Post-meeting dinner with visiting Todai researcher and incidentally major wine amateur: any day, really…

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Wine Seminar

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Slightly Heavy

Should you attempt to follow, it will help if you have the same awesome Muji kit handy, but an inventive and resourceful person could do without (none of the ingredients are that hard to find, and the schematics can probably be figured out from scratch with limited engineering skills). Also, this is not a completely faithful translation of the original instructions: I have added a couple personal touches as well as skipped the more obvious advices (be careful with the knife, do not stick your tongue in the oven etc.).

Anyway, off we go:

Ingredients

In the kit:

• cocoa powder（ココアパウダ）: 10g
• cookie mix (クッキーミックス）: 400g
• powdered sugar（粉糖）: 100g

Additionally you’ll need:

• butter (or margarine): 80g
• 2 eggs: 1 full, 1 with white and yolk separated.
• sugar: 150g
• milk: 60ml

Instructions:

1. Melt the butter (by staring intensely at it, using telekinetic powers. failing that: your microwave on 500W).



2. Set aside a large spoonful of it and mix it with the cocoa powder.
3. Mix the rest of the butter with the sugar and whisk until it reaches a noticeably whiter shade.



4. Pour in the cookie mix, milk and full egg and mix the lot. Knead into a dough.



5. Set aside 1/4 of the dough you just made in 4) and mix it with the cocoa paste you made in 2). You now have two balls of dough: one big plain, one small chocolate-flavoured.



6. Spread the dough into a 4mm (not three, not five: four mm) layer. Use rolling pin and flour as you see fit.
7. Let the dough rest for about 20 mins while pre-heating the oven at 170° C
8. Using the conveniently provided schematics (or making up your own), cut out all shapes required by your engineering project and dispose on the oven shelf.



9. Spread a thin layer of egg yolk on each part with a cooking brush. Now is also a good time to carve some patterns (bricks for the walls etc.)



10. Put in the oven: remove after about 13mins, when it reaches a nice biscuit-like consistency.
11. Beat the egg white (use a few drops of lemon juice) and mix it to the powdered sugar: there’s your icing! That thing will glue absolutely anything together.



12. Using the helpfully provided pastry bag and the icing you made in 11), glue all the pieces of your house together.



13. Some more icing for a snowy roof, a little pine tree here, some bushes there…. You’re done.



14. If you are lucky, yours might look half as cool as ours.

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Christmas Non-Gingerbread House

Issé restaurant (“tempuras & tapas”) has a soberly stylish decoration and seemingly caters to a large japanese-speaking clientele, both reassuring points when compared to the flurry of Chinese-speaking sushi chefs and horrifyingly cheesy pseudo-oriental kanji signs, customary of most other places that claim to offer Japanese cuisine in this city.

The menu there is classic, yet not stereotypical, which means a lot of small dishes, no ramen, and only a few makis on offer. Somewhere between a typical Tokyo restaurant and a high-end izakaya (lots of the same food, but less greasy): we had loads of tempuras (shiso, seafood, a bunch of other veggies… even mozzarella…), seaweed salad, agedashi tofu, and a couple other dishes. All great and tasty (ok: I reckon my agedashi tofu is better, but I may be biased) and infinitely more reminiscent of the whole Tokyo experience than many a j-food joints on rue Saint Anne.

Prices were about average to high, but very reasonable for the quality of food (around 20-30 euros/person for dinner and a drink).

And for those who ever lived in Japan: sit there, sipping an iced ohlong-cha with schochu and nibbling on edamame, and I swear you won’t be able to shake the natsukashiness away.

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Tempura & Tapas

Patients #1, #2, #3 and #4 – a family – let’s call them the Lamiaceaes, were admitted in mid-April: sharing a rather small room, but healthy and showing no sign of infection. They were kept indoors and put on a steady diet of H₂O, administered twice daily.

Within days following their admission, they showed signs of discomfort: all limbs progressively went numb, patients could no longer stand upright without assistance. Their health deteriorated exponentially over the course of a week. Finally, patients #1, #2 and #3 all underwent cardiac arrest, followed by acute dehydration, to be declared clinically dead on the seventh day after several failed attempts at resuscitation. Patient #4, youngest member of the family, entered a vegetative state but, in the end, miraculously survived: he emerged from his coma a few weeks later and has been making such an encouraging recovery ever since that doctors have allowed his relocation to the outdoor patio.

It was diagnosed at the time that overcrowding of their room, conjugated with possible lack of fresh air may have caused the sudden and unexpected death of all but one of the Lamiaceaes. Endemic condition or residual infection caught at their previous place of residence was not completely excluded, albeit impossible to prove and somewhat invalidated by the survival of the weakest family member.

Patient #5, whom we shall call Basil, a large-sized fully-grown adult, was admitted two days ago.

Initially showing no discernible symptoms, save for a few very small dark rashes that seemed easily accounted for by the casual outdoor lifestyle he had lead thus far. He was put on a similar twice daily H₂O diet and installed outside, alongside recovering patient #4. Yesterday morning, while tending to their morning routine, the nurses alerted me to the worryingly degrading state of health of Basil. The symptoms exhibited were similar to those of the recently deceased patients: weak extremities, lack of responsiveness, difficulties standing unassisted. Temperature has been noticeably mild for the entire duration of his stay: usually in the lower 20′s C. (65 F) during the day, never under 10 C (51 F) at night. Fearing a reaction to its recent diet increase, we decided to withhold all water intake until further notice.

