Food!!!!

So I have an obsession with cooking- I'm just going to come right on out and say it! Fortunately for me, my okasan loves to cook as well. She also loves to learn how to cook. We have exchanged several recipes so far. I have shown her how to cook eggplant parmesan, geniune American pizza, biscuits, and chocolate chip cookies and mexican are on the agenda ;). In exchange, she has shown me how to make Yakisoba, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, koroke, (see the 'yaki' trend here?) miso soup, don, soba, fluff cake, mochi dipped in kinako, etc, etc, etc. I will have a LOT of good recipes to bring back and share- whever wants them! The name of the game in Japan is healthy and sugar free, but delicious. I think this year's new year cook-off should be internationally themed... I'm just saying...




It's interesting because Japanese people eat A LOT. They eat whenever they have a whim or feel like they might possibly get hungry in an hour or so. Cooking shows are a number one hit here. I have heard a theory that the Japanese are so obsessed with food because there was a time in their not so distant past (Post WWII) where the average caloric intake per person was about 1300 calories a day. Now, most people do not suffer from being underfed, almost none do, actually. However, there is still a cultural memory of being hungry that transformed into a passion for cooking and eating, and I don't mind that at all :).

Another thing that was surprising to me was that my okasan had never cooked a day in her life until the day she married otosan. And this is normal- mothers do not hand down recipes or teach their daughters to cook- they do it themselves and they all become quite good at it because it is essentially the only job they are allowed to have once children are born into the family. That's another topic for another day. Needless to say, my parents were shocked that I knew how to cook at such a young age, and without a husband, none-the-less!

Ok enough theory of food- let's look at the food!







And of course, one can never get sick of the apple-eating family chihuahua, extraordinaire; Chiro.




Well this is all for now- Osaka Peace museum tomorrow!

-Sarah