Spinach, yellow peppers and black-bean sprouts swimming in a ginger dressing with loads of lemon, cayenne and sesame seeds. Shockingly spicy, cool and crunchy. Unfortunately, the new $1500 tooth I got yesterday spontaneously split in half just before I tucked in. Thus it took me an hour to gum it all down with the right side of my mouth that's still missing a tooth. Sheesh. 
Bite-sized cubes of raw tuna chilled overnight in a drizzling of sesame seed oil, dry chilis, garlic and sea salt. Pulled out of the icebox and tossed onto a mess of mizuna and quartered, yellow cherry tomatoes.
Confused about how we got to the Second Great Depression? Ira Glass helps us financial illiterates understand it all on This American Life in the broadcast The Giant Pool of Money. 
Reduce your carbon footprint, rid the world of too many PET bottles, save money for some solar panels, and wet your whistle all at the same time! TAP'DNY bottled New York City tap water!
The good thing about visiting the dentist every week is that there is a fantastic Nepalese curry shop close by. My mouth is usually numb, bleeding or sore, so I get my curry&nan set to go. I get a kick out of the guys who run the place - Tara and Ali. We communicate in half-Japanese and half-English and Tara sometimes speaks German to me - "Ja, sehr gut ja!"
Up at Nojiri, Joy gave me a jar of her homemade rhubarb chutney. It went so well with last night's dahl.
Shinichi has been on a cooking quest recently, much to my enjoyment (I think he is sick of my uninspiring menu of Italian pastas and Indian curries). Last night was an uber-oishii bibinbap (sprouts, kimch'i, zenmai, spinach, daikon, sesame oil, an onsen egg, and loads of ground black sesame seeds on top of rice) and mozuku (seaweed) soup. I made iced barley tea to help cool us down.Although we lamented the fact that we didn't have the sizzling stone bowls that make the rice all crunchy on the sides, I think it's still way too hot here to be sitting in front of a molten rock at mealtime.
After months of butterless muffin making, my yellow friend has returned to the shelves. However, the sign says each customer is allowed to purchase only one box at a time to avoid "panic buying".
The dairy shortage is pretty serious. First, cheese and butter dissapeared, then all the Cheesecake Factories in Japan closed down, and last week our Baskin-Robbins shut its doors... oh god... summer without ice cream... how will I survive???
I was told when I took this job that it was a university where poor attendance was endemic. "Not in my classes it ain't!" I smugly thought (and yes, my complacent inner voice often speaks in double negatives). Well, in spite of a strict - yet fair attendance policy (the kids can email me from their cell phones and I won't count it as an absence/tardiness) I have already failed 8 of the lazy-ass mofos yet we're still three weeks from mid-terms! At least my buddy in the photo has a sense of humor. And for his effort, he was granted clemency.
Frozen mango, passionfruit juice and lychee liqueur. Jeezus, Josheph and Mary it's good! Yes, I know it's not summer yet... and yes, I am sitting shivering in woolen cap and scarf in front of the heater drinking it... but there's some summer right here in this plastic polka-dot martini glass man!!
Yesterday I spent most of the warm sunny afternoon cleaning the garden and porch. I found a new tree which I replanted and six spider sisters hiding in the pile of leaves under the tatami room window. I gently swept the future mosquito eaters into the monkey grass, watered the ash trees and even hosed down the unbelievably filthy walls. All this spring cleaning just in time for the vernal equinox. Today we share the same amount of light and darkness as our friends down under - kinda nice innit? But from here on out I'm taking more of the light for myself! Mwah ha ha ha ha!
Australian Juan Mann started the Free Hugs Campaign in 2006 and, thanks to Sydney band Sick Puppies' music video "All the Same", it's become a worldwide 'phenomenon'.
I recently joined WWOOF - an international group of volunteers, hosts and organizations promoting sustainable living. Basically, farmers act as hosts for volunteers who go and work on their farms in exchange for food, lodging and education about organic farming. After a couple of years of reading up on beekeeping, I am itching to get some hands-on experience. There are two beekeepers near Tokyo that I am hoping will accept me for a couple of weekends this spring!!!
All the way from Otaru, Hokkaido comes this gorgeous little pilsner made with all organic ingredients and "aloma" hops. They also make a dunkel that I have yet to try. Best part is - it's 40yen cheaper than the leading brands!
After the bible pr0n I thought we might need to look at something nice. These are the flowers Shinichi gave me for my birthday last July. Lovely to have on this unusually cloudy and blustery morning.
In every bedside table drawer in every hotel room in Japan there is a bible and a guide to the pay-per-porn on TV. Judging by frayed corners and greasy fingerprints all over the latter, it isn't too difficult to guess just how much prayin' is going on.
