Farewell, old friend
Well, sagablog, it's been something like 8 months since my last post, but something happened to me today that I feel the need to talk about, and a high-traffic spot such as this seems ideal.I happened to be in Kumamoto on Saturday morning, after a night of not drinking and not acting stupid and not sleeping in the rest area of a sento. On the way back to Kumamoto station, I decided to head over to Tsutaya and pick myself up a copy of the new Zelda game for DS (having bought the DS under no peer pressure at all from the other members of a group whose name is not Ichiban).
Needless to say, I spent much of the remainder of the weekend not at all playing Zelda, and not at all finishing a good chunk of the game. And, of course, I didn't decide to go home and play during my lunch break today, because that would be silly.
On the way not back home, I stopped into the Daily Yamazaki on the north side of Saga station for my first "Daily Lunch" in quite some time. Barely had I put the side stand on my bicycle down when I noticed a sign in Japanese.
本店は今月、６月３０日をもちまして閉店させていただくことになりました。
Translation: don't come here after June 30th, cause you will be SOL.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo
Why the big fuss, you say. It's just another combini. There's one right down the street.
Just another combini? If Daily is just another combini, then Cocoa Puffs are just another kind of cereal, beer is just another kind of alcohol, hurricanes are just another kind of rainstorms, air is just another mixture of gases, LIFE ITSELF IS JUST ANOTHER STATE OF EXISTENCE.
No, friends, Daily is not just another combini. Daily is where I stumbled in one January night, bleeding profusely from my left hand (after a completely undrunk run-in with the sidewalk, I swear), and bought milk and cough drops.
Daily is where I stumbled in after falling off my bicycle completely undrunk to wash the cuts on my face.
Daily is an integral stop along the hallowed Trail of Beverages that do not include Beer.
Daily is where I bought flour and eggs at 1 in the morning to make okonomiyaki.
Daily is where I learned that Saga is the nanpa capital of central northern Kyushu, with people coming from all over the prefecture and even from Kurume and the Chikuho region of Fukuoka.
Daily is where I ended many a completely sober night, buying some snacks that I would find the next morning partially eaten.
In short, Daily was my life in Saga.
Daily Yamazaki, thanks for all the good times. Thanks for all the food. Thanks for being the best second-rate combini in Saga. But most of all, thanks for the memories.
I saulte you, Daily Yamazaki, and pledge that I shall never forget your existence for as long as I should live. Rest in Peace, good buddy ;(
PS: Daily-Y closes at 6:00 PM this Saturday. They are having a closing sale starting on the 28th and going through to the end. Feel free to stop in and pick up reduced price stuff, but hands off the beer. It's mine.
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Give-up します
I, after much thought, have decided I'm too busy to be chasing people down to write and am tired of lame excuses of why people can't write a few blurbs. Therefore, I am resigning my post as moderator of the Saga blog. I've put a post on Saga Jet to see if anyone wants the job and as of yet, there have been no offers. I wanted to thank all of the people who read this blog and/or have contributed to the blog. If any ALT reader out there would like a chance to revitalize the blog once more and become moderator, please feel free to e-mail me at cardensarah@yahoo.com. As far as I'm concerned that means open blogging until we get a new moderator and/or someone who wants to write for a week. Take care and my apologies to the blog's founder, Matt for the slow state of affairs.3 comments | Read/post comments | Permalink
Kabocha Soup
I was in the mood for something nourishing and warm and easy. This hit the spot. I didn't measure anything. It's another "key recipe." Just add and subtract stuff till it suits you.* 1/2 kabocha, scooped, peeled and cut into 1" (3 cm) cubes.
* 1 tomato
* 1/2 onion
* about 1 liter chicken stock or 2 bouillon cubes + 1 liter water.
* 1/2 package frozen green beans
* 4-5 small sausages. I used "Arabic wiener," expecting something like merguez, but they weren't spicy at all (surprise surprise in the land of "Dear goodness! That Cream of Wheat was karai!!")
* Potato flakes (I dunno ... like a handful or two)
* Milk (about 1/4 liter, maybe a bit less)
* Paprika, salt, black pepper
1. Prepare the kabocha if you haven't already. Also, slice the top off the tomato and dice the onion. Cut the sausages into long slices (instead of cutting perpendicularly, slice at an angle).
2. Add some olive oil to a wok or deep skillet. Fry the sausage for a bit. When it starts to cook, toss in the onions and cook those until they turn translucent and fragrant.
3. Don't worry if residue is sticking to your pan, because you're gonna fix that in this step: pour in a little of your stock or water and work your spatula against the bottom of the pan to un-stick the fried residue. Now that you've gently lowered the temperature of your pan, you can add the rest of the water or chicken stock. Toss in your bouillon if you're gonna use it. Work it around until it's dissolved.
4. Add the kabocha chunks. Bring it to a boil. Toss in your tomato, skin and all. You're going to use the soup to blanch it. After about a minute, retrieve the tomato. The skin should slip off. You can then return it to the pot and mash it up a bit.
5. Now reduce the pan's heat to low. The surface should still be simmering. Let that cook until the kabocha begins to get soft. Whisk/mash it around if you want a puree. Otherwise, don't.