However, as of this morning, Basil’s health has further disintegrated to an alarmingly low level: patient is now in a semi-vegetative state, necrosis is appearing on some limbs, weakness has extended to the entire body… Judging by what we know of the previous cases and the particularly aggressive progression of the disease here, we estimate Basil has very little time left before his internal organs start shutting down one by one: a day, two at the most.

This we simply cannot accept. We cannot let Basil go at such a young and unfulfilled age, when the greater purpose of his presence here has only been merely glimpsed at.
In preparing for the worst, we have harvested and cryogenized some healthy tissues for later use in a few tomato mozzarella salads, perhaps a couple carbonara pasta even… but we still want to believe that Basil has a chance.

We, at the Herbal Diagnostic Medicine department, need your help in identifying and treating this mysterious ailment before it claims yet another innocent life.

Water seems to be at the center of the problem, but in which way? Too much? Not enough? Unrelated? Has the cat been secretly poisoning Basil?

Please help me save Basil.

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Help me save Basil!

Following some kind readers’ suggestions and with a bit additional exploration, I have since resolved all my culinary woes. I figured I’d post a quick recap and a few extra advice for the sake of past and future seekers of exotic food in Paris:

First off: the bestest, cheaperest, fresh tofu, along with countless other goodies (can you believe they even had konnyaku!?!) was found at Supermarket Paris Store on Avenue d’Ivry (about 10 minutes from Place d’Italie, on the left side), thanks to Chrys, whom we shall dearly miss now that she has relocated…

Unlike most other Asian stores in the area (Tang Frères etc.), this one stocks up a fairly consequent aisle of typically Japanese products.
Of course they also carry the usual south-east asian fare, though their curry paste didn’t turn out all that convincing to my humble curry-loving tastebuds (their coconut paste: not at all). But these are much easier to find anywhere else in the neighbourhood… I still want to find some of this mucho combiniente cononut powder (same taste, much lighter to carry around), but the canned stuff is available everywhere… On my next trip, I might even try some of their kimchee (kimchee ramen… yay!).

A few arrondissements away: ready-made dashi powder and a few super-specific Japanese items can be found on rue Saint Anne, albeit at a much higher price. Personally, I’d rather make my own vegetarian dashi (using dried shiitake and/or konbu), as I am no fan of katsuo at all, but if you need the powder, you’ll find it in the small combini cum fast-food joint, roughly halfway through the street, on the right side when walking toward Opera.

Oddly absent from all these stores was fresh shiitake: I was starting to give up on the idea (the combini mentioned above sells the dried kind, which is OK for dashi, but absolutely unfit for miso soup or okonomiyaki) until I realized that, among more traditionally French morilles, chanterelles and other champignons de Paris, my very local, very Parisian, supermarket proudly offered fresh shiitakes in its veggie aisle. I have honestly no idea whether this has been the case all along in standard Parisian supermarkets (I wasn’t exactly the cooking type 10 years ago when I first lived here, and even less so of the shiitake-cooking type) or if that’s just a quirk of my local store. The latter is not to be excluded, given how many Japanese visitors seem to inhabit the neighbourhood and frequently shop there. Should yours be devoid of the ‘shroom: my faithful supermarché Champion sits around the corner of rue de Seine and rue de Buci (with an entrance on either street). I hear fresh negi (spring onions/scallions depending on which side of the potatomatoe you speak on) is no trouble to find under the name “ciboule” (not to be mistaken for its much more common local cousin, ciboulette, frequently used as a condiment in French cooking), but apparently you need to wait for the right season. I’m also hoping to see some lemon-grass (citronelle) soon enough in the aisles.

As it happens, the supermarket downstairs also sells cranberry juice, a few feet over from the vodka bottles, all of which frequently contributes to make us a very happy girl indeed. If you are not as lucky as I am, check out comments on my original entry for some leads…

On the topic of rice cookers: my mum (raised in the Indian Ocean and therefore more rice-dependent than your average mainland Chinese) spontaneously presented me with a rice-cooker as indispensable housewarming gift, on her trip over, a few weeks ago…

And I rejoiced.

Then, I realized how much of a technological advance the Japanese hold in rice-cooking techniques.

The devices that you will easily find in stores around here (French or Chinese-made), are little more than glorified water heater (no high pressure, no programming, no nothing). Since the point of such apparatus is to make it absolutely seamless for lazy clueless cook such as myself to eat non-burnt, fully-cooked rice at the push of a button… We had a problem.

From the land of tiny transistors, a recently visiting houseguest brought me a model of the more advanced kind for which I now only need to find a proper volt-converter. At which point I will be faced with the most delightful of freudian dilemma as to which gift I am to give preference to.

Last but not least, Craigslist and eBay combined helped solve the lack of a proper sound system at a very reasonable price. Neighbours haven’t been a problem ever since.

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Desperately Seeking in Paris II (the aftermath)

Where do they hide the bacon in this damn country?

Do I have to start raising pigs in the courtyard of my building?

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87 days…

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Good to know

Initially, it sounded like an easier and less time-consuming alternative to ordering from the place downstairs.

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Instant Ramen & Rocket Science

In hindsight, one would be well inspired to do so.

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Cultural cross-over

Any assistance on where to find the items below, subject to reward in the form of a free homemade dinner (sexual favours to be considered on a case-by-case basis only).

