Real Men Eat Tofu

The last time I ate at Umezono, the pen they gave me to sign the check was out of ink. I asked the waitress-usagi for another one and she reached into her kimono / dress / whatever you call it and plucked one from near her (almost nonexistent) boobies. I never wanted to lick an ink pen so much in my life. I wonder if it's customary in Japan to hug your waitress after the meal. Well, only one way to find out. Prepare the bail money – I’m going in. I need my weekly fix of yasai tempura.

Oh, I had the teriyaki salmon for dinner, and I’m proud to announce my homemade version tastes just as good, although not as pretty. My miso soup is coming along – the last batch was almost as good as theirs. It appears my English / Irish / German / French / Cherokee to Japanese conversion is transitioning smoothly.

There are three things that pop up frequently in the Japanese diet – rice, soy, and fish. I’ve always eaten fish. Of course, it was usually breaded and fried like we do with all of our other foods (including breath mints) but it was still fish. I never ate rice or soy, mainly because neither was served at my house, but also because when I had them at school, they were both godawful.

Southerners don’t cook rice like the Japanese where it’s sticky enough to eat with chopsticks; in fact, we regard sticky rice as being made incorrectly. Our school cafeterias made their rice with loads of margarine and salt, which did nothing to enhance the flavor but did make it greasy and fattening like everything else they served. Since the rice they used (most likely some over-processed minute rice) had all the flavor of Styrofoam, they served it with brown beef gravy to make it palatable. Note – this was in addition to the meat, not in place of it. So, one of our typical school lunches would consist of meatloaf with gravy and rice with gravy and green beans simmered in pork fat and a roll (always) loaded with margarine (always) and a brownie or something for desert, plus a cup of whole milk because growing bodies apparently need all the fat they can get, especially when facing the frigid Tennessee winters. And people wonder why our average elementary school students weigh as much as a cement truck.

More on soy and fish when I have time. Damned fascist bosses, how dare they expect a fair day’s work in exchange for my paycheck?

Final note – if any of you reading this are Asian-usagi, I get paid a lot. Now don’t you find me attractive?