6. Ideally, you don't want to cook this too long because the heat will break down a lot of the nutrients in the vegetables you've added. On the other hand, the soup needs to simmer a bit if you want the kabocha to be creamy. Use your own judgment on this. Add the green beans. It's okay if they're still frozen. Let it all cook until the green beans start to get soft. Then add your potato flakes. They add a certain heartiness, I think, and they also thicken it all. And they're easier than throwing in a potato and cooking it. Potatoes take freakin' forever to cook. I almost exclusively microwave them these days.
7. So now you should have all of the major ingredients incorporated. Here is where you add the milk (dairy doesn't generally handle long cooking spells well). Just stir it in until you like the color and the flavor.
8. Another thing that does not hold up well to long cooking are dried herbs and powdered spices. Now is the time to add these. I use the paprika mostly for garnish cuz it looks cool...but I stirred a little in for the pungency it adds. Sage is a classic match for butternut squash (which tastes the same as acorn squash, which is the most commonly found form of kabocha.) but I didn't have any sage. So I didn't use it. Also, now's the time to add salt + pepper, unless you prefer to salt/pepper at the table. Be advised that both potatoes and, to a lesser degree, tomatoes, counter salt. So if you added a lot of either, you'll need to add more salt.
9. Once everything is cooked through to the texture you like, and once you've seasoned it, you're ready to chow down. I would say this can be done in under an hour. I think it only takes about 30 minutes to cook over a gas flame.
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I ate like 6 cups of it when I was hung over from Lizzie's birthday and it made me feel 100% more human again :o)
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Pancakes!
Feeling exhausted and not motivated, I decided to pull a "finals week schedule" which is where I go to bed at an ungodly early hour, get plenty of sleep and wake up at an ungodly early hour. (in this case, 4 am) .So I was up this morning, fiending for food, and I decided I'd do pancakes. But I never really bothered to memorize a recipe...and I was too lazy to find one that I usually use, so I hopped on Allrecipes and dug one up. I changed the white sugar to brown and man, it turned out well!
So here is it. It makes 4 servings. Which is enough to feed a really hungry me. Or two normal people. If you have extra, you could probably wrap each in plastic wrap (or put waxed paper between each), toss them in a Ziploc, and put them in your freezer. Breadlike things tend to freeze well.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup / 125 g all-purpose flour (I sift mine because of the humidity here. But it's no biggie.)
- 1 1/4 tablespoon / 15 g brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons / 9 g baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon / 3 g salt
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup / 180 ml milk
- 1/4 cup / 50 g shortening, melted
2. In a separate bowl, beat all the wet ingredients together well.
3. Heat your frying pan until water sizzles when you flick it across the surface of the pan. For me the lowest regular setting on my gas burner was ok.
4. Add a little butter and tilt the melted butter around to coat the bottom of the pan.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, stirring until just mixed. (The baking powder begins reacting immediately when it gets wet, so you shouldn't mix it until you're ready to use it.)
6. Add 1/4 cups (about 60 ml) of the mixture to the pan. When the top begins to bubble, flip the pancake. Repeat until you have a platter of golden delights.
7. Serve immediately with some of the horrendously expensive pancake syrup they have here. Unless you can get your hands on the even-more-expensive real maple syrup, in which case I envy you so you should be especially smug when you enjoy these pancakes.
Also, I finally got around to finishing the last recipe from my December week of cooking. It's not much of a recipe. It's really just an excuse to talk about Epicurious.com, which I review in the "Resources" section. Huzzah.
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Happiness
Here in Morodomi, the sun is shining but it's snowing!It feels like it must be mid 40s, (7.2 C) but the weather report is saying it's 36 degrees F (2.2 C). The snowflakes are immediately turning to water as they land on things, but it still makes me happy. I feel like I'm finally settling in properly. Things are coming together. For example; I have just learned where to pay the last of my bills (natural gas was a tricky one; who knew you had to go to a gas station to pay it? In America, natural gas companies don't sell gasoline--at least not under the same name).
Part of this, of course, is that I'm now able to string together basic sentences, since I've had enough time to pick up enough useful words. Shame on the mandatory Japanese lessons for not teaching us a single verb form. Knowing basic verbs would have been waaaay more useful than learning to say the Japanese equivalent of "Honey, I'm home!" (which I forgot anyway, since I live alone).
Another part of it is that more people in town are used to seeing me around town. That awkward "getting to know you" stage is a real drag when its simultaneously happening to you and 11 thousand people.
Also, I've had a really relaxing long weekend, followed by a two day workweek--with cocoa(!) in the staffroom coffee bar. That alone sent my spirits soaring.
So all of these things are coalescing into a sense of utter well-being. I know that this is not news to a lot of people. Most of you have already hit this point. But I feel like I'm always blogging about the bad things that happen to me here that I should try to give equal time to the really good moments, too.
I hope everyone's having a nifty holiday. If you're still in Saga and want to hang out, drop me a line. Otherwise, I'll see you later.
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Happy Holidays
Hey everyone,Blog moderator here with a very short message. First thank you to Brett for writing last week. It's always nice to hear from new people. This week starts open blogging on Saga blog. Anyone already signed up can feel free to log on whenever the mood strikes and blog your heart out. If you want to blog, but haven't signed up feel free to send me an e-mail at cardensarah@yahoo.com and I'll try to get back to you when I can. I may get to it late as my internet access will be limited for the month. Open blogging will last until January 21st. Thanks very much and happy holidays everyone.
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