memories

Just Hungry 4th anniversary book giveaway: Hungry Planet

maki — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:36:39 +0100

[Update: The book winner has already been determined, but I’ve opened up the comments again in case anyone else would like the share their own food memories.]

Thursday the 29th of November will mark the 4th anniversary of Just Hungry. 4 years - I can’t believe it’s been going that long. It’s all because of you, the people who come here to read and comment, and give me and the people who help me out on this site (thank you, my elves) so much encouragement.

Thank you!

To commemorate this anniversary, we’re giving away a copy of one of my favorite books related to food of all time - Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio.

I reviewed this in depth 2 years ago, and it’s still one of my favorite books of all time. It would make a perfect Christmas present, for a loved one or for yourself!

In the spirit of the book as well as of Just Hungry, if you’d like a chance to get your own copy, leave a comment to this post with your favorite food-related memory. If you have a blog and would rather write it there, please post the link to the blog post in the comments (you can’t do trackback pings I’m afraid, since that’s become the tool of spammers).

So here are the rules…

Your story must be posted or linked to here by 23:59 Central European Time on Friday, November 30th. Please leave your email in the appropriate field (don’t worry, all email addresses are spam-proofed) so we can contact you.
The book will be shipped to you directly from an Amazon store near you, so please make sure you live in a country where Amazon ships. (I don’t know of many countries where they don’t, but you never know.)

Incidentally, the book has been translated into German and Japanese, and if you prefer your copy in one of those languages, that’s fine too. Just Hungry is an international site!

The elves and I will pick our favorite food related story and announce the winner next Monday, December 5th.

I can’t wait to read your stories!

Onigiri in the movies: Kamome Diner and Supermarket Woman

maki — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:37:22 +0100

Whenever I am feeling blue, one of the foods that I crave is onigiri. You could just chalk that up to the fact that it’s mostly rice = carbs and I’m just craving a carb fix. But it really goes beyond that. It’s tied to memories of my aunts making row upon row of perfectly shaped onigiri for a family gathering, and the salty tinge on my lips from the giant onigiri my mother made for me for a school outing.

Two of the most popular articles here on Just Hungry are the ones about onigiri. It’s great to see so many people from around the world enjoying this quintessential Japanese comfort food.

There are two very interesting Japanese movies where onigiri play a starring role, in quite different ways; Kamome Diner (Kamome Shokudoh) and Supermarket Woman (Suupaa no Onna). Although neither seems to be available on DVD in English speaking countries yet, I thought I’d talk about them a bit.

Suupaa no Onna: Anatomy of a Japanese grocery store

The first is a comedy from 1996, Suupaa no Onna (Supermarket Woman). It’s directed by Juzo Itami, better known as the director of the ‘noodle Western’ classic Tampopo, and as with most of his movies stars his wife, Nobuko Miyamoto. Miyamoto plays Hanako, a 40- or widowed woman who wanders into a run down small suupaa, a local supermarket, which happens to be run by her childhood friend Goro, a widower played by Masahiko Tsugawa. The suupaa is called Sho-jiki Ya, (“Honest Goro” in the English subtitles). Sho-jiki ya is teetering in the edge of failure because a brash competitor called Yasuuri Daimaoh (“Bargains Galore” in the subtitles). Hanako, who keeps insisting she’s “just a housewife with a housewife’s wisdom”, is a supermarket expert with a sharp eye and strong opinions about how a supermarket should be run. In short order she’s hired by Goro, first as the head cashier, then as the assistant manager of Sho-jiki Ya. Together with Goro, she must fight the corrupt figures behind Yasuuri Daimaoh to prevent Sho-jikiya from going under.

One of the store sections that Hanako attempts to improve is the osouzai deparment. Osouzai means ready-made meal items, and busy people in Japan rely on these to round out or even make up a whole meal. A popular osouzai product is of course, onigiri. Hanako discovers that the onigir sold at Shoujiki-ya are under-par, using inferior fillings, and convinces everyone involved that that is just not right. At first the onigiri supplier is reluctant to spend more to improve the onigiri, but once he sees how happy the better tasting onigiri makes the housewife-taste testers, he is overcome by the joy of making his customers happy.

