Tuesday, January 3, 2012

13 elderly people taken to hospital after choking on 'mochi;' 2 die

And that's only in the Tokyo mtero area where 15% of the population lives.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Recently, I taught my 11th grade students a reading lesson with a text describing New Year's customs in various countries. One of the things that the reading said about New Year's in the U.S. was that Americans often make resolutions and that the most common was to lose weight. I think that's probably true, and I think that, as a result, there's a lot of serious low-fat, low quantity, low alcohol consumption going on January 1st.

Japan, as in so many things, is the polar opposite of America. It's 9 a.m. January 1st and, as I type this, all over Japan, people are getting ready for three days of binge eating, sometimes inaugurated (right about now) by a healthy (?) swig of sake laced with flecks of gold.

My hatsu-yume (first dream of the new year) was about food. I just before I definitively woke up about 7:30, I dreamed that my wife took two big lobsters out of a pot of water, plopped them down on the kitchen table, and started cutting them up into manageable pieces while I hurried to clear papers and the other assorted junk that usually decorates our table out of harm's way.

The hatsu-yume, like hatsu ("first") everything else, is a big deal in Japanese New Year's tradition. The good luck dreams are Mt. Fuji (big and beautiful), a hawk (powerful), and an eggplant (go figure). I guess lobsters represent the ability to buy expensive food, which suggests good luck, unless you're the lobster. (You know the one about the Zen master killing a fly?)

More later . . .

Monday, December 26, 2011

Christmas Dinner

Monday, December 5, 2011

Fugu poisoning

In a 2-star Michelin restaurant.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Yuzu

Yuzu gets a mention in the San Francisco Chronicle online.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/07/FDV11KTF4N.DTL&type=foodhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/07/FDV11KTF4N.DTL&type=food

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Rice harvest

They've harvested almost all the local rice, including a lot that was flattened by the last typhoon and next straightened up again. A farmer told a friend of mine that that rice will be okay.