Bonus points for stores conveniently located close to 6th arrondissement (yea, yea: anything will do, but just in case).

• Rice cooker: will soon die of starvation if I don’t get one. Was told to check out Chinese grocery stores… Haven’t seen any at Tang Frères… Specifics, anybody?
• Fresh shiitake mushrooms: Japanese grocery store rue St Anne only carries the dried kind… Also sure the Chinese have that: how the hell do you say “shiitake” in Chinese?
• Fresh kinugoshi tofu: Same as above (only have very bland vacuum-sealed stuff). Tell me somebody in France is making fresh tofu out of all these GM soybeans.
• Yellow curry paste: address of a cheap Thai grocery store anybody? (Please don’t reply “somewhere in the 13th arrondissement”: have you seen the 13th arrondissement on a map lately? it’s big).
• Cranberry juice: WhoWhat does a girl need to do, in order to get a proper Cosmo around here?
• Glock 10 mm. or S&W .44 in working order: to be used as teaching material in my upcoming class: Neighbouring Relations 101 – “How Much Noise is Too Much Noise at 3 in the Morning?”.
• Used audio amp & speakers: cheapness is of the essence here, seeing how I recently unloaded 30k yens of audio material on miscellaneous friends and not about to do the same here in six months.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Desperately Seeking in Paris

In order to break the silence, I am not gonna rant about spitefully incompetent French university personnel, nor am I gonna express any sort of opinion about the current bouts of suburban pyromania taking place one hour north of the city I’m moving to next month (oh no, we aren’t talking about that. keep walking. keep walking. just a bit more… yep, good).

Instead, I’m gonna give you the detailed recipe for the most amazing Japanese dish you’ve ever had. And not only is it yumtastic, but it’s also dirt-easy to make and vegetarian. If you’ve lived in Japan any, you probably know about the difficulties of following a vegetarian diet in this beautiful country. In fact, if you meet somebody here who tells you he is a die-hard vegetarian, he is most likely either a liar, an imbecile or eating the vast majority of his meals at home (I know a couple of the latter). Oddly enough for a somewhat buddhist country, the concept of vegetarianism is about as foreign to Japan as it is to your average midwest eatery (where asking for a vegetarian meal means you want a side order of fries with your 3-pound rib-eye steak). No matter how hard you try, and even after you’d eventually manage to convey the idea that neither chicken skin nor seafood could reasonably be considered “vegetables”, the ubiquitous fish-sauce that’s added to about any edible dish in Japan will get you in the end.

Luckily, I was never the religious veggie type: I did not eat meat or fish during my last few years living in SF, but it was mostly by choice of a health-conscious diet, not the deep-seated conviction that I would be snacking on the reincarnation of my grandpa. While not a deciding factor, the fact that my dearly beloved was a veggie herself helped a lot… Not that she would impose it on me or anything, but it just makes things infinitely easier when you don’t have to cook two of each meals you take together…
And overall, SF might be one of, if not the, most herbivore friendly cities in the world, where opening a restaurant without at least a few decent vegetarian dishes on the menu is akin to commercial suicide.

Yet, I was never hardcore and had no qualms about ever so occasionally partaking in some delicious late-night cheeseburger goodness. What can I say: In-N-Out burgers are like the choir boys of vegetarian priesthood… It’s just impossible to resist.

So upon moving to Tokyo, I quickly decided to spare many an awkward encounters with flustered Japanese restaurant employees by accommodating whatever was on the menu and keeping my vegetarian tendencies for home-cooking. Though even this isn’t quite as easy here as in sunny California, considering the substantial difference in availability and pricing for fresh groceries that do not contain tentacles or miscellaneous animal parts.

A man needs his calories, especially in Japan, and there are only so many ways you can cook tofu before getting seriously tired of it. Let’s face it, tofu is quite bland, edible at best (granted there is a world of difference between what you’ll get in a supermarket and what I can buy at the Tofu-ya just down the road), hardly anywhere as exciting as, say, a crispy strip of bacon. Unless… Unless…

Unless you make:

Agedashi Tofu (揚げ出し豆腐)

This amazing recipe will single-handedly revert any misguided aversion you may have toward eating coagulated rotten soy beans, or as we like to call it around here: tofu. It draws its powers from an ancient and revered cooking technique, one that holds the magical property of turning any semi-edible piece of junk into sin-inducing candy goodness: deep frying.

Some of our readers are no doubt familiar with this staple of fair food in the UK: deep-fried Snickers chocolate bars (or its Kentucky’s US equivalent: deep-fried squirrel balls) and its much improved yummy-factor as a result. Well, tofu works the same: the technique will turn an overall unappetizing lump of healthy proteins into a much-less-healthy, but infinitely more sexy, golden tofu beignet, whose creamy inside will melt on your tongue. Add to it our patented Magical All-purpose Japanese Sauce™ (sold separately, see details on top), and you have yourself a strong contender for best Japanese food, on a tight spot with Shoyū Ramen.

Convinced now?

