Oh it has been crazy busy since arriving in Japan!  In the best way of course.  Yu planned a welcome-back trip– 5 of us went to Nagano and soaked in hot springs while it snowed outside.  We also did a bit of guitaring and singing and bowling and shopping.

We came back and I stayed with Yu at her apartment until mine was ready to move in.  I moved in yesterday.  The apartment has a loft and it is across the street from an Indonesian restaurant and it is by 3 music stores!  I will finish decorating soon and then show you!

And, today was the first day of work!  Everyone I met was so amazing, I can’t wait to tell you about some of their projects.  It feels so so wonderful to be paid to work on this frivolous dream project of mine.  It is like being paid to eat an ice cream sundae.  It doesn’t really make sense, but I won’t say no!

Anyway I will write more when I am more coherent and less swamped.  I am really looking forward to this weekend– not because I want the work week to be over with, actually I might keep working on my project anyway or at least conduct “research” by shopping for cloth and dress forms– but because I just want the chance to breathe and stock my fridge with fresh vegetables and dance to bad hip hop while painting and maybe convince some wonderfully disgusting vintage plastic kaiju (my latest obsession) to be my roommates.

xoxo

I got well enough to venture outside today.  My mom and I ate burgers at Toot’s Grocery, a modest but tasty local burger joint.  I’ve always loved the signs on the building that say “Toots”.  I picked up some souvenirs to bring to coworkers and friends in Japan.  I’ve gotten the most favorable reaction in the past to food souvenirs (who doesn’t love trying local delicacies?)  I decided to bring cheese straws, a rich cheesy Southern spritz cookie.  A friend of the family’s makes them downtown and when we went to fetch them, I got to see the spritzing in action.  She’s happy to know that her cheese straws are traveling the world!

Next time I write I will be in Japan!  Goodbye for now!  xoxo

!!!!!!!!  This arrived in my mailbox a few days ago.  It might be the cleverest Valentine I’ve ever seen.  Girl Scout cookies arrived a few days ago too!!

Also, I am sick.  I’m sleeping a lot and chugging down lots of electrolyte drinks.  My favorite in the US is Propel.  They have the least sugar per volume and come in tasty flavors like black cherry and peach mango.  I will defeat this cold before I leave in 2 days!

I went downtown and snapped photos of some of my favorite things.  This pawn shop makes me giggle whenever I see it.  The sign, the charming gorilla family, everything really.  These photos say more about my town than I could ever express in words.

While I was leaving the house my mom yelled out, “I did my duty, I put weight on your bones before sending you back to Japan.  And ALL of it is in your BOTTOM.”  hahaha.  Oh, it is true.  It has been a delicious 6 months at home.

The fair came to our town, yay.  The rides were all sketchy and rusty and creepy and beautiful-looking.

For the Jedi it is time to eat as well. Eat, eat. Hot. Good food, hm? Good, hmm?

*ahem*  My dad took me to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel this morning, aww.  They now have a breakfast casserole on the menu like the one that they discontinued 10 years ago, so I ordered one of those, and plenty of biscuits and gravy, of course.

In other food news I’ve been searching for the perfect sweet/spicy/sour Chinese eggplant recipe.  I still haven’t found it.  I made this and it was OK I guess.  At the beginning I sprinkled the eggplant cubes with salt and soak them in water for 30 minutes to drain out the bitterness.  I’ve tasted the results of not doing this; it is pretty dreadful.  Also I replaced garlic powder with pressed garlic and like, quadrupled the amount, and added a generous helping of green onions.

In my last cooking post I said I was a sloppy cook, but I do recognize and honor cases where detail makes all the difference.  Hard boiling eggs for example.  Now that I’ve learned to make them perfectly by boiling them for exactly 8 minutes and then dunking them in ice water, I’ll never go back to being careless about them.  Gross grey outer yolk, your days are over!  I feel like the eggplant must be a similar case.  I imagine there’s some minute detail that preparers of eggplant do without thinking and so don’t bother to mention in a recipe that keeps the eggplant skin deep purple and keeps the eggplant meat white inside even while the outside is browned in sauce.  You’ve had perfect eggplant; you know what I mean right?

I would be eternally grateful to anyone who can point me to a perfect sour/sweet/spicy eggplant recipe or share their eggplant secrets/tips.  Maybe I’d even bake you Wookie Cookies.