Spring time...

...is here in Japan.

Evening, sports fans. Spring break began for me last Wednesday after school. The last day of the school year, and at 4:20 I was out of there. I had after all an enkai to go to. Well, no tales of my drunken shenanigans (revelatory though they were). I woke up the next morning at the crack of noon.

HANGOVER: Enter, stage left.

Actually, thanks to some precautions it wasn't too bad. So, what did I do for the next four days?

hikkikomori

That comes from the combination of two words. The first is hiku, which means to pull away from. In this case, it means to pull away from society at large and social interaction specifically. The second word is komoru, which means to coop oneself up somewhere, in this case at home.

Its actually a social phenomenon that is affecting a number of otaku-types in Japan, and is the harbinger, dare I say, of a very serious pestilence affecting Japanese society in this post-modern world.

But that's not what I'm getting into in this post, so we'll leave it at that.

Indeed, I stayed home for the last four days, and by day four I was itching to go out. I was going to go see a dance recital (gods that makes it sound so lame) done by some of my graduated students, but inclement weather kept me home. Well, they got their ticket money from me, so my appearance was optional.

I did have a plan though, and that plan started to come to fruition today. This week I have all afternoons off (not free mind you. I'm using up my vacation days). So this week I will be organizing and cleaning my apartment. I purchased today a wonderful new bookshelf, which now houses all my magazines, English books, and art books, as well as my 1/100 MG Gundams (and other sundry things). This too was revelatory, because I realized that I have inherited by mother's crazy desire to clean. I nearly had a panic attack when, towards the end of the move, I looked around at the disarray I had created. Well, unlike my mother, I know how to deal with a panic attack. One slug of whiskey later, and I mellowed out, grabbed a trash bag, and gathered all the clutter that was pissing me off.



Well, that's the new shelf. Holy crap I've accumulated a lot of...crap.

Tomorrow I tackle my pantry cupboard, as well as perhaps start sorting through the all the paper in my house.

On an unrelated note, I paid off some more bills, and I came to the realization that, at virtually no impact to my lifestyle here in Japan, I've reduced my consumer debt by a considerable amount. When I first came to Japan, I had something like $2700 debt on one of my Visas alone. All told, I think I had something close to $5000. But as of today, I'm down to under $1800. Total. Spread over 3 cards, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. That makes me pretty damned happy.

And last, but not least, to placate my many gourmet fans, I present tonights dinner (sans the beer, which is only for show).

Mama-mia!

Hot on the heels of my last post, I bring you my next creation. There are many things I miss about Canada, and not least among these is food. While the Americanization of Japan continues apace, luxuries such as Pizza Hut and Burger King remain the purview of the mandarins in Tokyo.

Among the food I really miss though is Mom's cooking. When people ask me here what kind of food I ate at home, while I usually tell them things like katsudon or yudo-fu, I also explain that my mother's repertoire necessarily included a healthy dose of western food. Meatloaf and lasagna were probably my favourite.

This post, unlike my last, demands a certain amount of verbosity, not only because this is the first time I've made lasagna from "scratch" (that is, not kit-bashed), it is also is a sense an homage to my mother's cooking.

So here I will walk you through the lasagna-making process. Unlike my mother's, which is highly nutritious, filled with vegetables and all such manner of goodness, mine is much simpler fare, made with for the most part pre-prepared ingredients.

1 Large pack of minced beef/pork mix.
2 packs of tomato sauce
1 pack of cottage cheese
14 pieces of lasagna pasta
1 pack of shredded Mozzarella
Parmesan cheese
salt
pepper
oregano
garlic paste
tomato paste



First, brown the meat, adding salt and pepper about 1/2 way through the cooking process. Drain fat, and transfer to a bowl. Put the tomato sauce into the pan used to cook the meat, add tomato paste, oregano, garlic paste. Add meat, mix on low heat until even.



Boil lasagna pasta. I did mine in 2 batches. In a Pyrex baking dish, put down a layer of sauce and cottage cheese, then lay down a layer of pasta. Continue in this manner until you've used up the pasta, cutting some into smaller strips to fill out the layers.



Each layer should be perpendicular to the last layer, so as to reinforce the structure of the lasagna. Each layer in mine had both sauce and cottage cheese. Top the lasagna off with the remainder of the sauce, sprinkle Mozzarella and Parmesan.



Bake in an oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 30 minutes. For the last 10 minutes, cover the lasagna in aluminum foil.





And done. I've modified the recipe instructions above after reflection on my meal. First, I left the lasagna uncovered the entire time in the oven, leading the mozzarella cheese to harden into a crust. In future, the aluminum foil should help with that. Also, though the lasagna is solid in the last picture, it collapsed as the pasta slid away. For this, I might try to reduce the pasta sauce a bit (as in let the water content evaporate a little more), and try to spread the cottage cheese a little more evenly.

Also, in a effort to save time, I would do both the sauce and boil the water for the pasta noodles at the same time. I did this today in the order listed, and as a result it ended up taking about an hour to prepare, and a further 30 minutes to bake. Eating was a 20 minute affair (x2 nights, so 40 total). Ideally, I'd like to get something closer to a 1:1 ratio.

Manic.

GINOURMOUS SALAD

Ceasar style. This is my dinner tonight. Instructions as follows:

Chicken Tenders
Romaine Lettuce
Croutons
Ceasar dressing.

IF YOU CANNOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THIS, YOU ARE ST00PID!!

/ahem

Chicken was cut, marinated with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, coriander.

Did you know that Ceasar salad was actually invented by a Mexican chef? It was not, as some people believe, invented by the Roman Dictator cum Emperor. Such a salad would no doubt have a healthy dose of daggers, blood, and et tu, Brute?