On to cooking then:

Step 1: The Sauce

• Get in equal quantities (approximately 1 or 2 TB): wasabi (that green spicy thing), shoyū (soy sauce) and mirin (a Japanese sweet cooking wine) in a cooking pan. Note: feel free to follow on our innovative footsteps and forego the use of mirin in favour of shochu (distilled rice alcohol, not sake/nihonshu, which is fermented rice alcohol), should you be like us: 1) out of mirin, and 2) a raging alcoholic.
• Throw in a few sliced shiitake mushrooms
• Pour half a cup of vegetable stock (non-veggies out of the item should be able to substitute chicken stock without noticeable difference), a healthy dash of sugar and heat the whole thing up: first to a boil, then back to simmering for a few minutes
• Optionally, I hear one can throw in a few spoonful of kombu (dried seaweed powder). Always did without, though. Garlic certainly can’t hurt either.
• While the sauce is simmering, mince a couple TBs of ginger that you will throw in the mix shortly before taking it off the fire.
• Prepare some finely chopped negi (Japanese “green spring onion”, somewhat the same as scallion/shallot, I reckon) as well as, maybe, grated daikon (white radish), if you feel like it, and set aside.

Step 2: The Deep-Frying

• Deep-frying is your run-of-the mill deep-fry technique (feel free to skip if you’ve ever cooked french fries once in your life):
• Pick your choice of frying batter. Pretty much anything works (some even do without any at all). Tested and/or recommended batter, in order of preference: kuzuu (“arrowroot” powder?), flour, corn starch or just plain nothing. Personally, I’d stay away from corn or potato starch if it comes to this or nothing as a choice: tends to overcrowd the texture… But maybe it’s just me. If you don’t use a batter at all, make sure to pat-dry the tofu (don’t otherwise). Also never had a chance to experiment with a beer batter, but I reckon there is no way it could come out wrong (of course it cannot be wrong: there’s alcohol in it).
• Get a few blocks of tasty kinugoshi-dofu (“silken tofu” is what it may be sold under, in your area), cut them into somewhat bite-sized cubes, without patting the blocks dry, and dip them on all sides in your choice of batter
• Heat up a few cups of deep-frying oil: canola or peanut oil work good; if you are in Japan, the ubiquitous Japanese tempura “sarada” oil is all you need. Motor oil isn’t recommended.
• General oil-heating advice: your oil is hot enough when, upon dipping any foreign object (chopsticks, wooden spoon, finger, dash of flour…), tiny but plentiful bubbles immediately form around it. Your oil is too hot when your kitchen starts filling with heavy, acrid, black smoke (if that happens right away, or before your oil is hot enough, you need to get better oil with a higher smoke point). Your oil is way too hot, when three-feet high bright flames start shooting out of your pot (not that I would know or anything…). To complete beginners out there: should the flame situation arise, do not attempt to put out the fire by throwing a bucket of water over it, if you value that youthful and fresh face of yours. Proper solid-particle extinguisher, a large lid, baking soda or a wet towel, should all work fine at preventing the complete torching of your apartment (oil fires do burn quite strong). Sorry about the obvious advice, but I’d hate to lose the remnants of my readership to a freak cooking accident.
• Once your oil is hot enough, lower the tofu bits one by one (should be completely immersed) and leave for about one or two minutes on each side, or until it comes back up to the surface. Remove swiftly with a strainer so as not to let the oil seep in and place on paper towels to dry off.

Step 3: Eating

Serve the fried tofu bits with the dashi sauce and negi spread over it, daikon on the side. Alternatively leave the sauce as a separate dip.

Step 4: Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Let’s Cooking Agedashi Tofu

What has been a priority, though, was the quest for any combination of chemical aides, likely to make the required 250 hours of studies in 10 days, a technical, if not quite reasonable health-wise, possibility.

Thus, in the spirit of killing two heart-attacks with one stone, and without further ado, the first episode of:

Dr Dave’s Guide to Chemically-Enhanced Studying in Japan

Volvic Mineral Water

tagline: “Water blah blah blah spring blah blah blah volcanoes blah blah blah…”
contains: Not much beside oxygen and hydrogen atoms paired in ones and twos. Some residual minerals (calcium, magnesium…), perhaps a few drops of deer pee, if you’re lucky…
tastes: Pretty bland, one must say, but I hear that’s sort of the selling point of this “water” thing.
energy factor: 1/10
observations: No discernible effect, beside an irresistible urge to run naked down the side of the nearest extinct volcano. Does shit-all to wake you up. Sure it refreshes, but that’s about it… Was worth a try.

Nescafé President Instant Coffee

tagline: “A precious cup with brilliant aroma, lively body and fulfilling taste delivers you a beautiful time.”
contains: Caffeine (roughly 60 mg/cup, a cursory Google search tells us)
tastes: Pretty nasty (that’s instant coffee, what do you expect), but still marginally better than this generic coffee brand I got last week (the one where they dehydrate both juice and socks into a powder)…
energy factor: 6/10 (3 cups later)
observations: Caffeine is a sure value, been doing the trick for millennia now.
Only major downside is that, in order to reach an efficient caffeine threshold, the amount of coffee one has to ingest is usually enough to pierce through a few layers of internal organs all the way to your toes. Something you usually cannot do more than once a week.

