SelfLove365, Year 2, Day 92: Enjoy My Food

I love food. I love to eat.

But wait. Hold on.

How often do I really love my food and how often do I actually enjoy eating?

Very frequently, I turn to food to avoid feeling lonely, or I eat to procrastinate. Those moments of ingestion are typically mindless and without joy. Food provides a temporary fix, and an escape from what I am trying to avoid.

Lawrence Lanoff has said, “Fuck your food”, meaning, as I understand it: enjoy every moment of eating it, really savour every bite, every flavour, every texture. Put as much energy and focus into eating as you do fucking. I tried this the day after hearing it. Putting that much focus into what I ate allowed me to experience the best piece of pizza I’d ever eaten, when in fact, it was a store-bought frozen pizza, that normally I wouldn’t think much of, but when I was “fucking my food”, MAN! Was it ever good! If frozen pizza could be that amazing, just imagine the effect on my body while eating a piece of chocolate with that much intense focus: full-body energetic orgasm! Hell, yeah!

Like most things, I tried this out one day and promptly fell back into my habitual, mindless eating patterns. My intention to slow down and enjoy it is back today, though. I’m going to fuck my food. Well, dessert, at least.

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Japan: The Food! Part Four (Finale)

To see Parts 1, 2, and 3, click here! To read all my posts on Japan, click here.

We continue the food journey of Japan in Kobe, where we once again got lost because of the really lame map in our guide book. We were attempting to find a gyoza (dumplings – that’s all they serve) restaurant, with very little success. This kind man offered to help us, and after calling the restaurant multiple times, and wheeling around in circles for about 10 minutes (hey, even he was lost), we eventually found it. Not really worth the effort, but as good as gyoza can be, I guess. Kind of a dive, though.

JP looks unimpressed.

The real reason for being in Kobe was to try Kobe steak. Oh, yeah, baby. We had a reservation at the restaurant recommended in our book, and made sure to find it ahead of time. It wasn’t too hard to find, but we had about an hour to spare before our reservation, and it was chilly out, so we stopped at the local Victorian-style Starbucks.

Finally, time for dinner.

OMG.

I cannot express just how amazing this meal was. We sat right in front of a grill, watching the chef cook during the whole meal. He was methodical, and precise with every movement. Each little onion ring was flipped individually. Mesmerizing.

Started with a salad and raw scallops.

Then… time for the steak. He only cooked part of it at first, then cooked vegetables, then the remainder of the beef. Perfectly done, melt-in-my-mouth tenderloin steak. It was the best meal of my life. I’ve never had a steak that comes even remotely close to the tenderness, and the amazing flavour of this one. That’s saying a lot because I live in Alberta, home of Alberta beef, which is pretty darn good.

I want to keep talking about this steak, but I really don’t have anything new to add!

So, on to the subway station, where we spotted this gem. From super-delicious to none-to-appetizing (just goes to show how much packaging affects our decisions to buy food!):

That night, JP wanted a little snack, so he went to pick up a banana at the local 7-11. Here’s what he found (there’s no shortage of packaging in Japan):

Finally, to conclude my food posts of Japan, I will end with my birthday dinner at The New York Grill, in Tokyo. This is the restaurant where scenes from “Lost in Translation” were filmed, and easily our most expensive meal ever. It was pretty posh! The food was amazing, and I decided to treat myself with Japanese steak again; it wasn’t Kobe beef, but from a different region of Japan – still freakin’ amazing.

Before dessert, I informed the waiter that it was my birthday, and asked if I could please have some candles with it. I was really pleased that he used two candles: they look like the number “11”, same as my birthday!

I chose the brownie sundae.

Japan: The Food! Part Three

To see Parts 1 and 2, click here! To read all my posts on Japan, click here.

When we were in Osaka, we wanted to eat some of the locally popular okonomiyaki, which are thick, savoury cabbage “pancakes”, filled with meats or seafood, and drizzled with a sweet sauce and mayonnaise. Following our Frommer’s “Japan Day by Day” book, we went looking for a restaurant called Takonotetsu.