Suupaa no Onna is part of the “Fighting Women” series of movies that Juzo Itami made in the ’80s and ’90s, such as Marusa no Onna (A Taxing Woman) and Minbo no Onna (known among other titles as The Anti-Extortion Woman). Like those movies, the general theme is that of the fiesty, honest heroine who has the courage to stand up against a corrupt establishment. While the other titles in the series have been released on DVD in the U.S. and elsewhere, Suupaa no… never really made it outside of Japan. It’s a shame, since it’s a lot of fun even if it didn’t feature food as a main character. For food lovers, it’s a fascinating if broad (and now somewhat outdated) view of Japanese grocery shopping, from the store’s point of view and the buyer’s point of view - the buyers in this case being the all-mighty, no-nonsense Japanese housewife. It may not be as profound as Tampopo or have as much universal appeal, but for anyone interested in Japanese culture or food or even supermarkets, I highly recommend it. (See notes at the end for some more.)

Kamome Shokudoh: Japanese soul food in Helsinki

Made 10 years after Suupaa no Onna in 2006, Kamome Shokudo (Kamome Diner) a very different movie. It’s the story of a woman called Sachie, played by Hairi Katagiri, who opens a small Japanese restaurant/cafe in Helsinki, Finland. At first people just look curiously in the windows, but don’t go in. Then one day a young Japan otaku teenager wanders in…

For Sachie, onigiri are “Japanese soul food”. She is convinced that she can make Finnish people love her Japanese soul food, because she reasons that “a country with such a sense of humor and a relaxed view of life must appreciate good food”. At one point, worried about the lack of customers, she and another Japanese woman who somehow wanders into the restaurant and ends up staying on as a waitress test out some alternative fillings that they think may appeal more to Finnish people, like reindeer meat, crayfish and pickled herring. The taste tests fail though, and Sachie reaffirms her conviction that the “traditional fillings” of ume, shake, okaka (umeboshi, salted salmon, bonito flakes moistened with soy sauce), are the best. While the subject of alternative fillings for onigiri does crop up from time to time, I have to say I tend to agree with Sachie here! Sachie’s goal is to for her Finnish customers to appreciate real Japanese soul food.

Kamome Shokudoh is a gentle, rather fairytale-like movie, with touches of magical realism. Nothing much really happens, but the main characters still go through some profound changes. I don’t want to give away too many plot details since there are so few really. A lot of people won’t enjoy it for that reason. I loved it however. It’s not as obvious a look at Japanese culture as Suupaa no Onna is, but it does show a certain very Japanese view of life. It also has lots of great shots of typical Japanese homestyle dishes, and the Scandinavian interiors are gorgeous.

Notes about Suupaa no Onna

Goro and Hanako are used as generic names for girls and boys, sort of like Jack and Jill or Dick and Jane in English.
Tampopo fans may remember Masahiko Tsugawa, who plays Goro, as the convenience store manager who has a frantic cat-and-mouse chase around his store with the old lady who likes to squeeze the produce.)
The direct translation of Sho-jiki Ya is Honest Store. Yasuuri Daimaoh is Bargain Devil (a Daimaoh is a sort of spirit, that can be but isn’t always evil).
As far as I know Suupaa no Onna is only available as a Japanese release. It does have pretty good English subtitles. Amazon Japan link.