Red Bull Extra

tagline: “คือเครื่องดื่มให้กำลังงานของทุกคนที่ต้องการรู้สึกตื่นตัวทั้งทางร่างกาย และจิตใจไม่ว่าที่ไหน และเมื่อไหร่”
contains: My Thai is a bit rusty, the official website tells us: น้ำดำอัดลม 1 กระป๋องมีคาเฟอีน ประมาณ 46 มิลลิกรัม + Red Bull Extra มีคาเฟอีนสกัดอยู่ประมาณ 50 มิลลิกรัม + กาแฟกระป๋องพร้อมดื่ม มีคาเฟอีนอยู่ ประมาณ 74 – 212 มิลลิกรัม… Which I translate by: a shitload of Taurine, Caffeine and probably Guarana or some other generic herbal stimulant, plus enough sugar to kill any diabetic within a mile.
tastes: Like non-carbonated Red Bull.
energy factor: 8/10 (2 cans later), but tolerance building quickly.
observations: Despite the approximative rip-offish design and less-than-convincing color scheme, these seem to be somewhat related to the real thing, or at least legally licensed.
They indeed do the work: something like two times stronger than classic red-bulls, enough to give a kick, even to someone who used to drink a dozen of these a day.
Unfortunately, the main drawback of Red Bull is a very fast tolerance building, requiring ever higher doses to stay afloat, let alone improve your condition (kinda like smack, really). The limited supply (8 cans kindly brought back from Thailand by the lovely Jasmine and Felix at the beginning of the Summer) and the impossibility to find these at reasonable price around here, disqualified what could have been a likely winner for our contest.

ウコンの力 [Behold! the Power of the Turmeric]

tagline: “元気に乾杯!”
contains: Turmeric. lotsa.
tastes: Kinda like medication (tangy, orange-ish).
energy factor: 2/10 (1 dose later)
observations: Eventually taking my quest to the local combini, I started with this one, since its rather unambiguous name and the promise that I’d be “drinking to my health” assuaged fears I could mistakenly buy one of the recent get-slim-fast crapola overcrowding every single freaking diet-supplement stores in Japan. The whole concept of Power of the Turmeric being, you guessed it, Turmeric…
A closer look at home taught me that, while Turmeric (a.k.a. Curcumin) is widely considered Good For You™ and efficient at warding off a number of ailments (chlamydia, gonorrhea, melanoma, colo-rectal cancers…) it is also: “good to help you feel refreshed upon wake-up, after a night of partying and/or drinking”. Which is great, if I actually had a second to go drink these days. Low expectations and accordingly low results: didn’t kill me, but hardly helped staying awake. Not an ounce of a working buzz. Give me my chemical stimulants full of nasty artificial molecules back.
special note: there also was a 「ニンニクの力」But even the perspective of growing a second brain wouldn’t have me drinking powdered garlic extract.

リゲイン３０００ [Regain 3000]

tagline: “疲れた体に効果的”
contains: 30mg Liverall (“リバオール”), 10mg Vitamin and a whooping 3000mg Taurine!
tastes: Actually drinkable (this coming from somebody who thinks Red Bull tastes awesome).
energy factor: 6/10 (1 can-size bottle)
observations: Had much higher hopes for this one, seeing how it seems to be roughly pure taurine with a bunch of feel-good vitamin round it. Of course, having a name eerily similar to a known hair-loss medication did nothing to help its appeal, but then again, when you live in a country where half the vending-machines will sell you cans of drinks reading “Calf piss“, you learn not to pay attention to such stuff.
Of course, by now, compounded effects are to be taken in account, but as far as I can tell, this is one of the more efficient ones: energy levels are up, motivation and focus seem increased. If I hadn’t start writing this useless post in the meantime, I might even be tempted to start writing equations now.

ブラクリゲイン [Black Regain]

tagline: “会議に、ドライブに、夜ふかしに：シャキッと喝！”
contains:: Buncha token vitamins (B1, B2, B6) and caffeine: 150mg.
tastes: Positively foul. Apparently meant to emulate the taste of real coffee.
energy factor: 8/10 (1 can-size bottle, taken shortly after bottle of Regain 3000)
observations: Black Regain seems to be to Regain what the Black Mamba is to Mambo: much more dangerous, deadlier, and way harder to dance with. Following the successful run with the “3000″ version, and relying on heart-murdering dosage of good ol’ caffeine, I suspected we had winner material here. And indeed we do.
Ten minutes after ingestion, uncontrollable twitching appears, along with compulsion to get up and walk around in circle while mumbling incoherently and grinding teeth. Meanwhile, persistent burning sensation in the lower belly seems to indicate that the active ingredients are currently dissolving the outer membrane of my stomach.
No sleepiness whatsoever subsides. Goal achieved.

Conclusion:

Regain (both 3000 and Black) come as the clear winner for today’s batch of tests. Of course, further research will be conducted, with the assistance of our local combini and Japan’s seemingly endless market for brain-screwing, productivity-enhancing substances. Among the next items on our list: a double blind comparative study with pure-grade methamphetamin. As soon as I’m done with the construction of my homemade meth-lab.

It is now time to resume studying (I’ll be on it as soon as that problem with the flashing yellow dots dancing in my field of vision subsides a little) but feel free to send your suggestions (restricted to substances legally available in the greater Tokyo area) and we will make sure to include them in our next report.

Update: Seems like a trendy topic… Just a few days after I posted this: look what’s on Lifehacker!

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Guide to Genki Studying in Japan

Can the fact that tofu tastes absolutely nothing like bacon be taken as objective evidence that God hates vegetarians?

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Gastronomico-Theological Thought

I know. I am one week late. Some people have written to complain that my instruction to stash in advance on the main ingredient had caused a few problems with their spouse and neighbours. some petty matter of smell or something.

In order to make up for that, it is not one, but TWO recipes, that I shall bestow on my eagerly awaiting cooking public this time.

