shopping. And when I do my grocery shopping, I invariably end up wandering down the aisle that contains NATTO. When I see the natto, I can feel my face scrunch up just a little. I suspect this has become an involuntary reaction, I'm sad to say.

Natto is simply fermented soybeans. It is sold in small flat plastic boxes. The first thing you notice about natto is the smell. One can tell exactly when someone has opened a box of natto. It smells, logically enough, like something that has fermented. And not in a really good way either. The next aspect of natto is the texture. It is swimming in gluey, stringy goo. Viscous. Grab some natto on your chopsticks and start lifting it into the air...the strings follow....for many many inches/centimeters.

Now all this aside, I am well aware that I am viewing natto through western eyes and tastes. I can step back and understand how someone could get to love natto. Japanese people usually can't abide root beer or American style peanut butter either, so it all balances out. And I have wonderful and lovely friends who adore natto. So let me assure you all that my dislike for natto is entirely personal.

Natto is typically eaten at breakfast, served over rice with soy sauce and a raw egg. The natto eater whips this mixture up with chopsticks and then eats it. I have personally eaten natto in this way. So has Bob. Way back in 1996 both of us were teaching at a junior high girls summer camp for a weekend. The principal of one of the schools called us over at breakfast time one day, and proceeded to show us how to eat natto. And manners dictated that we, of course, had to eat natto as well. Which we did.

That was the first...and last ....time we ate natto.

Fast forward to 2005. Aya and Patrick were attending a Japanese public elementary school. One of the school lunches served at least once a week included natto.

Which Aya actually liked.

And which Patrick utterly refused to eat.

At any rate, over the years I have stumbled upon magazine articles, you tube videos and tv shows that touched upon the miracle powers of natto. These include:

chemicals that fight cancer

easing symptoms of dementia

thinning blood clots

antioxidants

helping with kidney function

reducing symptoms of aging

The list could go on and on.

I have also uncovered a multitude of ways that people enjoy natto: in soups, atop noodles, rolled into sushi, accenting tofu, spread into sandwiches and disguised within tempura batter. One you tube show I found, from a natto company located in California, demonstrated ways to incorporate natto into salsa as well as guacamole.

Oh my goodness.

Over ramen and coffee this morning (I am on a ramen obsession this week. Bear with me) I found myself wondering if natto really was "all that and a bag of chips". Did I have to actually eat soybeans in natto form to get these wonderful effects? Could I also get the same benefits from eating edamame (boiled soybeans)? Drinking miso soup?

So I toddled over to my computer, fired up the Mythbusters website, and posted my three questions: (1) Does eating natto bring a person ALL these health benefits? (2) Is there a way to make it taste (and feel) better? and (3) Could I get the same benefits from eating soybeans in another way?

Now, I'm not expecting any warm personal emails from any of the Mythbusters. But hey, I'd love to see some of them try to come up with some natto recipies...and do some taste tests. For now, I find my questions are earning me a trickle of comments and suggestions from other equally demented Mythbusters fans, such as myself.

While I wait for my 10 seconds of Mythbuster fame, I'm going to go have some ramen.

Until next time....

Am I Gourmet or Just Desperate???

Hello everyone.

This week's challenges have centered largely around my cooking skills. More accurately, these challenges focused upon my ability to replicate well-loved flavors from home.

The challenge began, simply enough, when we wanted to have burritos, but lacked tortillas. So I embraced the magic of the internet, downloaded a recipe, and began honing my flour tortilla skills.

My first batch of tortillas came out with the right flavor, but way too thick. They mostly resembled rather flat biscuits. Pretty hard to make a burrito out of a biscuit--take my word for it. Alas, it seemed that without a rolling pin or, even better, a tortilla press, I couldn't get the tortillas flat enough.

This was a simple enough problem to solve--I bought a rolling pin. My next batch a week later resulted in recognizable tortillas which were still too thick, but large enough this time to wrap around fillings. This week, however, I did a bit more internet research on flour tortilla tips, and made a batch of suitable tortillas. Yahoo. Needless to say, there were no leftovers.

Then my loving children desired ranch dressing. Alrighty then. I first checked my handy dandy Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (Which, yes, I sent to Japan. So there). No ranch dressing recipe. So I went to the internet. Found a batch of recipes. I picked one and fiddled with it. One major problem was that all the recipes demanded buttermilk--something not easily found here, if it could be found at all. But, after messing around a bit with buttermilk substitutes (namely, milk and vinegar), I created something that was nearly, not quite, almost approximating ranch dressing.