Let me just say, that while our guide book is certainly beautiful to look at, with great photos, glossy pages, and fairly decent write-ups, the maps suck. Seriously, they suck. It was really difficult to determine where exactly the dot on the map was supposed to be in real life. There are very few street names on the map, and even if there are some, we couldn’t always find them on the streets. So, we went walking where we thought we would find this restaurant, and walking… and walking…. We finally found someone who had a cell phone and could help us find this place! Once again, people were so helpful! This guy actually went out of his way for at least 10 minutes to walk us to the restaurant.

Yes, that’s right. It took 10 minutes, because that’s how bad the maps are in our book. Argh! So, we get into the building, go downstairs, and the first thing we saw was a little taste of home, in a weird way:

Then a few more paces and our helpful guide informed us that we had a arrived. The restaurant he had brought us to was named, “Pizza Ball House.” Um, ok, thanks. Remember, we were looking for “Takonotetsu”. Our guide left, and JP and I decided we would try it since we didn’t feel like walking anymore, and besides, it looked like they served the same kind of food. Turns out, we were at the right place, but the name Takonotetsu is only written out in English on the menus. The food was really yummy, but we should have tried the okonomiyaki, too, because we didn’t really get a chance to after that – that’s what the ball shapes are for on the griddle. They are balls made from octopus, ginger and scallions, with a special sauce.

As we were walking to our hotel, through the train station, we came across a humungous underground marketplace. It was insane! I couldn’t get over the range of food and the amount of money people would lay down for confections! People were lined up out the door for chocolate covered rusks (and they weren’t cheap!!). There were cute character cakes,

really pricey gift boxes (this one is over $300!!),

amazing salads,

and fill-your-own sushi trays, with individually wrapped sushi pieces!

This place blew my mind, and we knew we would return the next day to get food for our train ride to Kobe!

There is still more…
To be continued!

Japan: The Food! Part Two

To see Part One, click here.

OK, I admit it; when it was time to eat breakfast in Japan, we totally cheated. The idea of having rice and miso soup (not to mention all the things we didn’t recognize) first thing in the morning just didn’t cut it. Luckily, there is no shortage of French bakeries, so we were able to find croissants easily. This was a typical breakfast for us in Kyoto (that’s yogurt, by the way):

During our stay in Kyoto, we decided to have lunch at Izusen, a famous shojin-ryori (Zen Buddhist monk cuisine) restaurant, located on the grounds of Daitoku-ji, a sprawling Zen temple complex. Talk about complex: we got lost trying to find the restaurant. We were *this* close too, when we turned around to try a different direction! Eventually we asked someone for help. One thing I will say about people in Japan is that they are extremely helpful! There were a few people who bolted away from us as quickly as they could, presumably because they spoke no English, or we were really scary looking. But for the most part, people went out of their way to help us.

We arrived at the restaurant, and there were plenty of tables outside, in a beautiful garden. When we stepped into the restaurant, one of the women working there ran over and, with a worried look on her face, said “Japanese restaurant!!!!” We tried to explain that we were aware, and we wanted to eat. When she asked, “Inside/outside?”, I don’t think she meant it as a question, because when we said outside, she kept saying, “Inside/outside!!!” Eventually I said, “Inside,” hoping it would calm her down, and we could proceed to lunch. Then J.P. stood on the wooden platform with his shoes, which was a big no-no, and she freaked out a bit. After removing our shoes, we were seated. On to the meal…

We were seated on the floor in a tatami-mat dining room with sliding doors: exactly how I pictured restaurants in Japan (although it’s the only one we went to that was like that!) An elderly woman brought us English menus, but the only English on the menus was the word, “vegetarian”. Good thing too, because I’m not sure I’d be so adventurous if I knew there could be strange body parts involved.

After we ordered (set menu – no idea what was coming), the first couple bowls started to arrive. There was this gelatinous stuff, with a powdered coating and a toothpick. I found it odd, and difficult to put in my mouth politely, but strangely addictive. J.P. couldn’t stand the wiggly texture.