Tonight, we will be making a complete luxury meal, starting simply with a Pork Chops in Mango Chutney & Ginger Sauce, merely there to lay the groundwork for a scrumptious Squirrel Melba in Champagne Sauce.

Let’s get the more ordinary dish out of the way first, shall we?

Pork Chops in Mango Chutney & Ginger Sauce

1. For those of you who bravely followed our advice in the past, you might still have some of that mango chutney left from a previous recipe. Good. Take it out and pour it all in a bowl.
2. Now add about half a glass of orange juice.
3. Finely grind and add the equivalent of a spoonful of fresh ginger. If tonight’s a special night with your special someone, triple the ginger dosage, add some yohimbine and guarana and make your move just after you’ve finished the Squirrel Melba: she/he/it/they just won’t be able to resist your raw sexual energy…
4. Some cilandro, bit of curry powder (or any strong spice you may have handy)…
5. Oh yea, Dijon mustard too if you have
6. While doing all of the above, you also sprinkled salt and pepper on the pork chops and started cooking them on hot oil. They should be fine by now: remove the chops and pour out most of the grease, but do not clean the pan!
7. Pour the brew into the pan and deglaze (cf. cooking notes here). Personally, I use white wine, but that’s mainly because I don’t trust tap water around here (I’d rather drink my bleach undiluted).
8. When the mixture has decreased in volume by about a half, pour on the chops and serve with rice.
9. Enjoy.

Now time for some real cooking:

Squirrel Melba in a Champagne Sauce

Despite its reputation as a tough dish, only to be attempted by confirmed cooks, the squirrel melba is in fact blindingly easy to prepare. The only major hurdle in the preparation would be the gathering of ingredients, and even that, with a bit of organisation and methodology, isn’t as difficult as one may think.

Of course, I did recommend you plan in advance, and by now you should already have at least a few carefully peeled medium-size squirrels ready for cooking… But, I know how it is: one gets caught up in mundane day-to-day tasks, it’s easy to rely on last minute shopping until you realize that most grocery stores outside of Kentucky nowadays just do not carry quality squirrels fit for consumption any more. I know: ’tis a sad fact, the slow disappearance of centuries of traditional cooking.

Anyway, unprepared readers fear not, here are a few tips to help you seamlessly gather about ten servings in a timely manner.

The squirrel is a cheeky little fellow, quite hard to catch with bare hands under normal conditions. Which is why we are going to use some special cooking tricks. Basically, and by order of preference, here are your different options:

1. Nail gun: the bastard is fast, but not faster than a fast-travelling 2 incher. Wait, adjust, shoot, and in no time your complete desert set will be nailed neatly to a tree, ready for some hot cooking!
2. Train your cat: after all, squirrels are little more than furry rats. This concept can very easily be imparted on your cat through efficient dieting and some pavlovian conditioning involving acorns and electrical shocks. Just make sure beforehand that your cat is not afraid of heights.
3. Champagne: this might actually be the easiest way. And we’ll need the champagne anyway. Bait them with cheap bubbly. Wait until the squirrels appear sufficiently incapacitated by the alcohol intake, and use any blunt object or long pole to do the work. Note: avoid my mistake. Do not take upon yourself to empty a few bottles in order to use them as projectiles. It just doesn’t work if you are as drunk as the squirrel: he still seems to keep the speed advantage.

Got the squirrels? Good.

At this point, and if you used any method other than 3) above, you might want to start feeding them the champagne. Provide straws if necessary.

The peeling doesn’t present any particular difficulty. That part of the process being particularly painful for the rodent, though, we strongly advise you chop off their arms beforehand, in order to limit any sanitary risk through scratching.

Once peeled and sliced, throw in a few scoops of ice-cream, some seasonal red fruits and scatter a few hazelnuts to create a theme.

Serve fresh with a nice Muscadet and cream on the side.

Note: should you fail to gather some ingredients, you might want to go with Neuro’s own desert suggestion for the week. Unfortunately very conventional, but probably easier to prepare.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Tonight: Mango Chutney Pork Chops and Squirrel Melba

It’s in both French and English, go check it out if you don’t know what to cook tonight and have a few extra ducks running around your garden.
BTW, Neuro is adamant: crows do not make a suitable substitute for daffy duckies…

Another great source for your gastronomic needs is Kristen, at Mediatinker, who has been blatantly infringing on our Monday Recipes™ trademark for many years now: she calls it Thursday Recipes, but I think we all know who was first on that breakthrough concept. Ha. To add assault to the injury, she even stole the recipe I was gonna do last week: Pasta Carbonara… a Dr Dave’s School of Cooking staple, if there ever was one!

But this sneaky attempt at driving the competition out will not be tolerated!

Keep your utensils ready. For next week will be a very special edition of Recipe Mondays with Dr Dave. Expect heights in culinary refinement!

Also, if you can, try to catch and peel a couple medium-sized squirrels during the week: they need to be prepared at least 24 hours in advance, and you do not want to be caught unprepared come Monday.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Recipe Monday: French Edition

To my surprise, last week’s first edition of Recipe Mondays was met with unmitigated success among the blogging crowds. And because we thrive to please our public, here at Dr Dave Logs Inc., I shall do my best at keeping up with the now firmly established tradition of Recipe Mondays!

