Basic Black

お好み焼き Okonomiyaki

Do you know about this pan-fried dish that is common in Japanese home kitchens? Okonomiyaki means "Whatever you like, fried", and has a simple base that every Japanese person knows. Usually, okonomiyaki has a batter made of flour, water, beaten egg, and a sticky potato called yamaimo. After that, whatever you want goes into it. Tonight, mine is pork on the bottom with Korean spicy kimchi in the batter.
自分の家庭料理でお好み焼がき出来ました。

I can't really tell you my recipe. I just eyeball it. One egg, well beaten, a tablespoon of flour, a handful of chopped cabbage, a bit of grated potato if you have it, a tablespoon of water if you don't, a teaspoon or so of grated or pickled ginger, and a few grams of pork or bacon. Then I threw in some Korean kimchi. If you want an authentic recipe, see this awesome bilingual blog. I like how this recipe uses daishi fish stock to make up the liquid part of the recipe. There are many regional variations of okonomiyaki, and nearly as many recipes as there are okonomiyaki afficionados.

お好み焼き生で Here is my own home-made okonomiyaki naked.

やっぱり私は青いのりとソースとかつおぶしが乗せています。　そのあとはmayonnaise ですよ。Here is okonomiyaki dressed the way I like it - mysterious brown sauce, Kewpie brand mayonnaise, nori seaweed and katsuo fish flakes. This keeps me warm in the winter!

Black bean and seaweed muffin

Last night, I caught up with some local folks at the Strabucks under the Takashimaya building. There I had a cup of tea 黒豆ひじき赤味噌マフィン Black bean, hijiki seaweed and red miso muffin. And it tasted like chocolate. Only one other of our members would touch it.

My world is changing

I jogged today from home to 柏市民体育館　Kashiwa Municipal Gym down by the park. I've never done this before. Correctly, I've never jogged before. It just kind of happened. I needed to get my shopping bike #1 from the parking lot there, and I was under some time constraints. I don't even own running shoes. I guess I have to get some. I'm kind of chuffed to know I'm in good enough shape to jog that stretch, though it's only a few kilometers. I had no idea I could do that.

This new year is a new world for me.

I had no idea I could return a lot of plastic to point of purchase. Today's discovery is that 長崎屋　Nagasakiya department store, on the food floor, has recycling boxes that handle milk cartons, styrofoam trays, and the plastic trays that tofu, veggies and various other produce come in. My garbage bags get lighter every time I find another way to reduce the load going out. I'm not sure what this styro and the like gets recycled into, but the Yes! Tokyo website's English guide to environmental solutions and experiments in Tokyo gives some insight into how garbage is being handled in Tokyo proper, which may indicate how the 'burbs are handling it.

Ideally, I want to get the plastic consumption down.

I'm getting some inspiritation from Change Everything, an intiative of Vancity, Vancouver's community-based financial institution that gets behind many positive changes in the way we Vancouverites live. Wow, they're inspiring me waaaay over the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Pretty good!

Getting an early start on resolution #1

Every time you go out for a bowl of ramen in Tokyo, you likely pick up a pair of 割り箸 waribashi, the disposable wooden chopsticks that you split with a crack before you eat. Waribashi are so ingrained in Japanese culture that there are manners specifically for their use. Break your chopsticks holding them horizontally, never vertically. Don't sand them against each other or roll them like pick up sticks. This implies that the waribashi are cheap and insults the wait staff. When you want to set them down, place them on the paper wrapper which you have artfully folded into a　箸置きhashioki chopstick rest. And when you're done, put them back in the paper wrapper, folding the end of the wrapper diagonally.

How many times does the average salaryman eat a takeout bento or eat in a noodle bar? The waribashi add up in a year to 200 pairs per person, making the total a scary 25 billion sets a year. China has slapped a surcharge on waribashi sold to Japan, which has resulted in some shops looking for alternatives. I've been really good, turning down proferred waribashi, plastic bags and other disposable unrecyclable stuff.

But what could be simpler than carrying your own? I surprised myself when I went to lunch this afternoon and, when my meal came, I automatically reached for the waribashi on the counter. No, no. My own hashi are pretty bamboo with woven handles and a sturdy sheath. I'll get used to it in no time. I have already eliminated plastic register bags from my shopping routine, so I figure I won't miss waribashi.

Reducing the plastic in my life

Today's shopping at Nagasaki-ya was under 1000 yen worth of groceries. In the basket, you can see spinach, carrots, a piece of salmnon, some lemon chuhais, a whole daikon radish, and a bag of udon noodles.

You'll see, too, the pink "No bag, please" card. If I bring my own bag, place this pink "No bag, please" card in my basket and carry my point card, the cashier gives me a stamp for each bag I refuse. After 20 no-bag points, I get a 100 yen discount.

The effort required to bring my own bag (usually my bookbag or whatever bag I brought to work with me, or a furoshiki or repurposed bag I have recieved from shopping) is negligible, yields me a small monetary reward, and makes household waste a little lighter. This year, 2007, I have endeavoured to reduce my plastic bag pile to nil, and very nearly succeeded. The only contributions were from guests. I keep all reusable plastic packaging (plastic sleeves from advertising and the like) in a bag above the fridge, and put it to work when I need to protect valuable papers.

I've been following Envirowoman's plastic free blog, a chronicle of one Vancouver woman's endeavour to eliminate plastic products and packaging from her life for one year.

Kudos to Envirowoman. Trying to follow in her footsteps in Japan is extremely difficult for this expat Canadian living in Japan. Japan has a great record for recycling appliances and paper, but I wonder where the plastic goes to, and what happens to it post-consumer use. Well, the Japan Times recently documented the incineration of plastic waste, and begins to explore the idea of burning the unburnables in Tokyo. It makes me nervous about throwing away that plastic sushi tray. Where's it really going?