Clearly the ranch dressing quest will have to continue.

Then, just last night, Patrick had a hankerin' for donuts. Homemade donuts. Of course. So he grabbed....yes...the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (and I for one was mightily impressed that he knew to grab the cookbook with no prompting from me), and he looked up donuts, and finally found a recipe that--brace yourselves--I had all the ingredients for. Unheard of.

Together we whipped up some donut batter, let it chill, and then, with him standing next to me, twitchy with impatience, I heated up some oil and fried up recognizable, edible, actually kinda tasty donuts.

....which lasted about 30 minutes. Patrick kept sneaking into the kitchen and slithering off with his cheeks bulging with donuts--very much like an extremely tall hamster. Behind him Aya and Bob came up and snatched donuts (and donut holes, which I also made of course. What else do you do with those little blobs of batter?!). By the end of it all, there was just one weirdly misshapen donut left on the plate. The last donut made with the dregs of the oil and last of the batter.

And that one donut vanished this morning when Aya ate it for breakfast.

The danger with all this experimental cooking is that both Patrick and Aya are developing the belief that I can cook anything from back home that they get a twinge for. And while it is lovely to receive all this positive regard and to bask in their faith in me and my cooking skills, I am not at all convinced I will be able to consistently rise to the challenge. I may have trouble, for example, re-creating Kraft Macaroni and cheese, which requires Velveeta-ish cheese which is a bit hard to procure here. They may also get an urge to have some brownies. I may be able to make the brownie batter, but since I utterly destroyed our toaster oven with the great empanada fandango of 2 weeks ago, baking the brownies would be nigh on impossible.

So I shall wait, suffering the anticipation, wondering what in the world these people will dream up for me to cook next.

Yeah, my cooking skills are getting a good healthy workout. But man oh man, what I wouldn't give to be able to pop into a Safeway right about now.

Until next time....

Digging..and drawing..the Daruma

I am...and always have been..very fond of daruma. It may be the way their eggy shape fits so snugly in the palm of my hand. It may be their propensity to never give up in their quest to sit upright, no matter how many times I may roll them over.

Daruma are traditional Japanese dolls. And while they may seem rather simple, they are actually highly symbolic and powerful symbols of good luck.

Daruma are modeled after the Bodhidharma, founder of Zen Buddhism. There are a wealth of stories and legends surrounding the Daruma, but the one that seems to be passed around most often is that the Bodhidharma embarked on a nine-year long meditation, during which time his legs atrophied and fell off--thus the legless nature of Daruma dolls.

Aside from this rather disturbing history, Daruma are considered to be sources of good luck, as well as protection against misfortune and accidents. They also symbolize the spirit of perseverance, as they are made with weights in their bases so that they right themselves when they are knocked over---thus inspiring the well-known Japanese saying "Nanakorobi Yaoki", or "seven times down, eighth time up" (however, the backstory of the determined dedication of the leg-sacrificing Bodhidharma also has a lot to do with this).

Daruma also have another function--to fulfill wishes. When you buy (or are given) a daruma, their eyes are blank--no pupils. Your task is to set a goal or wish for yourself and color in the pupil of one eye. When you have achieved your goal, or when your wish has been fulfilled, you color in the other eye. My mom seems to think there is something to this. During our first foray into Japan, way back in 1995, I got my mom a small daruma. She didn't make a wish at first, setting it on a shelf where it stayed until 2003, when we first embarked on the whole kidney donation brouhaha. She made a wish for a successful transplant, and colored in one eye. Nearly a year later, in early 2004, after my left kidney was successfully relocated to her, she colored in the other eye.

So I like Daruma a lot, and rather identify with them. And this week, in the still moments of the early mornings, I discovered that I rather enjoy drawing them as well. So if you see random daruma sketches peppered around my blog or Facebook, you now know why.

But aside from the wonders of daruma, things have picked up this last week. Patrick and Aya started Japanese lessons. And wonder of wonders, they not only like their tutor, but their Japanese neurons seem to be slowly activating. Which delights me to no end. The flip side of this is that they now have no problem toting themselves--and my money--off to convenience stores to get the very junk food I usually don't buy. As a result, we have re-instated a modest allowance for each of them. It is now up to them whether they choose to blow it on Japanese soda, or save it towards a bigger goal. Knowing them, this would be bigger bottles of Japanese soda.

