Friday, December 31, 2010

Final Dawn of 2010! It was a very good year!

As I sit on the upstairs tatami floor of my in-laws ice box house, the sun is rising over western Japan and the rest of Asia for the final time in 2010. It has been a fine year for us. Of course there has been the downside as well, most notably the passing of my sister-in-law at much too young an age, also my “big brother” cousin passed without being able to say good bye.
In reflection, I realized that of the 44 New Years that have transpired in my adult life I have spent 21 of them abroad. Of these, 2010 was a year of major change for us as I left my job before it completely dried up due to a lack of students. Now I find myself a masterless samurai, “ronin”, in quest of new teaching adventures.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, in which I said farewell to my political activism stage and quit my old Twitter account, we all experience stages in our lives. In my case, I realized that it was well past time to put aside some vices that were no longer appropriate for a man of my years. I see far too many folks my age and even younger that have allowed habit to make them unhealthy and unhappy. Mind you, I am not going to become an evangelist for sobriety, fitness and nutrition, and I fully realize were I 30 years younger I would still be asleep and would be hungover when I did get up; after all, it is the New Year holiday weekend.
This was a very rare year in which I was successful in my resolution to lose weight down to 75 kilos. I need to be more disciplined in 2011 and explore the physical limits of a body that wants to surrender to the law of inertia. Never give up, never surrender. Bushido!
This won’t be my final post of the year, but is the final major post. Later I will post pictures from our final 16+ hours of 2010. I wish you all a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Kanmon Bridge


Kanmon Bridge
Originally uploaded by osiodhachan
This Kanmon Staits Bridge that connects Honshu with Kyushu at Shimonoseki and Kitakyushu City. Cold and grey, but still very picturesque. Eating at a cafe with this view.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Bullet train interior


Bullet train interior
Originally uploaded by osiodhachan
For my followers who live abroad, this is the interior of a Nozomi Shinkansen (Bullet train). We just passed Mt. Fuji on the West side, Tokyo Bay on the East. Very smooth ride.

Monday, December 27, 2010

"Over the River and Though The Woods"

Today, Monday before the New Year’s holidays is trip prep day for us. From tomorrow I will be doing some mobile blogging and Tweeting from the in-laws I southern Honshu. They will see their grandson for the first time in 14 years. I know, my wife and I should be flogged for not visiting them since we came back from “that country”. The cost has been almost prohibitive as it costs more to go there than to go to Los Angeles. It appears that granddad is “sweating” his return; we got a very rare telephone call from them last night checking on our plans.
I would normally look forward to a bullet train trip, but not with luggage and definitely not over the crazed “Shogatsu” holidays when the trains run at 120% capacity. Cold prevention gauze masks are de rigeur . I am looking forward to getting some good photo ops and some “different” victuals from my mother-in-law’s kitchen.
So if you are so inclined, make sure you click on my links on Twitter that mention a blog post. Don’t you know that 140 characters just don’t get it on special occasions and in my book, everyday is special.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas Japanese Sweets

"Wagashi" or Japanese sweets can be charming as well as sweet! These are special for the season. Best wishes for a happy Christmas!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Buckwheat noodles in curry soup

"Soba" is buckwheat noodles and a favorite of mine. This is from a shop on the bypass in Tateyama. It's one of several "mom & pop" shops that I love to visit.

"Mom and Pop" shops a vanishing treasure.

The year seems determined to finish as its has presented itself so far, unseasonably warm. Yesterday we made the 2 plus hour trek to Makuhari, between Chiba and Tokyo, to see the movie “Tron”. After the movie, which exceeded my expectations and introduced me to the music of Daf Punk, we had coffee al fresco on the patio of a little Italian restaurant,”Pinocchio”, in the outlet mall next to Makuhari station. The pleasure of having a civilized coffee outdoors in December is hard to measure, especially considering that one of my Twitter friends in Miami was complaining about the cold. Today, so far, the weather has been fabulous with flowers that normally bloom in Spring bursting forth. This strange weather could play havoc with the seasonal trade in flowers in nearby Shirahama. Normally tours from Tokyo and Yokohama come here by bus after the New Year holidays to pick flowers along the beach(and strawberries behind our house). If the flowers bloom too soon and then get hit by a normal cold spell it could be a very disappointing ride for the senior set.
Recently I have re-discovered the joy of avoiding the 2 nearby “super” markets to patronize some of the locally owned specialty shops, a meat market, a fish mongers.
In this area it is almost needless to use the term “mom and pop” to describe any shop that isn’t part of a regional or national chain. There are many shops that have closed their shutters for good for various reasons, primarily old age and competition away from the center of town on the major “bypass”. It is sad that the personal attention, friendliness and service that these “mom and pop” run stores provide will soon be a faint memory.
In a few minutes, my son and I will take advantage of this fine weather to have some wonderful buckwheat noodles at a local, you guessed it, “mom and pop”, soba shop.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Christmas Hearts.


