Tomato Sourdough

Made this sourdough bread last Friday. Since the starter is still new, it wasn’t as sour as I would’ve liked it to be, but the crust on this bread was awesome! Had it for dinner hot out of the oven, and used the leftover for a sandwich on a Saturday picnic. Maybe it was the sun and the grass; maybe it was the $4/slice super expensive ham; or maybe it was just my yummy bread, but it was the definitely the best sandwich I’ve ever had. I wish I could go on picnics everyday. Everything tastes ten times better when eaten outdoors sitting on a blanket.

Anti-Atkin’s Diet

Due to my recent rekindled interest in bread making (brought on by the cold weather, maybe) I find myself in a dilemma. There are simply too many recipes to try and too little stomach space to accommodate the product, unless I eat nothing but bread.

Could someone please invent an all-bread, anti-Atkin’s diet? That would really be the perfect solution. I can bake to my heart’s content, and eat all different varieties of bread without having to worry about bloating up like a loaf on its first rising.

Fun in the Sun

Our company had an earthquake/fire drill today. The way the drills are conducted is very different from in the States. For one, we were notified two days in advance. And the day before the drill, people were assigned to all sorts of tasks: one guy went around and made sure everyone had a helmet; another tallied up the people who will be in the office on that day (not taking into consideration emergency sickness, but then again, in Japan you are not allowed to get sick); clipboards were distributed to group leaders with action plans for the drill, etc. etc.

9am this morning, the loudspeaker cackled into life. A man announced that a drill would be conducted in 30 minutes. How nice of them to give us yet another notice.

9:30am, the real drill began. We were told that an earthquake had just occurred, and then were instructed to put on our helmets and hide under the desk for one minute. Then our floor leader informed us that a fire has broken out on our floor, but everyone should stay calm while they contact the fire department. We were told to wait until further instruction (despite the burning FIRE??!) After enough time that would’ve allowed the fire to engulf the whole building, we were instructed to evacuate the building via the emergency exit. Then we had to cross the street in an orderly fashion (and wait for the traffic light) and assemble in the parking lot.

After confirming all 546 people who are supposed to be in office today are all present, the drill was declared a success. (Is it a coincidence or extremely well planning? Because every time we have a drill, we always have gorgeous sunny weather.) This would’ve been a total waste of time, despite the weather, had it not been for the “Smoke House” experience.

The local fire department set up a smoke-filled room (about 3ft wide and 15ft long) in the parking lot. We had to find our way through it without bumping into the partitions inside.

I thought I could just follow the person in front of me and be out of there in no time. Boy was I wrong! I now know why smoke is more dangerous than an actual fire. The smoke used was of course harmless but nonetheless gave out a strange sweet smell. I crouched low like I was told because smoke rises up so visibility is supposed to be better closer to the ground. At first, it was fairly easy to see the person’s shoe in front of me, but after two steps all I could see was white smoke. No sign of the person in front, not even the ground. I felt like a blind person and had to rely on my hands to guide me. For a brief moment of not knowing which way to go, I actually (am not proud to admit it either, but it's the truth) felt the onset of a panic attack. But luckily, fresh air gushed in from the exit and guided me out of the smoke house before my imminent breakdown.

Moral of the story: if you are trapped in a smoke-filled room, you are as good as dead!

Libby II

I read about this company (Genetics Savings and Clone) that clones cats commercially. It’s the company that cloned Cc, but only 9 cats were cloned in 2004, due to capacity limits. They hope to perfect the technology to clone dogs in 2005. Right now, the going price for a cat is $50,000. I wonder how much they’ll charge for a dog.