I have also been discovering the nooks and crannies of our neighborhood stores. This week's satisfying purchase was a rug for our toilet room (Japanese houses have separate rooms for the bath and the toilet. Oh so logical when one person wants to use the toilet and one person wants to take a shower.). For the past few weeks I have been puttering around larger department stores, trying to justify spending 1000 yen on a teeny toilet room rug. Then I went to the neighborhood grocery store, which is just a few blocks away from us. And I discovered that only the FIRST floor has groceries. The second floor has cleaning and household goods. And the THIRD floor has clothing and textiles...including blankets and rugs.

Well, you can see from my picture the rug I found. For only 300 yen. Okay, you can draw whatever conclusions you want from the pun, but I find it amusing. I feel I am allowed to enjoy this pun because I grew up reading Winnie the Pooh books way before Winnie the Pooh exploded into a commercialized sensation.

I also enjoy the way we are left with the equally amusing "ooh" when one of our cats--in this case Doko--decides to sit on the letter "P".

One must find amusement where one can.

The upcoming week holds a variety of tasks and challenges for us. Bob will be endeavoring to acquire a Japanese credit card. With this card we are hoping to place a "Flying Pig" order ("Flying Pig" is an online service that delivers imported and Costco items throughout Japan). Among other things on our "Flying Pig" list are peanut butter ("Costco sized), dry cat food (Costco sized) and flour tortillas (again, Costco sized).

Patrick is pushing for us to order "American style" bacon.....of course.

We are also gearing up to make a trek out to the home store "Nitori" to get provisions for the incoming winter, which we can feel sneaking in at night when the temperatures drop and the house slowly turns into a large refrigerator. Thus our quest for thick blankets and a pad and cover set for our kotatsu (heated coffee table).

Money in, money out.

Until next time......

Considering Loss...

I'd like to take a moment away from the frantic tales of our lives in Japan to talk about loss.

I think it is important to think, once in a while, about loss. About losing things. About losing people.

Yesterday the world lost yet another wonderful human.

This is a great loss.

Steve Jobs was a particularly wonderful human because the effects and products of his wonderfulness touched millions of people.

But it is important to remember that he was human.

He had pet peeves and bad habits and faults...just like the rest of us.

He made mistakes and doubted himself and lost his temper once in a while...just like the rest of us.

He had a favorite sandwich, a favorite t-shirt and, most likely, a favorite coffee he would order at Starbucks.

He worked and wondered and loved....just like the rest of us.

I never met Steve Jobs.

But I know these things because he was human.

Like me.

Like you.

Like all of us.

Like the other wonderful humans whom we've all lost over the years.

So I'm going to let myself feel sad, and feel the loss of a wonderful human.

I'm going to add his face to that special place in my heart and mind where I store the memories of all those whom I've lost and whom I miss.

And in those moments when my world is quiet and still, I'll open up these memories and marvel that these wonderful humans touched my life...in ways big and small. And I'll smile through the tears.

Because it is important to think, once in a while, about loss.

Sweaters, Angklung Sightings and An Empanada-ed Toaster Oven

Hello all,

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live a life where there was absolutely nothing to write. Where everything is going so smoothly, so predictably and so peacefully that all I'd blog is "It is what it is" (To quote a very dear friend), and that would be it.

However, that is NOT the kind of life I lead, and even when it sort of feels like things have gone smoothly, there is always some little weird blip or bump or snafu to keep me typing.

This week went fairly well, overall. The weather has officially turned into Autumn, with chilly nights and mornings. Warm days sprinkle themselves here and there, but overall it is long sleeve time...and I for one am delighted. Cold weather can be blunted with thick jackets and hot tea. Hot weather is utterly inescapable.

On the "yahoo" front, the kids are starting to go out by themselves. Lured by pocket change and pushed by my loving nagging (and by my hands shoving them out the door), they are starting to explore our neighborhood and even make trips to the local convenience stores to buy treats here and there. Of course, it does help that I refuse to buy snacks of any kind. If they want to eat the periodic crunchy or sweet treat, they have to muster up their sleeping Japanese skills and go get it themselves. Ha.

I am continuing to fill the gaps in our menu by teaching myself to make things we cannot easily find here. I have taught myself to make flour tortillas (much easier, by the way, once I purchased an actual rolling pin). I have re-awakened my sleeping salsa-making skills (living in California means having a large variety of tasty salsas within easy reach. I'm so spoiled). We have even made fairly successful chocolate chip cookies (once, that is, we actually located chocolate chips).