Notes about Kamome Shokudoh

Why does Sachie, not to mention the other Japanese women in the movie, end up in Finland? Why does the story even take place in Finland? The answer in a nutshell is Moomin. Moomin is tremendously popular in Japan; Moomin books are perpetual bestsellers, and many a young girl daydreams about ‘going to Moomin land’. By extension, Finland, the land of Moomin, is seen in quite a romantic light. Now since I haven’t read Moomin since…ah, I’m actually not sure if I ever read Moomin…I can’t say I understand the appeal but there it is. (Moomin fandom in Japan is oddly similar to Anne of Green Gables fandom.)
This movie was released in Finland under the title Ruokala Lokki. (It could be available in Finland on DVD, but since I don’t read any Finnish I can’t find out.)
This one is also only available as a Japanese release. It does have English subs. (I’ve seen cheap versions on eBay but I’m skeptical about the legality of those.) Amazon Japan link.

Bittersweet Valentine memories, mostly sweet

maki — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 09:45:10 +0100

Happy Valentine’s Day! February the 14th may mean flowers, a romantic dinner, or promises you don’t intend to keep for other people, but to me it will always the Day Of Chocolate.

Valentine’s Day is a very odd and overly commercialized day in Japan, where the giving and receiving of chocolate doesn’t have that much to do with romance. Females are made to feel obligated to hand out chocolates to people they don’t care about, such as teachers and bosses, while males anxiously wait to see if they get ‘enough’ chocolates to satisfy their egos. There are whole lines of inexpensive chocolate products suitable for giving, called giri choco (obligation chocolate). Unlike in the Western world, it’s not a day for men to give something to their female love interests. (March 14th, called “White Day”, has been sort of artificially designated as the males-give-back-to-females day.)

Still, some people do retain some of the romantic intent of Valentine’s, especially younger women and girls. Telling a boy you like him is difficult in any society, but it’s really pretty hard in a society where being open with your feelings is not traditionally encouraged. The inability to tell that special boy/girl about ones feelings for him/her forms the crux of a lot of the plots of shoujo manga, manga for girls. Telling someone about your feelings is a huge deal, called kokuhaku, a word that also means to confess (as in confess to a crime). Valentine’s Day is supposed to be one day when a girl can safely kokuhaku her feelings, acccompanied by a beaitufully wrapped, non-obligation chocolate.

I braved a chocolate-sweetened kokuhaku twice. Once when I was 14, to the boy that both my best friend and I had a big crush on for a year; then later in senior high school, when I was 16. Neither kokuhaku lead to anything, sadly, but I still remember the nervous anticipation of choosing the chocolate, and the thrill and fear of giving it. (Both times the wrapped chocolate was placed in the boy’s shoebox ( getabako), the traditional postbox at any Japanese school.)

Both of those boys are now probably married with kids somewhere in Japan. I don’t even remember their names anymore…isn’t it weird how we forget?

For an exaggerated yet sometimes very realistic view of high school romance a la Japan, His and Her Circumstances, aka KareKano, is a very popular manga series that is available in English. There was also a short lived anime series, though the story of that ends rather abruptly around volume 6 or 7 of the original manga. And, if you’re out to impress your sweetie with something handmade and chocolate, check out the posts tagged chocolate here.

(* Bonus question: What movie did the line “flowers, chocolate, promises you don’t intend to keep” come from?)

Memories of New Year's feasts in Japan

maki — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:31:14 +0100

I love Christmas celebrations, and Thanksgiving when I'm in the U.S., but the holiday that has the most memories for me is New Years. This is the biggest holiday celebrated in Japan.

When I was a kid (when we lived in Japan and not elsewhere) we went to my grandparents' house every year. All of the relatives on my mother's side gathered there. Since my mother has 5 siblings, all of them plus their spouses and children made for quite a large party. Usually at least half of them would stay over for a night or two, and the futons would be lined up from edge to edge over a huge expanse of tatami mats, over three rooms with the shoji screens opened up. Besides the family there were all the neighors, employees of my grandfather and uncle, and other visitors who dropped by.

For this crowd, my aunt, who was in charge of the kitchen, had to prepare huge amounts of food. She wasn't into prettiness, but somehow managed to keep everyone overfull with her abundance. She would spend hours preparing everything before New Years day - vats of kobumaki (konbu seaweed wrapped around dried anchovies and cooked in a broth), nimono (sort of a generic term for stewed/braised vegetables and some sort of meat, usually chicken, or tofu), and so on. Ostensibly all the New Year's traditional foods are prepared in advance to allow the cook or housewife to rest during the first few days of the New Year, but it means a lot of preparations beforehand.

