Another week has come and gone. I have gone no where. I have gone nowhere really -I mean that I was really just in town this last weekend. I did have a great time just sitting about the worrying about things like what I should cook for myself for dinner, or for lunch. Worrying about if I should cook at all. And, well, did I cook? No, not really.
I do have one thing to be most happy and grateful for, and that is my ability to whip up a hot stock of miso soup in minutes. Now, some of you wittier and un-bent individuals living here in Japan may say to yourselves, gosh, all you really have to do is dob the packet of instant mix into the cup of hot water and you’ve got yourself a soup.
No.
I am talking about the kind of soup that you rabble up from scratch. All chopped and prepped by hand aside from the consistently tasty dashi fish stock powder that sets the broth and flavor for any miso soup. I otherwise boil water, hash vegetables with knife, simmer the tofu, bean curd, potatoes, carrots -anything else that makes for a hearty cup of steamy, dreamy miso soup.
And the last step in this soup-making is the blending-in of the miso. You see, I have become rather partial to red miso lately. And the real clumpy, not-too-processed miso. When you mix your miso with just enough stock to create a pasty liquid you can still see the happy little flecky bits of soybeans ‘n stuffs looking at you before you add the whole addition to the hot pot of soup et legumes.
Now is this all I spent doing this weekend? Mostly, yes.
I have just finished reading a rather brief but informative article on the difficulties facing students living and studying abroad. You can no doubt guess that in my case, winter, and for anyone, yes, can be a trying time. I have learned that for students living aboroad (though this article described foreign students studying at American universities) that they would engage in solitary activities such as, painting, drawing, reading, movie-watching.
And there it is, the latter.
My weekend was filled with enough movies and television shows to rival a major theatre’s screenings in a mid-to-large-sized city. Now I don’t want you to picture me all pudgy and worried with my puffy nose and glasses glued to a tv screen, but I will encourage you to picture a person set tv-side taking in some rest and relaxation by film as was necessary.
And let’s see, what’s a Japanese cultural tidbit for you rabid readers back home? Well, all in a quest for good ice cream, after having sampled everything previously from red bean and chocolate, to green tea and banana, and after all these good and other flavours of ice cream I found Haagen Dazs ice at the convenience store. Really, tiny little cups of the stuff that the company would throw at you on a hot summers day to sample. I mean these cups of the ice cream they sell are no bigger than the pill cups that they serve your meds in at the hospital. (And my honest condolences and well-wishes to anyone’s anyone in a hospital)
But the ice cream was fine. And a flat flavour of strawberry very nearly met my ice cream needs this weekend. For a very necessary last-minute dinner, too I found Japanese rolled omlettes with skipjack tuna flakes, and then a minced and fried cutlet complete with a tiny packet of sauce for topping. The two items clocked me no more than two hundred yen (maybe two dollars) and I downed said samples with rice from home (rice that I purchased from our agricultural high school) and the miso soup I told you of.
And that was the weekend.
I will cut this post off and dry abruptly today. I do hope to keep things most readable and curt lately. I hope!
Good news otherwise, I have begun fully boiling water for my morning drip-to-drink coffees and adding more grounds. Standing there half-asleep while waiting for coffee to dribble into my cup. Pouring hot water from a tiny, spouted teapot to get the ‘pour’ just right. The coffee is great. That is certainly a perk for me these days, too.
Are you enjoying your tea? Or do you drink coffee?
Anyways, I am sure I have asked you that a thousand times.
All the best and do keep your activities Spring-worthy! For Spring is surely on the way.
Catch you next week, too,
Ciao.
The Traveller's Typewriter 