IMG_0632
Originally uploaded by toshihide.sato
I'm taking the opportunity afforded by the arrival of a great seasonal photo on Flickr by Toshihide Sato to try out posting to this blog directly from Flickr. If it works as hoped, it should be a great way to quickly blog pictures, a welcome alternative to Tweeter.
If you have time you should visit Toshi's photo stream. He has some very nice night photography going on there and autumn foliage in Kyoto.
Let's see how this works.

Friday, December 17, 2010

From JFK to Obama; why I'm done.

It’s no secret that we go through stages in life, most of them segue seamlessly; yet we all have climactic moments that we can pinpoint; the birth of a child, death of a loved one, war. We also have currents that run throughout our lives, our passions, our fears and hopes. I have been a political animal, espouser of causes, a would-be world saver since my senior year in high school when I attended a campaign rally for John Kennedy and had the great fortune to meet him and Mrs Kennedy. I spent part of one, long, very hot summer during university in Montgomery, Alabama much to the distress of my mother. Those were exciting times and you could almost feel a change was coming, not the current “change” of a glib, charming charlatan.
Recently, I’ve made some major lifestyle changes best characterized by the country western icon Willie Nelson when queried as to why he quit drinking; “I got sick and tired of waking up feeling sick and tired.” I have had more lucid moments in the last 3 months than in the last 20 years. There were several events during the summer that formed a perfect storm for a new stage and I realized what I could do to make my life more harmonious.
As I look at world events over the past 50 years I feel that all my involvement, all the arguing with conservatives, all the ranting on Twitter and even the tear gas inhaled has basically come to naught. We all preach to our own choirs and seldom sway opinion. The truth is that I don’t want to waste anymore time trying to save the world. I’ll leave that to the “bright-eyed and bushy tailed”-as we were called by our wonderful civics teacher my senior year in high school.
It’s time now to be at peace for the rest of my life, enjoying my passions for music, baseball, food, prose and poetry. Of course, I mean my own personal peace. I have little hope for humanity to stop doing what it has done since the first human cracked open the skull of another.
So I have decided to retire my “political” Twitter account, @GGMMX, to concentrate on blog posts. Twitter has introduced me to some great folks and I hope they will continue to follow me on my protected, non-political account and/or read my blog. The caveat being, if you start ranting about politics or religion, you are gone! So, if you are a campaigner or activist, I wish you more success than those who have gone before you and I urge you not to darken my door.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

New Year's Priorities!

We are now just  2 weeks from the end of another year and time to start contemplating what one would like to accomplish in the coming year. I got a late start on my "resolution" for this year, but have managed to lose a significant amount of weight; thanks mainly to my wife's cooking and co-operation. But, let's put this year to rest and ramble on about next year.
I feel that I need to Twitter less and blog more. I mean, after all, wasn't the original idea behind "web logs", to express yourself, share ideas, recipes, .etc with those who find they share your interests. I can't promise you that every post will have pictures of Japanese food. In fact that is the purpose of my Tumblr photo blog which has a link on this very page. I intend to revert to the original web log concept. When something worth sharing occurs I will share it here. I intend to completely eschew politics and world affairs. I have had my fill.
My goal for the coming year is to learn to sew. My wife is quite a talented seamstress and she has already deigned to teach me. I hope to be making my own shirts by this time next year. I'm already on a learning project to take 4 inches out of the waist and seat of an old pair of jeans. I told you I lost a significant amount of weight. This brings to the front my primary goal of maintaining the lifestyle I have adopted over the last three months.
Resolutions made on new year's eve often fade quickly from memory. So, maybe we should just call it "prioritizing".
I will post another blog about  closing my main Twitter account soon.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Mayo and Miso dressing for Grilled Avocado and Pita Sandwiches.