One New Year's tradition that my aunt has even kept up to this day, is to make some mochi with my uncle, in a real wooden hisu. He would wield the tsuki (the heavy wooden pounder), while she should rapidly turn the pounded rice mass. I was always amazed at how perfect their rhythm was. If he'd slipped and brought down the pounder too fast, he would have crushed her hands, but it never happened.

Mochi is a very glutinous, sticky sort of dough made by pounding steamed short-grain rice (mochi mai). Nowadays barely anyone makes their own mochi, and if they do they use an electric mochi machine that turns and pounds and kneads the rice. (A bit of trivia: the inventor of the original bread machine got the idea from seeing how a mochi machine operated.) Most people however just buy dried cakes of mochi. Mochi is eaten year round, but is most popular for New Years where it's made into zoh-ni. Basically, a cake of fresh or grilled mochi is stewed briefly in a clear dashi stock based soup with other ingredients. The ingredients vary widely depending on what part of the country you come from. Since we lived in the Kanto region, we had the rather boring combination of chicken pieces and komatsuna (mustard greens), though I always thought it was delicious.

Mochi was traditionally consumed during the New Year period for various reasons: partly for luck, and partly so that the cook or housewife didn't have to make rice during that time. Besides the mochi that's eaten in soups and such, stacked rounds of mochi, called kagami mochi (mirror mochi), is displayed in front of the family kamidana (shrine). This is usually left for weeks after the New Year, until it's rock hard, then broken up with a hammer. Both my aunt and my mother used to break it up into small bits then deep fry the bits for a delicious kind of rice cracker.

Other New Year's foods are also full of significance. Various bean dishes are served, such as stewed kuromame (black beans). Beans are meant to be for fertility, as is tazukuri, small dried fish coated in sticky sweet caramel. Colors are important too: kinton, a dish of pureed sweet potatoes with sugar syrup and beans or chestnuts, is colored a bright yellow with the seeds of the nadeshiko flower, and supposed to invoke gold, signifying prosperity. Namasu, a sort of sweet-sour instant pickle made with daikon radish or turnips, has a bright red added to it in the form of carrots or hot red chili peppers. Red and white together is considered lucky and festive. And so on. These foods were served in beautiful stacked lacqured bento boxes called juubako.

The irony is, that these traditional New Year's foods are not that well suited to the modern palate in Japan, and so they are consumed less and less. Gone are the days when people ate kinton and kobumaki and zoh-ni until January 7th, the end of the New Year's period. Nowadays, popular New Year's foods are things like sliced cold roast beef and chirashi-zushi (sashimi and other things on a mound of sushi rice), hardly full of significance of any sort. Still, some people do at least have small amounts of the traditional foods, perhaps in a one-layer juubako.

I myself don't like the traditional foods enough to go to the extra effort of trying to make them here. Still, I will make perhaps some kinton and some zoh-ni on New Year's day, just to bring back some memories.

(Three years ago, I wrote about the New Year's Eve food tradition: Toshikoshi soba.)

Omuraisu (aka omurice or omu rice, Japanese rice omelette)

maki — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 19:11:45 +0200

In Japan, department store restaurants and kid-friendly "family restaurants" always have a children's set menu, called okosama ranchi. In my day this was unvaryingly the same wherever you went. It was usually a tiny hamburger, fried croquettes or similar child-friendly entrée, a small, moulded round of some kind of fried rice or pirafu (which was really still fried rice, but using butter and ketchup instead of oil and soy sauce) with a little paper Japanese flag on top, and maybe a tiny mound of some sort of vegetable, like boiled carrots. Or it was an omuraisu (omu rice). Omu rice, or rice omelette, is an example of yohshoku, Japanese food that originated in the west but has been changed around to suit the Japanese palette. It's an omelette stuffed with that same pirafu or chikin raisu (chicken rice), and topped with a dollop of red ketchup.