Some plum liqueur (umeshu) was served, and a few more bowls of food. At that point, the server laid the bill on the table and we assumed that meant we were done. Um, still hungry here!! I told J.P. not to worry, that if this was indeed the end of the meal, we could still hit the French bakery outside the grounds of the complex. Thankfully, that was not the end. In fact, there was plenty of food, some recognizable, like the tempura and miso soup, but most of it strange, beautiful, and tasty (except for the green gelatinous thing – different from the gelatinous thing at the beginning of the meal!) Almost everything I ate that I didn’t recognize tasted different, or had a different texture, from what I expected. It was a fun meal.

When our meal was done, the bowls all stacked nicely into each other (which we found out by watching a couple next to us)! How perfect!

There is still more… much more. To be continued!

Japan: The Food! Part One

For my 40th birthday this year, my husband surprised me with a trip to JAPAN! I knew I was going somewhere, but I didn’t know where until the night before. We just returned a week ago – it’s hard to believe it’s already a memory. I have so much to write about, but I will start with the food. For us, travel is always about the food.

Our first day in Tokyo, we went to the Tsukiji Fish Market. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before – I didn’t even know what half the stuff was!

Even though our book suggested getting sushi at the market (“what could be fresher?”), we were chilly and decided to get a bowl of ramen noodles from a very busy stand.

This little place even had a write-up in the New York Times!

As far as I could tell, the cities we visited only had beverage vending machines (with the exception of two: one ice-cream machine, and one snack food, both in a subway station). These beverage vending machines were everywhere, even in little alleys, making it really easy to find water. We did try some of the other drinks, but it was almost impossible to know what it was going to be unless there was a picture of fruit on it. There were even alcohol and cigarette vending machines.

Whenever we stay in hotels, we seem to get a craving for chocolate. I can probably blame the minibars for tempting me, and the fact that I will almost never take anything from a minibar because it’s so outrageously expensive. Needless to say, we made several trips to the local 7-11, but the chocolate bars left something to be desired.

There was not a huge amount of selection, but Japan does seem to have a bit of a love affair with Kit Kat. There were all kinds of flavors of Kit Kat: green tea, dark, regular, some weird one that I never tried and had no idea what it was, white chocolate with Oreo-type cookie, and even strawberry (which tastes like strawberry Pocky).

Kit Kat became the official bar of the trip, and I made it my mission to find the best priced green tea Kit Kat to bring back home.

There were lots of these little cookie/cake places around. I’m not sure what they actually are, but they are usually made fresh (the smell is amazing), they look cute, and they are filled with something chocolatey-ish. We tried one and it was kind of like a not-so-good waffle, and mega disappointing. In fact, many of the baked goods were disappointing, except in the French bakeries, of which there were many – we are still wondering why!

There were so many “fast food” stands, with many things that I had no clue about. I gave one a try and it was pretty tasty. It was a deep-fried rice/sesame batter with some semi-sweet stuff inside.

That’s it for now… but there’s more, much more.

To be continued!!

Gratitude Tuesday

Today I am grateful for:

Time spent with friends, especially while eating yummy food.
.

Beautiful landscapes.

Knowing the kids had a great first day at their camp today – especially my son, since he was nervous about going for a whole day. He said it was “awesome”!

Sold paintings (thanks Ma!)!

The Calgary Stampede Lowdown (the food)

I’ve been living in Calgary since 1998, and this is my first real Stampede outing (I’m not counting a trip to the agricultural building and midway when the girls were 3 – they were too little to really remember anything). The kids and I decided to brave the heat (29 Celsius, with hot pavement everywhere, and very little shade). Were we going to see the rodeo? Nope. The agricultural presentations? Nope. The midway? Nope (My son went yesterday to the midway with his friend. I also am opposed to spending so much on rides when we could just go to Calaway Park instead, for less.) For us, the Stampede was all about the food. Oh, and Superdogs.

So, lets see… we tried:

• cinnamon-sugar donuts
• deep-fried Oreos
• chip-stix (spiral cut potato on a stick – then fried)
• corn dog
• poutine
• fried mozzarella sticks

Surprisingly, I am still feeling fine. And for those of you wondering why I won’t spend money on rides for my kids, but I will spend it on greasy fried foods, well, um… I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you ask that.

