Spring Trip to Osaka and Kobe

I recently went to Osaka to get some official papers from the consulate there.  I made a little trip out of it.  Here are my redacted logs (names and personal information removed):

Trip to Thailand

I just returned from a 5 night trip to Thailand.  It was a whirlwind, and I got a little dizzy at the end, but it was pretty thrilling anyway.

Fitness and Motivation

I need to remember how big an impact keeping up some kind of fitness routine has on my mental health.

I’m working on the hundredpushups.com program as part of my Nerdfitness 6-week challenge.  That will end on September 17th, hopefully with a significant improvement in my push-up abilities as well as my motivation and energy levels.

Wedding Stuff

There’s so much wedding stuff to do!  Since Miu and I decided on having a wedding I’ve learned about a lot of it.  Just like in America, the wedding industry in Japan is huge!

Costs for ceremonies range from 5000 to 50000 dollars easily, and as I’m sure anyone who has looked into whats possible with weddings knows, the sky is the limit.

So far as I can tell we’re planning a ceremony something along the following lines:

Paleo Pasta? Maybe…

I had an intriguing idea.  Everyone loves pasta, right?  Well, pasta is very non-paleo.  Guess what is paleo?  Enoki Mushrooms and Nira (garlic chives).

Know what else?  They’re both long and cylindrical and will go well with tomato sauce.

I will explore this idea fully tomorrow and report back.

Edit:

Nix the nira and add some regular onions cut as opened rings and it might be worthwhile, the nira had a terrible texture when used as planned.

Recipe: Chicken and Brown Mushrooms

This is a simple stir-fry.  It’s paleo friendly simply by dropping the beer.

I used:

1 piece of chicken thigh meat (somewhere around 100-150 grams),
1 large new onion
about 8 brown button mushrooms
a handful of frozen bell peppers slices.
a splash of beer
cooking oil and seasonings

Recipe: Chicken and Bok Choy

This is a simple stir-fry.  It’s paleo friendly.

I used:

3 chicken breast tenders,
2 piman (small bitter Japanese peppers/capsicums)
1 large new onion
1 head of bok choy (chingen-sai in Japanese)
cooking oil and seasonings

Plan to Spiderman

Here’s my plan to make it to Spiderman.  Getting it all back together.

Eat as fresh as I can without sacrificing the joys of living and social dining.

- Quantified that means that I’m preparing at least 21 meals per week.  Lots of cook once, eat for days dishes.  Ingredients are all from around the edge of the grocery store, fresh local vegetables, eggs, chicken, fish and mollusks, yogurt and fruit.  Dishes will include a variety of stirfry, salad, omelettes, baked chicken, steamed vegetables, curry, and soup.

Bakudan Onigiri – Rice Bomb

Huhuhuh… huhuh…. tee hee…

A gustatory obsession of mine finally impacted my brain in such a way that I realized it wasn’t that hard to self-manufacture.  That being: Bakudan Onigiri.  Literally it means Bomb Rice Ball.  And it is bomb indeed.

Cooking by Flavor Memory

So… My mom used to make this hot dish called German Potato salad.

Tonight I wanted to eat that, but I’d never made it before.  What did I do about that?  I remembered the flavor, the ingredients, realized I could probably approximate it, and went to work, without checking anything online, my favorite reference sites are all blacked out for SOPA protests anyway.