Going to the department store restaurant was a big treat for me. In all of my memories of eating at a department store restaurant, my oba-chan - grandmother - is there. In retrospect, as a young mother with two small children and a husband sent away by his company to England, my mother probably didn't have the budget or the time to treat us to restaurant lunches. So my grandmother made sure we had those treats whenever she visited.

I don't have many memories of my grandparents, because I only knew them for a few years of my childhood. I spent my growing up years moving around in Japan, England and the U.S., moving wherever my father's company sent him. My grandmother, my mother's mother, was never a very healthy woman. She had had 6 children, which was not an unusual number at the time, but by the time she had her first grandchild (me), she had already suffered her first minor stroke. She suffered from several strokes after that, and died in her early 60s, while I was in my teens.

I never knew my grandmother to wear anything other than a kimono. My other grandmother, my father's mother, wore dresses most of the time, but not my mother's mother. She was quite a traditional woman in that sense. She was quite strict, and had a rather severe face that rarely smiled (again thinking back, this was probably because her strokes had partially paralyzed her face), and I was a little afraid of her. But she was very proud of her grandchildren.

Here I am aged 3, at my shichigosan ceremony with my grandmother.

I never remember my grandmother cooking for us, except for her prized umeboshi - my aunt had taken over the household duties at the honke (the main house of the clan) by then. So when I think of oba-chan and food, I think of those oh-so-salty homemade umeboshi, and of okosama ranchi and omu raisu. The comforting combination of softly cooked omelette with sweet ketchup-flavored rice containing tiny bits of chicken, takes me back to my four year old self, gazing wide-eyed at the plastic food displays at the restaurant. I would glance up to oba-chan's face to see if I could order that beautiful yellow omuraisu - and maybe, just maybe, a chocolate parfait afterwards? Her answer was always yes.

Omraisu or omu rice (Japanese rice omelette)

1 cup cooked white or brown rice
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup chicken breast or boiled ham, cut into small pieces
butter
ketchup in a squeeze bottle
2 large eggs (organic preferred)
salt and pepper

Equipment needed: one large sauté pan, 1 20cm/8-inch nonstick or cast iron frying pan

Sauté the chopped onion until transparent in butter. Add the chicken or ham and sauté until done. Add the rice and toss until heated through. Add about 2 Tbs. of ketchup and toss rapidly - you just want to color and flavor the rice, not make it soggy. Season with a little salt and pepper. Mound the rice on a plate in a sort of omelette shape.

Start heating a knob of butter in the frying pan until the butter stops bubbling. In the meantime, crack the eggs into a bowl, add a little salt and pepper and whisk with a fork. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and make an omelette that is still slightly runny in the middle.

As soon as it's done, carefully turn the omelette onto the mounded rice. Optionally cut it carefully down the middle, so that the egg runs a bit over the rice.

Squirt with a little ketchup on top. Serve immediately, perhaps with a small green salad on the side.

Notes:

A lot of people put the rice in the omelette while it's still in the pan and fold it over, but that tends to result in a too-thin and overcooked omelette. I prefer the mounding on top method.
For the best example on film of how to make an omuraisu, watch the movie masterpiece about food by Juzo Itami, Tampopo.
Robyn (the girl who ate everything) recently had omuraisu in New York and posted about it.

Technorati Tags: egg, japanese, omu rice, omuraisu, omurice

Cultural heritage in your tummy

maki — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 08:29:36 +0100

Most of the time I think we just go along without thinking much about such big themes as Our Cultural Heritage. But these days I've been contemplating more and more on this. One reason for this has been the movie Lost in Translation. For various reasons, this movie has brought up a lot of debate and thinking about what it is to be Japanese. (Some of the conversations about the movie are on my other blog.)