Am a little fuzzy on the details of exactly how they clone an animal, but according to the CEO, Lou Hawthorne, it involves lots of donor eggs. He says that his company is the largest underwriter of spaying clinics in the US, and they buy the eggs, which would’ve been thrown out as waste anyway. The clinics use the money to spay more strays. Sounds good to me! Or is it just that I am willing to believe anything so I can harbor even a glimpse of hope that when my sweet Libby goes to doggie heaven, I can replace her with a clone? And the image of Sigouney Weaver seeing all the failed clones of herself in Alien 3 haunts me too. I am not so naïve in thinking that they’ll have 100% success rate so they only start with one egg. So what about the ones that don’t work out? Funny thing is, I am pro-choice, but I just can’t stand the thoughts of half-developed Libby embryos or fetuses being thrown out as trash. I guess it really is different when it comes to your own baby.

Jason, on the other hand, is curious as to what Libby’s reaction will be if she were to see her own clone. I wonder if the clone will have the same scent signature as the original. That’ll probably confuse the heck out of Libby.

Minty Sourdough

In all of Tokyo, I have never seen a single loaf of sourdough bread. Though it's Jason's favorite, I just couldn't commit myself to the maintenance of a sourdough culture. That all changed when I had to buy a Qt-sized container of yogurt, even though I only needed 1/2 cup for the blueberry banana loaf I was making last weekend because that's the only sugar-free yogurt I could find! (grunt) I have an aversion to yogurt, maybe because I ate too much of it in college, so I was trying to figure out what to do with this almost full container, when I remembered the recipe for sourdough culture, which calls for yogurt.

I rinsed out a big glass jar with hot water and mixed in the milk and yogurt. After leaving it out for a day, the mixture settled in a curd. This is the sign for the next step - mixing in the flour. Anxiously, I opened up the jar to take a sniff. Wait ---- this smells minty!

The only big glass jar I had was used to store mint tea that I bought on our recent trip to Marrakech, so I moved the tea into a ziploc and washed out the jar. But I guess minty smells are hard to get rid of.

My jar of minty sourdough culture is sitting next to the window now, taking in all the sun, hopefully bubbling. In two days, I can use it to make my very first sourdough bread. I can't wait to see what a minty sourdough loaf will taste like. Maybe this is what I could do after I quit my job, selling one of a kind "Sourmint" bread. Heck Japanese people love anything exotic. With a bit of marketing savy, I am sure it'll be a huge hit. Anyone want in?

ps. as for the yogurt, turned out I only needed two tablespoons for the culture. On to making more blueberry loaves to use up the yogurt.

My Funny Brain

I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when, all of a sudden, the image and taste of chocolate covered marshmellow popped into my head. It's this candy that I used to eat when I was little, in China. The marshmellow filling is considerably fluffier than the kind we get in the US, and not as sweet. The chocolate, well, is just some generic milk chocolate that's got so much impurities that it probably doesn't even melt if you heat it up. But combined, the taste is heavenly, or maybe just in my mind.

I didn't even know I still remembered it. Now I can't get this image out of my head. Must find chocolate covered marshmellow, must find chocolate covered marshmellow. Darn it, I'll make it myself if I have to!

The Nikko Curse

Path next to Chuzenji Lake

Sometimes some places just refuse to cooperate. Be it Mt. Fuji who refuses to show itself from behind the clouds, or a specific restaurant that stubbornly remains fully booked every single time you try to go. We have the Nikko curse. Never had much luck with it: cancelled trip due to typhoon; freezing weather; crazy bus driver; buses running late; being stuck in a smoking cart on a train for two hours, etc. But when our trip to Niigata had to be cancelled due to the recent earthquake, Nikko came up as an alternative. Since we’ll be going with a bunch of other people, I thought, maybe the curse will be diluted by the luck of other people, if not completely lifted.

First thing to go wrong was the navigator on our rent-a-van. It flat-out refused to work. Then in the middle of hiking on Saturday, it started to rain. But that was the extent of things that went wrong, we even made the 7:15pm deadline to return our rental car. Not too bad at all. Maybe I can even consider the curse lifted?

More photos



Autumn Collors

Torte Florentine

A torte with white bread crust, filled with a stuffing of spinach, artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, cheese, and eggs. The leafy design on top swelled up and is all but unrecognizable, but perfect comfort food for a cold rainy day nonetheless.