Really, does this surprise anybody anymore?

A pack of beef, imported for the major Japanese restaurant chain Yoshinoya from the Californian plant of National Beef, contained spinal tissue, the agriculture ministry said.

Japan in July 2006 agreed to resume US beef imports on condition the cattle were not more than 20 months old at the time of slaughter, with brains, spinal cords and other risky parts removed.

The illegal shipment was among 700 packs or 17 tonnes of beef imported through Japanese trading company Itochu last August, the ministry said in a statement.

The spinal tissue was discovered on Tuesday at a Yoshinoya meat processing plant in Tokyo’s suburbs.

The meat hasn’t been shipped out for consumption, which is a good thing, but why take the chance over and over? This is the THIRD ban on American-imported beef because of slip-ups like this one. Why keep going back?

Oh wait. What’s that, you say? Pressure from our president? Our president?

Japan, formerly the biggest overseas market for US beef, first banned imports in December 2003 after a cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the brain-wasting condition commonly known as mad cow disease, was discovered in the US state of Washington.

Under US pressure with the threat of trade sanctions, Japan lifted the embargo in December 2005 but slapped it back on a month later after a shipment included a risky part.

Japan has rejected US calls to increase the age limit applied to slaughtered cattle as it believes younger cattle are less likely to have accumulated infectious proteins that could cause BSE.

US President George W. Bush told Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in Washington last November to “fully open” the Japanese market to US beef and beef products.

Shock, horror, etc, etc…

Source: Japan suspends imports from US meat plant: farm ministry - AFP

- It's Been a Crazy Two Months
- Japanese Version of the Office
- Algorithm March...with Ninja!
- Tokyo Cat Cafes (Why Aren't I Working Here Already?)
- Women's Only Okonomiyaki Eating Contest

I am so glad I was able to find a video of this ridiculous competition, in which four women competed to see who could eat the most okonomiyaki. I saw this on TV and was completely mesmerized.

For those unfamiliar, okonomiyaki is a Kansai dish that is not unlike a pancake with…everything you can imagine on it. Usually cabbage, eggs, bacon, and other miscellaneous food items. What makes the okonomiyaki though, is the sauce. It is kind of like a tangy barbecue sauce without so much sugar. Needless to say, this fried phenomenon is terribly unhealthy for you, and here we see four average sized women packing them away.

Excerpt from the article in Mainichi:

Four finalists of the women-only contest, who survived the preliminary round in March, competed to see how many pancakes they can eat in an hour. Each okonomiyaki weighs one kilogram and measures 30 centimeters in diameter.

Hatsuyo Sugawara, a 44-year-old housewife from Iwate Prefecture, won the contest after eating 5.2 pancakes, and received 550,000 yen in prize money, a solid gold spatula, and the privilege of having the restaurant’s largest okonomiyaki named after her.

Source: Northern ‘Witch’ wins western eating contest - Mainichi Daily News

- What's Happenin' Friday
- Disney Offers No Dental Plan for Fireflies
- If Only My 5th Grade Teacher Was This Cool
- Font Conference
- It's Been a Crazy Two Months

This is a ridiculously funny how-to video on sushi, poking fun at the Japanese culture’s love for knowing how to do everything properly.  Learn how to enter a sushi-ya, the different types of tuna available, and how you can supplement your salt intake if your soy sauce was lacking.  Thanks to R for the heads up.

- All Asians Have Beef With Other Asians
- Disney Offers No Dental Plan for Fireflies
- If Only My 5th Grade Teacher Was This Cool
- Font Conference
- It's Been a Crazy Two Months

Picture taken by me on Christmas 2007 in Okinawa

Having to use a communal kitchen among an entire dorm, one can expect a lot of confusion and stress. Many people don’t clean up after themselves, waste food, leave pots and pans filthy and encrusted with mystery substances, and scorch pans. Being slightly OCD and also a big food lover, this is like torture for me. Luckily, I found out I wasn’t the only one who felt this way.

It turns out keeping a good cooking area and respecting a kitchen–especially a communal one–can relate to Zen studies. As part of a Zen studies course R is taking, he pointed out to me many ways in which one can obtain a Zen mindset even when it comes to cooking. According to Dougen, a famous Zen monk who went all the way to China and came back with these teachings, one should fully respect their cooking spaces and ingredients.

