10:36 - It started with Tic-Tac (C)

Well actually lets start with some older stuff and I'll finish with the Tic-Tacs.

I got back already 2 months ago and I'm still happy to be back. Last year this time I was just aweful, hating everything.. I'm glad this year just isn't the same. The winter was very mild and we've had days recently that I imagine got into the 60's (don't know for sure since everything here is in C not F). I should get into the post since I promised myself only an hr on this.

So, lets start with the spagetti party I had then move to the shabu-shabu. I managed to bring a liter of Dad's spagetti sauce back from the states, my buddies brought over some wine and really good garlic bread (!) and we feasted like it was the last supper-except Jesus didn't come. He doesn't know what he's missing-Dad's sauce is the bomb.

After I got together all the needed parts for my recontract I decided to have a party for all the people that were helpful in the matter.
Shabu-shabu is a winter time dish, using small portable gas stoves and large pots you make a broth using kelp. Then you take meat (thinly sliced is a must, beef typically, but pork is ok too) and you swish it a few times in the boiling broth to cook it. You dip it in ponzu (the best sauce around, sour and savory and everything nice). Then woof it down. But that's just the begining, after you 'season' the broth with about 1/2 of the meat (recipies vary here) you add in various amount of your favorite veggies and tofu. I prefer lots of mushrooms, chinese cabbage, tofu and long onions (I think you call them leeks in English). These once cooked are eaten the same way as the meat--with the wonderful ponzu.. Finally when there's nothing left but broth you add udon noodles (like thick spagetti noodles) and eat that with the left over ponzu. In a word-OUTSTANDING!


All told I managed about 8 people in the house for dinner, we hardly put a dent in things so the next the next night I got a friend over and we annihalated (sp?) the remains of the left overs in large massive batches of fried noodles (焼きうどん）
I don't have any pictures, but rest assured it was a slaughter... my friend Rhett decimated my beer and managed 3 packs of udon..way to がんばって！！

More recent news (this week) and not related to food, was I got my futon's back from the cleaners. Not much about this since most of my readers don't really know what a futon is like to sleep on (not a real one at any rate). So in an attempt to enlighten and educate I'll describe it thusly:

Imagine yourself crawling into a bed of new thick egyptian cotton towels that were just freshly taken out of the dryer all fluffy and soft. That is your futon if it's freshly made properly-they aren't as soft as you imagine, just soft enough.. It will be hard to go back.

Finally, my Friday lesson.. and the meat of this post.. tic-tacs
Many of you know the story of me and tic-tacs, but some don't. In a nutshell, when I was a child of very few years I was always sick and I got to take a lot of orange flavored children's asprin when I was sick. I decided to eat a whole bottle once and had to have my stomach pumped out. This probabably speaks reams to why I'm such an airhead today. Despite this minor set back I have love, no, lusted after that orange flavor my whole life. Orange flavored tic-tacs are the closest thing that won't send me to the hospital. Anywho, the next best thing about these tic-tacs is the box. If you take an empty box and hold it (palm it so no one sees) behind your head and then sharply twist your neck (while crushing the box) you get a most awesome bone snaping neck breaking noise from the box that is certain to fool most anyone.

I did this to my mom once when she wasn't ready and the look on her face was beyond priceless.

So my lesson on friday was a doctor's office trip. Last year I did this same tactic but never told the teacher about it. The class just errupted into chaos and the lesson was a decided failure. This year I told the teacher, and we started.

Doctor (sensei): Good morning, what's wrong?
ME: My neck really hurts.. (at which time I employed the tic-tac box, not once but manged twice to snap my neck)

I rolled a natural 20 (most of you won't get that joke sorry) and the entire class was staggered..critical hit. I coup de graced them all and the rest of the lesson they ate out of my hand.

Thanks for stopping by, try the tic-tacs, they're great!

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