What? It’s not Monday anymore? Well, I’m sure it’s Monday somewhere else in the world right this moment. Internet time, all that…

By the by, talking about Monday…

Part 1: The Rant

I guess saying I despise Valentine’s Day and its commercial faux-fluffiness would make me sound like some kind of bitter dateless hater, or at the very least like an unromantic grinch who can’t enjoy an honest-to-goodness holiday when he’s handed one on a heart-shaped silver platter.

First let me clear that out: if I didn’t thoroughly enjoy being single on Valentine’s Day, then why on Earth would I manage to break up every single year without fail just a few days before it. Surely there must be some sort of subconscious fear that, come that fateful day, any lingering relationship, would require me to attend some kind of official Valentine’s celebration, likely out of common decency and possibly at gunpoint.

In fact, I don’t really hate Valentine’s that much. I am not this person who spend their day hissing at whatever looks like a mating attempt between two humans… It’s just that I don’t get it. I don’t get what’s so “romantic” about buying cheap industrial crap and/or overpriced luxury items as the yearly token of your undying love. If anything, it just goes to show that sexism hasn’t made much of a significant progress ever since the dark ages, except you no longer pay your bride’s father with a herd of goats, but give the payment to your loved one directly, and preferably in expensive shiny stones.

But truth be told, I don’t really care, one way or the other, about the materialism of it all (hey, after all, ’tis Japan: over here, I am the one who receives chocolates for Valentine’s). I could live with it, if not for that freaking herd mentality.

Hear me now: I haven’t completely lost touch, I am well aware that any celebration is all about herd mentality.

But take, for example, that exercise in futility that is Superbowl Sunday: We all know Superbowl Sunday has little to do with watching the terminally boring encounter of two dozen gorillas on a green field… it’s all a very blatant excuse to get absolutely shitfaced with your friends on a Sunday afternoon and pass out in bed at 7:30pm. For you and me, it might not sound so exciting, especially seeing how that’s what we do every Sunday to begin with (well, I know that’s what I do anyway), but for some married folks, it does make a difference.

Problem is: while it might add to the fun to wedge yourself between 50 of your fellow beer-swilling football fans at your local watering hole, it adds very little to the romantic frame to be competing against every other couple in the city for mediocre seating at some not-so-great restaurant on Valentine’s Day. You might enjoy a communal atmosphere on your intimate dates, I don’t.

What? A recipe? oh yea… the recipe…

Part 2: The Recipe

What better way to celebrate the Day of Love than by cooking a delicious Yellow Coconut Curry to share with your roommate and your very-much-ex special someone (yea, no hard feeling, at least as long as I cook).

Yellow Coconut Curry is so laughably easy to make that even I hesitated to use it for this week’s recipe. But then I remembered that if you are the kind of person who gets his cooking advice from a website that usually draws people searching for “japanese upskirt pictures” (according to Google), you are not looking into becoming the chef at Pierre Gagnaire’s (well, might have to get rid of Mr. Pierre Gagnaire, to begin with). Talk about the paraplegic leading the blinds…

Okay, ready?

The only ingredients you really need for the Yellow Coconut Curry are yellow curry paste and, brace yourself, coconut milk!
That’s it, really. Oh, and potatoes too, but you’ll find potatoes aplenty and on the cheap in every single part of the world, except maybe if you live in Ireland and it’s the mid 1840′s. Otherwise, you are pretty much set. All other ingredients are optional and can be combined in an infinity of different ways, kind of a Make your own recipe thing, if you will:

1. The Potatoes: we need a lot of potatoes, and we need them naked preferably. For those who really have no clue about that whole cooking stuff, allow me to give you a little tip that was imparted to me over the 15 year apprenticeship I spent at Shaolin’s School of Cooking in my youth:
   • Throw the potatoes, with their skin still on but with the dirt off (we don’t wanna make a mud bath), in a pot of boiling water.
   • Let it boil for a while (15-20 minutes minimum) until it nearly reaches “mashed potato-ready” consistence.
   • At which point, with a mere touch of your hand on four points located at the vital centers of the potato (see figure 1.a and 1.b), the skin will fall all by itself and the potato be vanquished.
   • Failing that, using any knife, or even your finger, ought to do the trick as well
   • Don’t forget to rinse the potatoes in cold water before you do that. And put some ice on that burn, it looks painful.
   • If you are in a real hurry and have no concern over exposing your potatoes to serious brain cancer risks, a few minutes in a microwave, followed by the aforementioned boiling process, will speed things up
2. While the potatoes are boiling, it’s time to pick your other ingredients and prepare them. First, you probably do want onions: cut and peel a few. Actually, peel then cut: it’s much easier that way.
3. Next, pick your protein: healthy fried tofu or possibly avian-flu infected chicken. If no chicken is available, any small rodent or household pet (cat, small dog, peacock…), skin and bones carefully removed, will do as well. If you go for the meat option, cut in small pieces and fry in a pan (or whatever you got), with two craploads of olive oil or 1.2 crapload of butter (see previous edition for measurement conversion to metric system). Skip that step for tofu (it should already be fried).
4. Either way, throw the onion in the pan (with or without chicken) and fry for a while.
5. Time to get out the cauldron: pick the special missionary-size (must fit at least one whole missionary with limbs removed if necessary) and pour coconut milk up to about an inch from the bottom. Add and mix in a few generous spoonful of yellow curry, cook on medium-high fire for about 10 minutes while stirring regularly
6. During that time, prepare whatever other veggies you feel like using. Carots work (boil them with the potatoes), green, red or yellow peppers work too. Tomatoes (only one or two) … Whatever’s left in your cupbard, as usual.
7. Time to throw everything in the big pot: more coconut milk (you probably need 1 liter total for a 3-4 person curry), potatoes, other optional veggies (carrots, peppers, tomatoes…), onions and chicken or tofu.
8. Did I mention you were to cut/slice/whatever everything before throwing it in the pot? Well, I hope you did
9. Roll a twelve-sided dice:
   • 1 to 3: add unsalted peanuts
   • 4 to 8: go for pineapple (sliced and cut in pieces, need I precise).
   • 9 to 12: skip your turn and lose 3 points of mana with a Cooking of Hell spell.
10. Congratulations: You are done!
11. Nearly
12. Basically, it’s all cooking now. Once all the ingredients are into the pot, lower the gaz and stir regularly. The correct temperature should make the curry simmer ever so slightly (we are not going for witch’s brew boiling of hell here). As for the duration: just between you and me, it’s impossible to overcook a curry… The longer the better… Let’s say at least 30 minutes, perhaps a bit more. You want the final texture to be a bit creamy.
13. A dozen minutes before the end of the cooking phase, you can add some more yellow curry, depending on your taste. If you like your curries spicy, you can also add a speck of red curry paste, but don’t overdo it: you want to keep the sweet and tangy flavor of the yellow curry. Cilandro and dill if you like the herb.
14. Serve with rice and loads of red wine.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Recipe Monday: Valentine’s Special