I thought these points make for an interesting read because it essentially revolves around common sense and courtesy:
- Stay focused. If people aren’t focused, their cooking area will be scattered like their minds. Don’t cook haphazardly, running back and forth for your ingredients or other tools. Get what you need ahead of time.
- Follow the Golden Rule. If you follow karma, not washing dishes/cleaning cooking area creates a bad karma cycle and will catch up with you. If one person doesn’t clean their mess, the next person won’t feel obligated to and leave it there, creating more messes until it catches up with the first person.
- Make the best of what’s given to you. This can also apply to being frugal–don’t let anything go to waste, and appreciate what you have.
- Think positive. If you start out with a negative opinion of the food, you will end up with a bad dish because you didn’t think it was worth the effort. Even if your ingredients aren’t so special, appreciate what you have to work with.
- Your food is a reflection of you. If it’s something that’s slapped together, it might say that you can’t be troubled with making something properly for yourself. In other words, you don’t take care of yourself. However, if you take the time to properly make something, it becomes almost a meditative process in which the cooking makes you stop and take your time to clear your mind.
- Take care of your tools, and your tools will take care of you. Treat your pot like your head, treat water that you wash rice with like your blood–Dougen brought back this saying from China. Put utensils down gently and take good care of them. A lot of the pans here in the dorm are scorched simply because people leave them on too high heat, which is something that can be easily prevented if they just watched over their stove tops.
- Be patient with your food. There are so many people who crank up the heat to cook their food faster, or are satisfied with things that are left cold or raw in the middle. Obviously this isn’t very Zen-like, and can be bad for your body, especially when it comes to meat or egg based dishes.
- Think your cooking through. If you know what you’re going to make ahead of time, there will be no need to rush.

I feel like many people taking cooking for granted and abuse the spaces we’ve given here. Last semester people have even resorted to stealing food (of which I’ve also become the victim of.) Why? Just because we’re in college, does it mean we’re given a license to act like 5-year olds? Even the elementary school children I teach English to know how to put back items in their proper place and clean up after their crafts. A lot of people treat cooking for themselves as an inconvenience when they could use it as an outlet to unwind during the day. Next time you find yourself cooking, see if you can’t apply any of Dougen’s observations to your kitchen and take the time to relax and enjoy the process.

- All Asians Have Beef With Other Asians
- It's Been a Crazy Two Months
- The Candle Night Campaign
- Algorithm March...with Ninja!
- Visa Stays are Extended for Those With Japanese Skills

Chili peppers being dried for kimchi, image from Wikipedia.org

I learned this recipe through a mom of a family I met at a church I go to here in Japan. I am often invited to dinners that consist of amazing food from all around Asia, all of which is made by this mom, who I will call N-san. N-san is a fantastic cook, and after I got to know the family better, had the pleasure of staying over their house and learning how to cook various Asian staples.

One night when there were a lot of people over, N-san made a hot pot consisting of various vegetables, meats, and noodles. Once we had eaten our fill, N-san took out the remains in the pot and left the pot to simmer. She added rice, a kim-chi sauce, and some slices of cheese. The result was an amazingly filling kim-chi risotto.

The other day my boyfriend and I attempted to recreate the kim-chi risotto, and I think we successfully came up with an easy way to recreate this dish without having to make a big hot pot of food before hand.

Ingredients
- vegetables–we used scallions, spinach, and small mushrooms
- cooked white rice
- kim-chi sauce–this comes in a bottle and can probably be found in Asian/Korean markets
- slices of American cheese
- parmesan cheese
- meat/fish stock OR soy sauce

Steps
1.) Fill a pot with water–we just eyeballed this, but we probably used about 3 cups of water. Make a fish stock using bonito (boil a handful of fish flakes for several minutes, then strain the flakes out) or use a boullion cube to make a meat stock. If you have neither on hand, add 2-3 cap-fulls of soy sauce in the water. (Note that the risotto will taste differently according to what stock you use.) Simmer the water.

2.) Wash and cut vegetables. Use as much as you like–since they will be in water, they will shrink so be generous. Add to the broth.

3.) Pour kim-chi sauce into simmering broth–use as much as you’d like, but remember to taste it once in a while since the stuff is very spicy

4.) Add in cooked rice and stir. Let simmer until the risotto thickens and isn’t watery.

5.) Throw in a couple slices of cheese–as much as you’d like. We used two slices for two people. Stir until risotto thickens.

6.) Serve while hot and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Enjoy!

If you couldn’t tell, the measurements were definitely not exact. Adjust the proportions to your liking, basically all you need is broth, kim-chi sauce, and rice. The cheese definitely makes this dish but I think it can manage without it. Adding chopped up cooked bacon or onion might add more flavor to the risotto, but I try to stick with the vegetarian style if I can help it. Know of this dish or any variation of it? Let me know in the comments!

- It's Been a Crazy Two Months
- The Candle Night Campaign
- Japan Bans American Beef...Again
- Korean Women Worship Plastic Surgery, Says Oprah
- Women's Only Okonomiyaki Eating Contest

Easy Chocolate Blocks from Meiji

Valentine’s Day in Japan is all about hand made chocolates. Here is a super-easy recipe from Meiji’s Chocolate Recipe website, which I translated so that it can be replicated elsewhere. Meiji is kind of like the Hershey of Japan. I tried to translate true to what it says on the website, but threw in some comments so that it may be more easily understood for Western readers.