My wife finally wrote down the recipe for the dressing/dipping sauce for the grilled avocados.
  
1/2 cup of mayo (Japanese -Kewpi- is the best.)
1.5 tablespoon of Miso. Avoid using heavy dark type.
1 teaspoon of grated garlic.
2 tablespoons of olive oil or grape seed oil.
pinch of freshly ground pepper.

Mix all together with a whisk or spoon. Apply liberally to avocados after grilling. I also like it very much in fried egg and eggplant pita bread sandwiches. Just fry up what ever fresh veggies you have and put them in pita with a fried egg.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Grilled Avocado Skewers! Is that possible?

On a dreary rainy season Sunday morning my wife tells me she is going to grill avocados on the BBQ. Now where I grew up vegetables never saw the BBQ grill. That fire was for meat and lots of it.  So when I came to Japan and saw that most grills were covered with vegetables of all description I was very disappointed. Time has changed that opinion and it wouldn't surprise me to see almost anything perched on a grill. Yet, I was very skeptical about avocados. "Won't they fall off the skewers?", a Twitter friend asked me. My thoughts exactly, but not to discourage culinary inventiveness, plus the fact that nothing I could say would stop her, I remained silently skeptical; no mean feat for me I assure you.
So she breaks out the aging "shichirin" charcoal brazier- the workhorse for outdoor cooking in Japan. After the coals have reached their "white stage" she plops 3 metal skewers, see the picture, of avocados on the fire. Use metal skewers or bamboo ones that have been soaked in water. You can't walk off and let these cook like other veggie as they need constant attention and must be turned if the fire flames up too much. They only take about 3 minutes or so before they are done. My wife uses a miso and mayonnaise basting sauce whichalso slows down the surface burning.
So there you have a simple appetizer that really compliments grilled beef. I suggest you play around with different basting sauces.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Home process anchovies!


My wife got the bright idea to process and keep anchovies as they were fresh and in plentiful supply at the supermarket. She sold me on the idea when she said that the liquid by-product of the process was fish sauce, or called Nouc Mam in Vietnamese. We usually buy the real stuff if we see it in specialty stores, but those are all in Tokyo or Chiba city, 2 hours from here. So she did the cutting and packing and I snapped pictures. We waited 30 days and I am very happy with the anchovies. The fish sauce is much milder than I like, but maybe it will get a little stronger.
So between making salted anchovies and growing our own jalapeño peppers we have some pizza toppings to go with our fresh basil.
Guess we'll have to do a mozzarella cheese project next!

Monday, April 5, 2010

My students and I say good-bye!

Here's a great group of folks saying "See you around!" as I end up my stay at Griffin And Sabine English school. It's been a fast and fun 8 1/2 years, but time to move on and try something else!
Thanks kids!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

This blog is in serious danger of becoming another Japanese food blog and that was not the original intention. It's supposed to be curmudgeonly! You can see there are links to my other photographic excesses elsewhere on this page. I want to step away form my "ode to gluttony" and discuss something very dear to my heart.
I came to Japan in 1987 to "pick up Japanese and study Aikido", naively thinking that 2 yrs would suffice. In those days if I didn't like a place I moved on. In other words I was single. The economic bubble was about to burst and all were happy in a fool's paradise. Even then there were grumblings about shinjinrui or "new human beings" referring to the younger generation-that group of people who made up the second post war generation. I dismissed a lot of that in those days as simply generational grumblings that have existed since the beginning of the industrial age and perhaps before that.The "bubble" is now a distant memory and the current generation of "crumb grabbers" are spoiled grandchildren of the aforementioned shinjinrui.
I have no problem with the fact that currently Japanese are not having enough children to replenish the current population level. I think it's a good thing and would encourage the rest of the world to follow this example. Less people require less workers in agriculture and food production. As Martha Stewart used to say, "It's a good thing." Besides, what pampered little darling trundling off to first grade next month with a $300 leather backpack will want to harvest rice or stand on the deck of a whaler and go toe to toe with future eco-nuts?
The problem with the current crop of kiddies -here it comes the old gray beard dumping on the younger generation- is that their parents and grandparents have never experienced privation and fear of sudden death at all. They have no one to tell them stories of how tough life can be. Of course every year in August there are TV specials about the war, but my guess is that these kiddies won't be seeing them as they will be too enthralled with other media.
This is a society that values cuteness and gluttony. If you can stand it, try watching Japanese TV for a day. How many shows do you see where the key words are "cute" and "delicious"! I have no problem with that, but how is the younger generation going to get any idea of the real problems of the world.
So next month, when you see the fresh crop of first graders in their little yellow hats and ridiculously expensive rucksacks, be sure to exclaim in a loud voice, "kawaii" or "cute"!

