I drank an entire pot of green tea while writing this entry. Just so you know.
I know it’s been a while friends, but there hasn't been a terrible whole lot going on. Nagano is getting chillier and chillier by the day, and the leaves are falling off the trees in droves. Raking has been added to the list of tasks performed by the students before and after school. Actually, they use these old-fashioned looking twig brooms, not rakes, but the purpose and outcome is the same. They turned on the stove heaters last week, so the classrooms are no longer bone chillin’ cold, and work continues to be the opposite of stressful.
This weekend was kind of fun. My friend Hugh is pals with a bunch of hip young Japanese guys who are really into American/British music. They put on a dance night in one of Ina’s only clubs on Saturday night, and invited Hue to DJ for part of it. The whole night was really wicked, and Hugh did a great job. He got the total respect spot at 12:45am, and got everyone moving with a fab selection of Bollywood, hip-hop and indie. The only thing that wasn’t so pleasant was we were all working at the Iida International Festival the next day, and had to leave Ina before 9:00 the next morning. I got to bed earlier than most of them, but getting to bed by 2:45 doesn’t mean much if you have to wake up in five hours.
The International Festival was fun, although if I hadn’t had a pounding headache all day it would have been much more so. Sarah and I drove with Jo down to Iida, which turned out to be an extremely fortunate move on our part since the other car carrying all the Brits overheated and broke down in a town about forty minutes away from our final destination. After arriving safely in Iida, Sarah and I found our groups and began cooking, while Jo had to speed off to rescue The Empire’s representatives in Nagano. Poor Hannah! They had managed to get to a mechanic of sorts, and when Jo arrived they had just been told the car was fixed. They started off again, only to have the car overheat again and had to return to the mechanic, where they left the car and piled into Jo’s car.
The Iida International Festival is a foodcentric event where different nations get a booth and serve samples of food from that country. Needless to say, many many Asian countries were represented, and Jo had taken care of rounding up people from England, Ireland, the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. We had to get there so early because the food was to be prepared that day, with the help of Japanese high school students in some kind of community center. The U.S. booth was me and one other guy, who had brought everything with him to make gumbo. Now, I’m not a huge gumbo fan. I mean, it’s okay, but I’d rather be eating something else…like red beans and rice. If you want Cajun food, you can’t do much better than red beans and rice. However, Eric was all gung-ho about gumbo, so being the lazy laze I am, I was all for it if he wanted to take care of all the particulars himself. So, we got to cuttin’ and choppin’ and Eric put some Zydeco music on his minidisc player and before you knew it, BAM! Gumbo. Here’s what the other groups made:
Ireland - Beef stew and Irish coffee
Canada - Maple French Toast
South Africa - Cinnamon Crepes and Rooibus Tea
Australia - Chocolate Rice Crispy No-Bake Cookies (as far as I can tell)
New Zealand - New Zealand wine and cheese
Poor England did their best at scones, but they got there so late on account of the car breaking down, and then the scones weren’t cooking properly in the crazy Japanese ovens that the scones came out more as flat little pastries then proper scones. However, once they’d been smothered in jam and cream, they tasted alright. Hugh, Hannah and Ian were real troopers though. You could tell they’d all sort of accepted the fact that the day was a complete debacle and they were just going to have to write it off.
As is the case at most events like this, all the good food was gone in the first hour and it was so crowded it was impossible to reach what was leftover. We unloaded all the gumbo and most of the rice by 6:15, and the thing ended at 7:00. The Komagane-Ina-Tatsuno crew cleaned up as quickly as possible and bolted, since we all had to stuff ourselves into Jo’s car, at least as far as Iijima to pick up Hannah’s car. Luckily, the thing got Hannah and Ian to Komagane all right and we continued on to Ina, where Sarah and I picked up her car from Jo’s house and made the final leg of the journey back to Tatsuno. It was an incredible long day, and I stayed awake long enough to have a shower and a snack before hitting the hay at 10:30. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera, so I have no pictures of the day’s events. Rest assured it was not all that visually stunning.
Speaking of visually stunning though, I took a walk up to Kojinyama park this afternoon (it’s the only scenic place in Tatsuno I can walk to), to see if my favorite tree was still looking good. I swear, this tree probably has magical properties. I really wouldn’t be surprised. Almost all the trees in the park are naked now, but take a look at this guy:
Friggin’ fantastic, no? Let’s take a closer look at his foliage:
I should try taking some of the fallen leaves and brewing it into a tea. I’ll bet it would give me super powers…super tree powers.
Here's a nice shot of the water. There’s a track that goes around it and the Park Hotel is up on the hill overlooking the park. There are a lot of water birds and carp that live there (in the park, not the hotel.) It’s one of my favorite places in Tatsuno.
Finally: Some cooking news.
Here’s a satsumae, a Japanese sweet potato:
It’s not a tuber. Wait…yes it is.
It’s quite a purple tuber. Anyway, I made broiled satsumae with sweet simmered miso, which turned out pretty well. Satsumae are really delicious, and the miso gives it a nice richness without being super heavy. All the same, this is not the best thing I’ve ever made. On the other hand, the inari wrappers with fried rice were awesome! As you (may) know, inari is a kind of sushi which is basically rice wrapped in a very thin tofu wrapper. Well, you can buy these wrappers in the grocery stores here, and man oh man are they great! You just pop ‘em in boiling water for a few seconds to get rid of some of the sweet marinade they soak in in the packaging (must be to keep them moist and pliable) and stuff ‘em with whathaveyou. A good way to get rid of leftover rice, when unwrapped fried rice just won’t do. Delightful!
Wow, I really said a mouthful. Until next time, true believers. Ja ne!