japanese tuna salad rolls: a bound salad set free.

if you were to wander into one of the estimated 46,000 convenience stores in japan, you would eventually come upon a section of the refrigerated shelving designated for rice balls.  some of them contain extravagent ingredients, like spiced cod roe, chopped green onions, and fresh wasabi.  others are decidedly non-japanese in flavor, such as the surreptitiously bright yellow dry curry rice balls.

but no matter where you go, regardless of whether you are in a 7-11, familymart, circle k, daily yamazaki, or lawson, you will undoubtedly find a rice ball labeled “sea chicken.”

it contains, as you might guess, a 1:1 mixture of tuna and mayonnaise.  they are the cheapest for a reason. namely, because they are just awful.

i believe in mirepoix since you came along.

it’s just carrots, celery, and onion, right?

yes.  and in many ways, also no.

roast tenderloin: a poor man in hog heaven.

as bobby frost, united states poet laureate from 1958-1959, once wrote:

“two roads diverged in a supermarket, and i, | i took the meat less traveled by | and that has made all the difference.”

or at least i think that’s how it went…

kimchi fried rice: waste not, want not.

how do those iron chefs do it?

super chefs have some sort of sixth sense that allows them to recognize the exact weight of each ingredient required to prepare a single portion of their dish.  when they pull the curtain off the secret ingredient in kitchen stadium, i like to think the iron chefs are thinking “ok, i’ve got this licked.  i’m going to need one scallop, two figs, 3 grams of cheese, 5 ml of wine, and a 20cm strip of phyllo dough per plate.”  i think maybe it is a gland or extrasensory organ we normal humans just don’t have.

regardless, the portions come out perfect every time.  nobody has leftovers on iron chef.  the members of the celebrity scoring panel never take home extra black truffle and snow crab terrine to microwave the next day.

or do they?

yakiniku: more than meats the eye.

until 1871, it was illegal to eat beef in japan.

yeah, you read that right.  in fact, it was generally frowned upon to eat any kind of meat taken from livestock until the midst of the meiji restoration.  chicken, pork, beef, you name it.  while the reason for such an edict is obviously up for debate, many historians think that it was originally put in place to prevent famine.  raising large livestock, particularly cows, requires an excessive amount of land and feed which can be put to better use on humans.  put simply, beef wasn’t efficient.