So yesterday I decided I was hungry for empanadas. Empanadas, while associated with South America now, originally came from the areas of Spain and Portugal (a Catalan cookbook was found from the 1500's mentioning 'empanadas' specifically), with roots stretching back to Arabic samosas. While I am sure empanadas have gone through a variety of changes over the last 500 years, they are now sort of like little meaty-potatoey-eggy turnovers. Very filling. And while I didn't make them, meatless empanadas can be easily made by substituting other sturdy veggies for the meat.

And they turned out pretty good, even if I do say so myself. Some fine tuning is needed, as with anything. But they were snatched up and eaten by the family in short order (although this does not necessarily indicate culinary delight--food consumption in this house is quickly turning into something resembling a plague of locusts. But that's another story).

Most unfortunately, there was a price to be paid for being allowed to make edible empanadas. I managed to burn out our toaster oven. So my next task is to get a new toaster oven that is empanada-proof. Until then, we are limited to our teeny fish broiler (set into the bottom of our 3 burner gas stove), or our standard toaster (into which an empanada would never fit, and doubtless from which it would be impossible to extract).

To distract myself from the horror of burning out our only baking device, I lured Bob to come with me to a USED ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOKSTORE. Yes, you read that right. I had coffee last week with a teacher (and extremely talented textile artist) from the local international school, and she told me about it, and even drew me a tiny map. Undoubtedly she saw the maniac glint in my eye at the mention of a used bookstore, and thought it would be safest to draw me a map before I began ranting and frothing at the mouth.

I was anticipating a difficult multi-subway transfer trip to this bookstore. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a medium-bike ride away (Bob did some iphone map magic and voila--directions). Our bike ride would, of course, take us back along the Kamo River. And, as I detailed in my last blog entry, the Kamo River is never without its charms and delights.

On this river-side bike ride, there were the usual assortment of desperate musicians (slide trombone, 2 clarinets, 1 flute, 2 electric guitars--with portable amplifiers, 3 acoustic guitars, a harmonica and a huge drum circle. AND, a whole group of people playing an instrument I had never seen before. When we came home I looked it up, and found it was an Angklung. This is a bamboo percussion instrument originally from Indonesia (but which is played throughout Southeast Asia) and is designed to be played in a group, as each Angklung plays only 1 or 2 notes. The melody the river group was playing was haunting and beautiful, the bamboo reeds creating a breathy, hollow tone that is irresistible to listen to.

We saw a variety of sports and other outdoor pursuits being played as well--baseball, a huge game of frisbee football fishing, bug-catching, tai-chi, jogging and a fairly large dance troupe involved in an intricate rehearsal.

However, aside from all this, there was one thing that made Bob and I stop our bikes and gape for awhile.

In the sparse grass along the walking and bike path, an older man was holding what looked to be a round sembe or ritz cracker, reaching as far up as he could with it into the air. And he was whistling and cooing, staring up at the sky. Bob and I followed his gaze only to see several very large circling hawks (their wingspans must have been about 3 feet), flying low, gliding on the breeze in lazy circles. They were specifically circling the man. Suddenly one of the hawks would swoop very low, just over his head. He would toss the cracker into the sky and the hawk would catch it in its beak and soar back into the sky.

The man's attention was riveted to the hawks, paying attention to neither dogs or tiny children nor bizarre foreigners with their mouths hanging open. It was fascinating to see the play between the man and the wild hawks, as this was quite obviously a daily routine for both man and birds. At the same time, I felt rather sad, watching these majestic wild birds of prey being softened for the sake of a cracker. I often have these conflicting feelings-- this mix of fascination, delight and sadness when I see any piece of the untamed, the wild, or the natural, being--inevitably it seems--softened and blunted by humans. But that's another story...

We did make it to the bookstore. It is located on the second floor of a narrow building. The store itself is small--probably just a little longer than our living room, and just as wide. On every wall are floor to ceiling bookshelves, with the books lined up in rows that are 2 deep. When we entered the store through the wooden sliding door, a soft waft of incense met us, with an accompanying wash of soft instrumental Indian music. In the center of the space were free standing book display racks.

THIS was my kind of bookstore. I have always been drawn to used bookstores--so much more eclectic than big commercial bookstores. This store--called "Green E Books, gets its stock from trade ins and donations from foreigners. So the selection is wide ranging, and encompassing what you'd expect to find in a good quality used bookstore back in the U.S. I selected 4 books (taking full advantage of their 'buy 3 books get the 4th free' deal), enjoying that wonderful rush of anticipation I get every time I find something new to read. Nerdy, but there it is.

And so for today, Sunday, after running a few errands I have big plans to zip myself into my sweat jacket, make a big cup of green tea, and settle down to some new reading. Ahhh.

Until next time.....