One way that we experience our own heritage, or other cultures, is through the food we eat. For foodies, this is obvious, but for non-foodies I think this very important aspect of our lives is overlooked. Having lived for most of my adult life (and much of my childhood) outside of Japan, one of the ways in which I hold on to my Japanese heritage is through food. When I eat something so very-Japanese like natto, I'm not only eating it because I want to, but the whole experience reminds me of times in the past. It reminds me of the homemade natto my grandmother used to make (wrapping the beans in rice straw to ferment it). When I make tempura, it reminds me of the ones my mother made, or the huge mounds of vegetable tempura that my aunt would make for family gatherings. When I make miso soup, the smell of it reminds me of the past, in a good way.

It's not just Japanese food though. Having lived in New York for many years, I feel fits of nostalgia for things like bagels and pizza and hotdogs. So, when I bake bagels, it reminds me of those monster bagels I used to get from Ess-a-Bagel. I have yet to duplicate a real good New York style pizza, though I've come close. As for hotdogs...well, whenever I am in New York I have to make at least one trip to Papaya King on 86th and 3rd for their "better than filet mignon" hotdog with a cup of papaya or mango juice.

If I look at what I eat though, it's a mishmash, as I am sure it is for most people. This past week or two for instance, we've had spaghetti a couple of different ways, a mushroom risotto, chili con carne, a chinese meal featuring sweet and sour pork, a Japanese-style and Indian-style curry (on two different nights of course), and cornbread. For lunch we often had the typically Swiss combination of crusty bread and cheese. We cooked and ate that all without much thought for cultural heritage, but what we eat reflects where we've been, and who we are.

How does the food you eat reflect who you are?

Travelling food memories

maki — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 15:34:44 +0100

The window of a boulanger (bakery) in Beaune, France

A Dutch friend of mine asked me today, "What were your impressions of the food in the Netherlands?" I had to think a bit, especially since I've only visited there twice, briefly, and only Amsterdam both times. It also got me thinking about all the good, and bad, memorable moments I've had relating to food while travelling. Here are a few...though no Dutch food memories, I'm afraid. (I have a feeling this may be part 1 of many posts on this topic.)

Real fois gras, from Antoine Westermann's boutique in Strasbourg, France. Let's start at the extravagant top. Antoine Westermann is the owner of the Michelin 3-star Restaurant Buerehiesel. I've already said a number of times how much I love the Beurehiesel... He also has a small gourmet food store, La Boutique Antoine Westermann, which is a must-go for anyone visiting the beautiful city of Strasbourg (it's very close to the Cathedral, at 1, rue des Orfévres). One of the items sold there is a whole, fresh vacuum-packed fois gras (They also have one that is preserved in fat, in a pretty glass jar, which would be easier to transport long distances.) Prior to this, the only encounters I'd had with fois gras were in restaurants, and I never really thought much of it. "Ah it's just high-class chicken liver paté" was my general impression. Well was I ever wrong! When we cut into the fresh fois gras, and took a tiny sliver of it each, we looked at each other in amazement. It just melted like smooth, airy butter, with that hint of savory liver flavor. Pure heaven.

Ripe tomatoes in Firenze (Florence). I was alone in Firenze, in the middle of a 3-month backpacking trek around Europe. I was tired, so tired, because I'd spent the last 24 hours caught up in a train mess because of an impromptu mini-strike by the Italian Rail workers. I limped into Firenze, arriving a day earlier than my hotel reservation, though luckily they had room anyway. I sat in my hotel room, feeling too exhausted and anti-social to think of going to a restaurant, yet very hungry too. And the small, clean yet plain hotel had no room service. I strolled out in search of food, and ran into a small local market, The huge mounds of fresh tomatoes caught my eye. Somehow I managed to buy a bagful. I carried the tomatoes back to my room, and ate them all. They were so deliciously juicy and sweet, and so aromatic, they satisfied my hunger and calmed my nerves too.