There’re still a lot left to try next year: Bloomin’ onion, deep-fried cheesecake, Kubie Kornballs (garlic sausage fritters), to name a few. There are also a lot I will never try: Doughnut Burger with cheese (seriously? The doughnut is the bun! Ew!), deep-fried kool aid (uh, no), and deep fried Pop-Tarts (why???).

We watched the Superdogs – a cute show where dogs run races around a course, dance, or perform various tricks. After the dogs, we rode the “Skyride” – just a chairlift kind of thing that travels slowly over the Stampede grounds. I can handle roller coasters, drop rides, and other scary things, but this one really got to me. I couldn’t stop thinking of how this little car is attached to the cable by a teeny-tiny hook, and if we fall, we’ll go SPLAT! Never again!! I can even handle the Banff gondola better – at least there are trees to break the fall!

We also watched some “crazy cowgirls” doing some gymnastic tricks on their horses. That was very cool, especially for the girls. Lastly – cowboy/cowgirl hats for the kids! A very fun (mostly, except for the complaining about the heat) day.

Stick ’em up!

The Bandit

To top it all off, we had a most exciting C-train ride. What started as a normal stop, turned into a short delay, which then became tedious, boring and hot. But then! We noticed the police prowling around outside the car – at least 6 of them! And with big GUNS. I’ve never seen such big guns! They ordered everybody off the car for about 2 minutes, then all was good and we were back on our way. I overheard that the police thought they had spotted a criminal on the train, but it turned out to be a look-a-like. Wooh! Exciting stuff!

Date Balls

My brother has his mind in the gutter at the mention of these, but you know I mean round, edible things that have dates in them, right? OK… moving on.

I’ve been making date balls for awhile now, but when my BFF Angela came to visit me, she gave me her recipe. I have combined the two and come up with something super yum, with lots of variations. Not only are these a delicious, sweet snack, but they are filling (with loads of protein) and good for you, too. There will be no photo. Just picture a ball, covered in coconut or Rice Krispies. That’s pretty much it.

Date Balls (dedicated to two Angela’s: my BFF, and my craft-show-partner-in-crime, who is waiting for this post!)

Ingredients

• 1 cup pitted dates (quality does make a difference! The super soft honey dates are reeeeally good in this recipe)
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1/4 cup almonds
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed
• 1/4 cup hazelnut butter (or other nut butter)
• 1/4 of a small banana or less
• hazelnuts or cashews for inside – optional
• shredded coconut or crushed Rice Krispies

Combine the dates, walnuts, almonds and flaxseed in a food processor until well mixed and chopped. Then add the nut butter and banana, and pulse until well combined. Roll into balls with hazelnuts or cashews on the inside (for a crunchy centre), then roll in coconut or Rice Krispies. The outer coating is needed, to prevent sticking.

A variation on this is to add a few tablespoons of raw cocoa powder to the first few ingredients and blend for a nice chocolate flavour. This tastes great if you use peanut butter in place of hazelnut butter. But hazelnut is awesome, too. There are too many options, really. Yum.

Patacon (or: what to do with plantains)

My wonderful Colombian friend, Monica, taught me how to make patacon! They are delicious and fun to make.

Start with about 3 green plantains, no black spots.

Cut off ends, score, then peel.

Slice.

Fry in canola oil until the bottom forms a bit of a hard "shell" that resists piercing with a fork. Flip the pieces.

Cook for another few minutes until both sides are lightly browned.

Place on a flat surface.

Put a flat topped glass or cup on top... get ready...

The fun part: SMOOSH! Let your kids do it.

Smooshed!

Back in the frypan for a few more minutes, depending on how crispy/crunchy you like them. Test a few to see!

Voila! Drain on paper towel. Patacon are crispy/crunchy on the outside, and meaty on the inside.

Suggested serving: Patacon with homemade refried beans, brown rice, grated cheddar cheese, guacomole, and yogurt. So good. Put any or all toppings on the patacon.

Enjoy!