Ok, don’t look in the archives, the Recipe Monday series is not yet an established tradition, merely the first instalment of a tentative culinary concept. And if experience is any indicator, it probably won’t even make it to the second episode, since I’ll likely have all but forgotten about it by then, or found a new cooler concept to toy with.

But as for today, we have decided, here at Dr Dave Logs Inc., to cave in to the increasing pressure of the domestic housewife portion of our readership, who accounts for a hefty 3% of total search referrers to this log. The remaining 97% equally split between those who came looking for “people who dislike la nouvelle vague” (you got that right fellow: enough with the snubby French bastards already), “18 year old lesbian milfs” (mmmn, somebody doesn’t have the concept of milf completely down or need to get out of Kentucky) and, of course, the perennial “japanese schoolgirl panties” (oops, I did it again… sorry fellow Google users: we ain’t got none here, but I hear they do).

Oh yea, the recipe?

Today, we are making Mango Chutney Curry Chicken Salad, otherwise knows as MC³S in serious cooking circles.

MC³S is a deadly weapon: it is as ridiculously easy to make as impressive sounding. In our lab results, Eriko gave it a rating of すごい美味しい (sugoi oishii), which, in the Japanese scale, stands just below “so good I think I just had an orgasm” and somewhat above “projectile-vomiting inducing”.

Ready? Let’s cooking!

1. Take your chicken and cut it in bite-sized portions (if the chicken’s not dead yet, you might want to slam him a few times against the kitchen’s hard-top counter before proceeding).
2. Place your chicken bits in a skillet, along with a crapload of extra virgin olive oil (for those of you on the metric system: a crapload is approximately 1.4 shitload) over a strong fire. Bonus points if you can get the oil to catch on fire, thus giving that very yummy charbroiled flavor. Extra Bonus points if you can put out the fire before the whole kitchen goes down with it.
3. When the chicken is about half ready, lower the temperature and sprinkle with a bit of red curry paste mixed in with a few drops of water. Stir the whole thing energetically for a while (don’t let the curry burn) and put the chicken aside when your arm starts feeling sore.
4. Deglaze with white wine (Brandy, or most other sweet alcohol, should work too, but I would avoid Jägermeister), pour in a few generous spoonfuls of mango chutney while resisting the temptation to eat it directly out of the jar. At this step, feel free to add to the sauce any items lingering in your cupboard that stands reasonable chances not to kill any guests or affect the taste in an excessively negative way. Fresh mangoes or celery can be nice, although definitely not required.
5. While the sauce is cooling a bit, throw together some mixed greens, green onions and maybe one or two of these neat little Japanese cucumbers (cucumbers are notably smaller here, yet as tasty as their westerner counterpart. No, this is not a veiled reference to anything else, you sick mind). Did I mention the washing and chopping parts with the aforementioned ingredients? Too late? Ha, that’ll teach you for next time. Cilandro and/or sweet basil optional.
6. Mix together chicken, mango stuff and a few spoonfuls of mayonaise. If your personal cooking motto is “the more ingredients, the better”, feel free to throw in a bit of yoghurt too (just make sure you do not pick the strawberry or kiwi-flavored kind).
7. Put the chicken (once again, this is your last chance to insure the beast is definitely dead by now) in the salad, toss the whole thing, add as much salt and pepper as it takes to hide any carbonized aftertaste.
8. Serve with rice or Beluga Caviar, depending on the standing of your dinner.

A few notes…

1. For our heterosexual football-playing readers without a dictionary out there, deglazing is just a fancy term for rinsing the skillet with wine or other and scraping the bits of food off the bottom so as to incorporate them to your sauce.
2. While the above recipe has been a staple of traditional Indian food for centuries now, one new ingredient was directly incorporated from the rich Japanese culinary tradition. Will you guess which one? Hint: it’s not corn.
3. If you try this at home, my lawyer insists that, under no circumstances can I be held accountable for any damages sustained by your health, living space or relationship as a result. But feel free to send me praises or suggestions (no hospital bills thanks).

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Recipe Monday