The only unfortunate thing is that ever since then, no other tomatoes seem to quite live up to the memory of those, although the few really ripe tomatoes I manage to produce in my cool-summer garden come close.

Bombay potatoes in England. I lived in England for 5 years, between the ages of 5 and 10. My parents liked to go out to about 3 or 4 restaurants fairly regularly (unlike many other parents, they always took us kids when they went out for dinner, even to fancy restaurants, which may account for why all 3 of us grew up to be dedicated foodies.) One of the restaurants they liked to go to was an Indian place. I liked to challenge myself food-wise even when I was 8 or 9, so one day I decided to try the Bombay Potatoes that my father liked to order. I remember my father asking me if I was sure I wanted to try it. "It's very very spicy" he warned. I did.

A couple of mouthfuls later, I was crying and drinking cups and cups of water as fast as I could. My mother tsked me and my father chuckled, and my younger sister was almost rolling on the floor with laughter. Well, now my tolerence for spicy food is a bit higher. :)

Bed and breakfast fry-up in the Lake District. While we were living in England, we took an annual holiday. One of those was a driving holiday in the north of England and Scotland, staying at bed and breakfasts. Unfortunately, for the England portion of the trip the weather was miserable most of the time. I got a cold and was car sick most of the time.

When we arrived at one bed and breakfast, we got a rather frosty reception. I think we were their very first Asian family. My father asked if coffee or tea was available, and they said no quite firmly. They provided bed and breakfast, and that was it.

The next morning though, we woke up to the delicious smells of breakfast. I had gotten over my car sickness, and was quite hungry. The breakfast was a traditional English fry-up, with all the works - two eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, and tomato halves. There was milk tea and toast. Ever since then I've had a fondness for the classic fry-up, even though it is mighty unhealthy.

Onaka in Stockholm. I was alone again in Stockholm, trudging around rather grimly to see everything I wanted to despite having a badly swollen knee, from having twisted it a few days earlier. I wandered around a supermarket (I always go to a supermarket whenever I travel), and found something that I thought was milk The package said "Onaka", and had a big red circle, like the Japanese flag, on it. Onaka means "tummy" in Japanese. I knew I had a refrigerator/minibar in the hotel room (I had a 50% off summer rate at a business hotel) so I carried the milk around in my daypack (child of big, heavy, monster backpack) until my knee finally said enough.

I limped back to the hotel, and put the Onaka in the refrigerator and went to sleep. The next morning, I took out the Onaka and tried to pour it into a glass. Nothing came out. I look inside. The white stuff inside was rather solid, not liquid. I shook out a bit of the contents. It was yoghurt. For a moment I thought that I'd somehow managed to turn a carton of milk into yoghurt by carrying it around on my back. A careful inspection of the package yielded no word that looked like yoghurt, but there I was stuck with a 1 liter pack of plain yoghurt. I got a pack of Muesli-type of thing at the supermarket and a couple of apples, and had the yoghurt mixed with the other stuff for breakfast, dinner, and breakfast the next day too.

Belgian waffles and a pissing statue in Luxembourg. My friend took me to a summer carnival in Luxembourg. It was a typical rather rowdy summer fairground, with lots of loud rides, booths selling all kind of things you probably never needed (I particularly remember one woman demonstrating one of those plastic food cutter things, rapidly shredding cabbage and slicing cucumbers, all the time with a cigarette butt hanging out of the corner of her mouth.) We got rather hungry after some fun times spent in haunted houses and on merry-go-rounds, so we stopped at a booth that was selling freshly-made Belgian waffles. In the middle of the booth was a replica of the Mannekin Pis. The Mannekin Pis is the rather unfortunate symbol of Brussels (it is a bronze statue of a little boy, and yes it does urinate. There is also a Jennekin Pis if you care to look for it.) We were munching our delicious, cream and stewed-strawberries laden waffles, when the Mannekin Pis replica started to move. It rose up from its base, and started to spurt water at the unsuspecting customers while rotating. It slightly lessened our appetites (we were almost choking with laughter).