Ingredients:
- 3 bars of Meiji milk chocolate (210g) [Substitute: 3 bars of milk chocolate]
- 3 biscuits from Meiji McViti’s Chocolate Biscuits [Substitute: any chocolate covered biscuit]
- 3 Tbsp. of heavy cream
- Meiji cocoa powder for dusting [Substitute: any cocoa powder]

Steps:
1.) Put biscuits in a bag and crush them roughly–you still want a slight crunch in the end result.
2.) Chop up the chocolate with a kitchen knife and melt it in a bowl that is place in boiling water (in other words, melt the chocolate in a double boiler.)
3.) When the chocolate has melted, add the heavy cream a little at a time.
4.) Still in the double boiler, mix in the crushed bicuits with a spatula.
5.) Pour the mixture into a baking pan that is lined with a baking sheet (wax would probably be ideal.)
6.) Refrigerate until the mixture hardens.
7.) Take out the mixture from the pan and cut into small squares of about 3cm. Dust with cocoa powder in a sifter.

Notes:
Keep in mind that Japanese recipes come in very small portions, so you might have to adjust this one to your liking.  Instead of following this recipe to a T, use the written amounts to give you an idea of the proportions of the ingredients to use.

Did you try this recipe or have anything like it to offer?  Let me know what you think in the comments!

- It's Been a Crazy Two Months
- The Candle Night Campaign
- Japan Bans American Beef...Again
- Korean Women Worship Plastic Surgery, Says Oprah
- Women's Only Okonomiyaki Eating Contest

Lately I have been consuming three ingredients that I don’t normally in the states: curry, aloe and sesame seeds. I am a big fan of curried anything so that is no surprise, but I had to muster up some courage before I began to eat foods with aloe or sesame seeds in them. Also I have bought curry powder, and for the first time have been experimenting with it in the foods that I make in the dorm–normally I eat instant curry or the stuff that comes as a roux.

Here is a breakdown of each ingredient:
Curry: If you have never had the chance to eat anything that contains curry, you are missing out on a huge flavor. There are tons of different kinds of curries, but the general flavor is spicy and smoky and makes everything delicious. So says one site:

In India there might be millions of curries because they are usually freshly ground from spices by each cook. With a population of a billion people and millions of cooks, so too are there many curries. But in south India, Kerala, most curries have these ingredients: curry leaves (the fragrant leaves of a small wild tree), coriander seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, black pepper, hot chilies, fenugreek, turmeric, cardamon, and often cinnamon and cloves. These are all toasted in a pan and then ground on a flat stone with a stone hand grinder (or put in an electric blender). (Hidden India)

Like I said, I just bought curry for the first time and have been testing it out on different foods. So far vegetables and potatoes are a “yes,” and (pink) salted fish is a “no.” Here are some recipes I want to try out as soon as I have access to a decent kitchen: Devil Curry, Curry Puffs, Apple Curry Chicken.

Aloe: This is probably the most exotic out of the three. I didn’t even know aloe could be consumed because all I knew of the plant is that it is very spiky and gooey, and you can use it to heal sunburns. But I tried it for the first time in yogurt form, and I was hooked. The taste is similar to that of grapes, only less sweet. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be sold in the states outside of Asian markets, but if you have the chance, go ahead and try it! A quick google search came up with articles about health benefits of consuming it internally:

Aloe is one of the only known natural vegetarian sources of Vitamin B12, and it contains many minerals vital to the growth process and healthy function of all the body’s systems. Numerous studies worldwide indicate that aloe vera is a general tonic for the immune system, helping it to fight illness of all kinds, including general infections and even cancer and HIV.

In 1994, the US Food and Drug Administration approved aloe vera for the treatment of HIV. On-going studies worldwide show that aloe taken in highly concentrated doses can stimulate the production of white blood cells that may help fight viruses and also tumours. (International Recipes)

Of course, more research probably needs to be done, but who knew such an angry looking plant could harbor so much potential?

Sesame Seeds: I never used to be a big fan of sesame seeds until this year. Everything has sesame seeds, both white and black, toasted and un-toasted. Like the aloe, sesame seeds seem to have numerous health benefits as well:

The seeds are rich in manganese, copper, and calcium (90 mg per tablespoon for unhulled seeds, 10 mg for hulled), and contain vitamin B1 (thiamine) and vitamin E (tocopherol). They contain lignans, including unique content of sesamin, which are phytoestrogens with antioxidant and anti-cancer properties. Among edible oils from six plants, sesame oil had the highest antioxidant content. Sesame seeds also contain phytosterols associated with reduced levels of blood cholesterol, but do not contain caffeine. The nutrients of sesame seeds are better absorbed if they are ground or pulverized before consumption.

