Private Future

I'm home sick with cramps and diarrhea (yum!) from who knows what. If I were in Taiwan, I'd probably scoot over to Modern Toilet. I really like the shave ice dish on the bottom! I would so wipe that bowl clean.

With nothing butt time, I've thought more about some future projects -- immediate and long term.

In the near future, I plan on making okonomiyaki with Bug. For years, I've been telling Bug about my mother making this when I was young. My father does a better job of describing the dish in an article from the Honolulu Advertiser. The great thing about okonomiyaki is that it can range from very simple to quite elaborate. Even though there are expected ingredients, it really comes down to what you want to put in it.

Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima (image taken from Wikipedia)

For an extremely quick lunch, my mother would make it with shredded cabbage salad that we would buy in plastic bags at the grocery store. It was a "pantry item" for us since my mother almost always served a small serving of salad with western meals.

My father and I were treated to okonomiyaki by our family in Hiroshima. It was delicious but difficult to finish because of the serving size with numerous layers of texture and flavor -- grilled noodles, crepe, vegetables, katsuobushi, squid, sauce, and my favorite Kewpie mayonnaise.

This was the only time I've ingested the sauce combination since my takoyaki fiasco years previous...and enjoyed it. Two weeks of a severe case of diarrhea while on vacation with my mother in Okinawa visiting family (oh my, we have a theme going!) when I was a teenager sort of ruined the sauce for me.

Takoyaki (image taken from Wikipedia)

I ate a family-size box of takoyaki and dipped it with GOBS of sauce while riding in a van for a long time -- think of a carrier 2x bigger than a 20-piece McNuggets box. My cousin's son, Joji, who was only ~3 years old, stared at me the entire time. I don't recall if it was in disbelief that the strange pig-lady ate the entire box, or if he just wanted one morsel.

A life lesson my mother passed on to me and I will pass on to anyone reading this -- avoid ordering okonomiyaki at a ramen-ya. The experience is akin to expecting a well made poached [insert your favorite fish] at a hamburger joint.

A long term project that's just in the kicking-around-in-the-mental-sandbox phase is to publish a family cookbook. My dream would be to have step-by-step color pictures of family preparing their recipe. I would like to have kids and adults contributing and I don't want it to look cheesy or half-assed.


Current MP3 music folder...
Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven by Love and Rockets

I'm showing my age! "A Private Future" is one of my favorite songs off this album. I bought the UK version LP when it came out while I was in high school and have fond memories listening to it a lot lying in bed at 3 a.m. with the crisp air creeping in while doing my homework.

A Private Future

Thinking of your private future
You snatched at the trees
In the starry dark green sleep
Thinking of your private future
You think at the river and set it flowing
A late fog's lifting a fast wind's rising
So you turn to reflect on your brief life
Session slip

Thinking of your private future
Cut by the scars of timeless coming back
Realize the unreachable is nothing
Cool winds wash down your hope and you slipped
Cool winds wash down your hope and you slipped

God's good to the humble
As the devil is to fools
Stop looking back in anger
Cause you can't change the rules
Believe in where you're going
But don't lose your yesterdays
To terrify to cry its true
Your life is just a game

So I need a million dollars
To sit on mountain tops
To see the stars surround you
Is to see an awful lot
I see the work of sinners
I see the work of saints
So I see the work of everyone
That's ever ever played

Sleep without reason
Your laughing masks your love
You've got so many scars
How does it feel deep in your heart?

Cause when the covers blown over
It'll crack up your skin
So now you're drowning your sorrows
In whiskey and sin

Live the life you love
Use a god you trust
And don't take it all to seriously

- Cassaendra