Friday, February 12, 2010

A Trip To Shiki in the Dead of Winter


January and February are bad months in the restaurant business; bad for the owners; good for customers who battle cold weather and depleted bank accounts after New Year's madness. Shops have very few customers and rely on a few New Years parties to staunch the flow of red ink. My wife and I stopped by "Shiki" one day after she got off work to see the chef, take a few pictures with my new camera and enjoy some sashimi. The photos you see on the right are of the interior and a wonder platter of lightly grilled scallops paired with raw spotted prawns known as "Ama Ebi" or sweet shrimp in Japanese.
We were lucky enough to be able to chat at length with the chef who has the very colorful hobby of raising Japanese ornamental carp. It seems that no two fish are exactly alike as he showed us a magazine with many pictures of these expensive beauties,
Soon spring will be upon us and I'm sure his business will pick up.
So if you plan to travel to the tip of the Chiba peninsula and would like
try the fare at Shiki, let me know and we can make all the arrangements!

I'm posting this for the first time via Picasa and will apologize in advance for any strangeness that results.
Bon Apetit!
Posted by Picasa

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Akihabara's Linux Cafe and Star Keba


Everyone has their routines and preferences and my son and I are no different when we visit Tokyo. As many of you already know, we are dedicated techno dweebs of the first order and it should be of no surprise that we like to stay close to “otaku” heaven in Akihabara. Actually we stay in Ochanomizu at a small hotel adjacent to Kanda Myojin which overlooks “Akiba”. Checkout time at the hotel is 10:00 and most shops in that area don’t really get going until 11:00 so we generally hang out at “Cafe Solaria” aka “Linux Cafe” located one block off the main drag in the shadow of the new black office building on the main corner in Akiba. The coffee is good there and they have patio tables facing the street which make for good “maid” watching as they bounce to work.(Not recommended this time of year as it’s too cold to sit outside). My son, famed carbohydrate killer, also enjoys their pastries.
If we arrive in Akiba directly from Tokyo station and it’s near lunchtime we generally head for “Star Kebab” which is located an Ichiro Suzuki baseball throw from the aforementioned Linux Cafe on the same street.
“Star Kebab” started out as street vendor a few years back selling what the Turks call “Donner Kebab”, the Greek “Gyros” and the Levantine Arabs “shwarma”. Did I leave anyone out? Basically it’s finely sliced meat stacked on a vertical rotisserie and slowly cooked as it rotates. I fell in love with these in Jordan and Syria back in the day as they were, cheap, filling and delicious-although of suspect sanitary standards. At “Star Kebab” 1 sandwich is equal to about 3 in volume if compared to street vendors in Damascus. I enjoyed the selection in the Middle East as you can get beef, chicken and my favorite lamb.

My son’s favorite is the “donburi” rice bowl with the kebab meat topping and yogurt sauce and we prefer to eat in the shop so I can enjoy a nice cold draft beer with my sandwich. The service is friendly and multilingual-Japanese, English and Turkish.
“Star Kebab’s” success has spawned several other take away joints in Akiba, but I prefer making the walk to their shop.
So, if you ever get to Akihabara before the rush begins, I recommend “Solaria”, aka Linux Cafe for a light breakfast and “Star Kebab” for hearty fare at lunchtime.