Women of ancient Babylon would eat halva, a mixture of honey and sesame seeds to prolong youth and beauty, while Roman soldiers ate the mixture for strength and energy. (Wikipedia article)

This makes me feel less guilty about eating desserts here that are covered in sesame seeds! Some of my favorites include jin deui, daifuku, and sata andagi when covered in sesame seeds.

- All Asians Have Beef With Other Asians
- It's Been a Crazy Two Months
- The Candle Night Campaign
- Algorithm March...with Ninja!
- Visa Stays are Extended for Those With Japanese Skills

For Christmas, my sisters sent me these teas because they thought the pictures on the boxes were funny. Most of my friends know that I dislike bagged tea, but these are so so different. They are intensely flavorful and strong without being bitter. They all smell so good! Let me tell you the flavors:
- Gingerbread Spice: Obviously a holiday package, this made me feel like I was home amongst snow and pies even though I was thousands of miles away in a tropical island.
- Sleepytime Tea: This is very minty and meant to help you go to sleep. I don’t know how much it actually helped me go to sleep (if anything, it disrupted it because I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night…) but I like having bedtime rituals, and of course this smells very good too.
- Chai Tea Chocolate Caramel: This sounds absolutely ridiculous but it actually tasted quite good. There is a very strong chai flavor, and you can actually taste the chocolate aroma. There is some caffeine in this one, so I drink it in the mornings. I love the way it made the room smell when I drank it.

I always noticed the Celestial Seasonings teas in the stores but never bought them because I thought they were like other bagged teas, but I highly recommend these for those who can’t find good loose leaf teas.

- Japan Bans American Beef...Again
- Women's Only Okonomiyaki Eating Contest
- How To: Eat Sushi
- Food: Zen Cooking
- Food: Kim-chi Risotto

Having to survive on our own here in Japan, a lot of people eat really poorly because they can’t afford anything better. Many people buy instant noodles and spaghetti. In actuality, you can find nutritious food for cheap if you know how to cook and save portions for later. Here are some tips I find useful when trying to eat healthily for cheap:
- Freeze portions ahead of time
- Make your own sauces and spreads
- Price check on items that you buy regularly–keep track of weekly sales
- Cook a big batch and spread it out over the week–rice works really well for this
- Buy fruits and veggies in season
- Buy produce locally
- Steer away from big name brands–go for generic
- Don’t buy juice
- Don’t buy meat unless you find a good sale–meat is usually the most expensive part of the meal
- Don’t buy bottled water–invest in a good water filter

Here are some other resources:
- Eating Healthy on a Budget (MSNBC)
- Food Preservation
- Food Stamp Nutrition Connection: Recipes Finder
- Freezing and Food Safety
- How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label
- Thrifty Food Plan Challenge (Get Rich Slowly)

- Japan Bans American Beef...Again
- Women's Only Okonomiyaki Eating Contest
- Drink Yourself Pretty with Sake Therapy
- Simple Ways to Get Great Skin
- How To: Eat Sushi

OK, so I opened my lovely Google Reader and saw these two items, one from Vanilla Garlic and the other from Simply Recipes.  I couldn’t wait to post on both of them, so here they are together:

Vanilla Garlic — Cupcake Questions, Answers, and Tips: I have been dying to make cupcakes for a while but am too scared.  This FAQ made me feel better about myself by answering most common user-submitted questions.  My favorite tip:

Q: Do I have to preheat my oven?

A: Do I have to bitchslap you for asking me that?

Simply Recipes — Chai Ice Cream:  Ice cream is another dessert making venture I would love to try.  What better to start off with Chai Ice Cream?  It must be insanely delicious, and worth all the effort.  It even has a bit of a background on Chai itself, including how the use of sweeteners to British tea ruffled some British feathers:

To the great distress of the British marketers of the time, the locals insisted on adding way more sugar and milk than would be considered proper by English standards and, adding insult to injury, spicing it up a bit with cardamom, pepper, cinnamon.

In Japan, desserts are everywhere–pastries, ice cream, soft cream, sweet breads–you name it, they have it.  I even bought a creme brulee from a pastry kiosk that actually gave you the ceramic ramekin it was made in, for only 300 yen!  Also it seems that Japan endorses incorporating any and all flavors of the rainbow into simple things like Kit-Kats.  Maybe they have already invented a Chai ice cream…?

- Japan Bans American Beef...Again
- Women's Only Okonomiyaki Eating Contest
- How To: Eat Sushi
- Food: Zen Cooking
- Food: Kim-chi Risotto