So I'm throwing my efforts at consuming less plastic because I fear it is impossible to eliminate it from my diet. Virtually everything I buy, from rice crackers to fruit to noodles, is packaged in plastic. If I were to buy in bulk or one item at a time, I might be able to reduce plastic packaging, but it is impractical and expensive for the single Japanese resident. One orange is more expensive when you cost it out, and buying in bulk presents storage problems that are unique to the Japanese domestic environment.

So, for now, I'll work on getting my plastic consumption down in 2008, but barriers to eliminating it appear to insurmountable right now.

I'll still look for advice and information at Japan for Sustainability and see what information I can glean.

Meanwhile, I had a wonderful and healthful dinner of , making the most of a piece of salmon, chopped carrots and daikon radish, flavoured with miso paste, and accompanied by a side dish of Korean kimchi. If I eat whole foods, I eat better right away.

The remainder of the day's shopping haul will go into a container and turned into Japanese-style tsukemono pickles. Made with love, no extra plastic required.

Learn English and feed people, too

Laundry's done, sent my new years greeting cards to the family, puttering in my pjs at home. This is homework avoidance at its finest.

All this domesticity is a cover for organizing my notes and writing reports. Ideas percolate while I'm doing other tasks, of course. A strange effect I attribute to living outside my first language community... I'm frequently at loss for words. My literacy in Japanese is weak, sure, so I can't blame my lack of verbiage on Japanese crowding out my language skill. It's more likely that I simply haven't used these words frequently enough, and I'm not reading English regularly outside of my university reading packets.

Listening to National Public Radio on the Armed Forces Network this evening, I heard a report about Free Rice, a website that combines vocabulary practice and a donation of rice to The World Food Program. Go play! Get rice! How cool is that!

Okay, back to homework...

Pepsi ice what?

Mainichi News covered the weirdest drink this summer - Pepsi Ice Cucumber, which I was reading about on my mobile phone on the way home last night. Being curious, I picked up a bottle. It's waiting in the staff room fridge for R-sensei. I said I'd give him ten yen if he drinks it. Warm.

Fudoji trip obento preparation

We're planning our annual trip to the secret hideaway in the mountains, 不動寺, Fudoji. Presiding over the temple is a wonderful priest of the Obakushu order. He puts on Buddhist vegetarian meals for parishoners and visitors, explaining with each course what forest plants can be eaten, and how they are prepared. Eating with the priest is an exercise in mediatation and reminder of all we should be glad for.

This year, there are too many of us to be accommodated at the priest's table, so we're planning a bento box picnic on the mountain. For the first time, I'll get to put my double-decker bento box to work. We'll see how many onigiri and pickles we can pack in there.

By way of encouragement, GW sent me a link to some outrageous kids' bento boxes. The Power Puff Girls lunch looks complex, but all the ingredients can be had in the supermarket, and the labour is in the assembly.

Remember to Eat

I got so involved in what I was studying today that I nearly forgot to eat! The examination for the Sound System of American English forces me to go through all my notes. Gosh, am I getting old? I can remember parts of the material, but terminology and details escape me. Fortunately, our prof gave us a choice of open or closed book, and last night, when we voted, nearly everybody wanted open book. Phew.

I was at home all morning, and made myself a decent lunch. But the last few days, being on holiday from work (mostly) has tempted me away from home cooking to the variety in kashiwa. The grungy ramen shop that used to be on the corner of 柏銀座通り　Kashiwa Ginza Dori　has been revamped and now surves 油そば, abura soba, a dish that doesn't have the typical soupyness of regular ramen, but boy is it delicious.  The place, called 千夜都, Phoenix and I stumbled over the other night, and it's right in front of Kashiwa Shrine in Ginza Dori.

Besides ramen, Gyoza is a big deal in Kashiwa. Further along Ginza Dori on the left side, you'll see White Gyoza, but another block, turn left, and you'll meet 餃子小舎Gyoza Goya. Their gyoza yokubari A course gets you kimchi, shiso, octopus, garlic, shitake mushroom and shrimp gyoza for 520 yen. They keep little pots of tare, or sauce on the table, one with a mayonnaise base (it's good, I'm telling you! and the other this dark plummy looking sauce.

Phoenix is really weird sometimes, and he has a bizarre imagination, so when he requested banana curry gyoza of the little Mama that runs the place, I blanched. What the heck, I live here man, don't screw with my neighbour lady's head, I told him. But damn, I was surfing around, and it's no fiction, in Sweden people really do serve banana curry pizza.

Sorry, D, I won't bash you anymore for your Royal Amazing Foodiness.

Bento! You can do it, too!

Phoenix and I are trying to eat at home as much as possible. We're eating very healthy and cheap food. Now that I have some time, I'm experimenting with quick and tasty food. I'm going to be so pressed for time, leaving at 25 after six to catch my morning train, and not back in Kashiwa until quarter after 6 in the evening. I've got to keep it simple and fast so that I get fed well and still make it to dojo.

Last night's dinner was leftovers, but good all the same - tortellini with tomato sauce, cabbage and daikon salad, cheese, miso soup with slices of long onion. It took no time to prepare.

After dinner, The Phoenix and I made a bento box for his Monday lunch. I discovered this great book,５分でできた！超便利！可愛ハヤお弁当 Ready in 5 Minutes, a book about making quick and tasty lunch boxes. We didn't clock ourselves, but preparation, cooking and cleanup took about 10 minutes. Phoenix said it smelled so good, he almost couldn't keep his hands off it!

I'm at home for most of today, so with the remaining ingredients, I made the same lunch - shredded pork simmered with tomato, ginger and onion over rice, a bowl of wakame seaweed soup and salt pickles (I made myself last night).