NMUSpidey

Speaking of animals as a good defense against bugs, I wish there were more possums up here (America's marsupial!). They love to eat ticks, and there are WAY too many ticks up here. The appraisers in my department came back from their field work covered in them. Awful, I felt bad for them, and that was after feeling a little jealous of them getting to wander around out in the woods and get paid for it. I suppose it'll be nicer later in the year when the bugs aren't so bad. We had yakisoba tonight for dinner, and I think that's a good thing to serve as a special here, too. Fried Japanese noodles with bacon, green pepper, and onions. We can add carrots, too, if you like. How about that? Posts on two days in a row!

Those look lovely! Fresh berries are always nice, I hope you get good yields from those. I also hope the height keeps at least the rabbits away from them. We grew some vegetables and sunflowers and rabbits and other assorted vermin did their best to prevent us from enjoying any of it. They failed in the end, but they still tried! Also, up here there are lots of big patches of wild blueberries. We usually go berry picking every summer, and one of the places we camp had a lot of thimbleberry bushes. The blueberries, though, are almost everywhere, they love the sandy soil up here. Tonight we'll do some barbecuing. I want some chicken breast slathered in barbecue sauce and a potato and corn on the cob and some deep-fried zucchini. I love deep-fried zucchini.

Well, we were out all day yesterday because it's a three day weekend and I get paid for my day off because I no longer work for a totally disorganized cheapskate so I guess I missed CURRY SUNDAY. So since it's Memorial Day we'll do the whole cookout thing that's popular around these parts. Let's grill up some hot dogs and hamburgers and corn on the cob. We'll make potato salad (with mustard not mayo because mayo is revolting) and pasta salad and salad salad and plenty of beer, what would you like? We have it on tap! And thus, for us Americans anyway, summer has officially started. We're going to spend as many weekends outside as we can until Labor Day brings the season to a close. Then when the colors change we'll go on many a bug-free hike until it's too cold to go outside any longer. At least for my wife. I'm fine with the cold. For those of you in the southern hemisphere, I'll make sure to have some hot cocoa prepared for you as you begin your long winter months. We'll trade again in a few months, that seems fair.

This week kind of snuck away from me. Is it already Friday? I must have been busy at work for it to have gone this fast. How about a taco bar tonight? We'll lay out the refried beans, taco meat, shredded cheddar cheese, diced tomatoes, avocado, and lettuce, salsa in a variety of spiciness, rice in both texmex style and cilantro lime, and sour cream. Is there anything else you'd like for your tacos? Just let us know. We'll make sure you get it the way you want. Bon appetit!

All this talk of meat pies/pot pies has me hankerin' for one tonight. Of course, since tonight is also CURRY SUNDAY we'll be having a curry pot pie. We'll make it with 100% grass-fed mutton and every bite will yield tender, tasty, curried meat. Let's add in some onions and potatoes and wrap it in a homemade pie crust and that should be a delicious way to face down the oncoming week. This week I actually have a project to work on. I hope I get it all done tomorrow so I have an easy rest of the week after. Let's see how it goes!

Morrocan lamb pie sounds like what's on the menu tonight! Let's bake up a few of those.

I have been feeling a bit run-down recently. Maybe I need to get more sleep. Maybe I need to change how I exercise, or improve my diet. In an effort to improve that aspect, let's enjoy that famous French peasant dish, ratatouille. We'll go heavy on the tomato, zucchini, eggplant, and bell pepper and layer them in very colorful slices and serve them alongside garlic bread. I'll pour tall glasses for iced barley tea for anyone who wants to join me, although that Sapporo Black Label on tap is looking awfully good right about now...

Alison Krauss' duet album with Robert Plant was amazing. I don't normally listen to that style of music, but when I do it's that album. I miss snow. We barely got any of it this year. We average 10' of it annually, but we probably got 2 or 3 and that was it. It was all melted and gone by March. It felt like a Toledo winter, to be honest. Very disappointing. I guess we'll have to wait to see if next year pulls us back to the average. We face the onslaught of another week. What better way to get ready for it than with a CURRY SUNDAY? For tonight's curry, we'll do a Mother's Day special of mutton curry over basmati rice. Garlic bread will be served on the side, but only after a garden salad, because we have to keep our vegetable intake up. Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there, and fathers, don't forget they wouldn't be where they are today without you.

I've been on an Allman Brothers Band kick recently. "Whipping Post" is such a great song, and I was yesterday years old when I first heard their epic performance of it at Fillmore East. Great stuff, so bluesy, so powerful. For tonight let's have some pierogi. We'll saute up some onions and bacon to eat alongside them and why not some garlic bread, too? Garlic bread makes any meal complete.

ONLY 30 million? Is that all that are left? And they're tasty? Why don't we have some invasive-species possum curry for dinner tonight? I think I may eschew that and just eat the vegetable version myself (mushrooms, onions, potatoes, deep fried tofu cubes). Oh hey, it's a surprise CURRY SUNDAY! I'm still not feeling 100% since my shot (was much better when I woke up Thursday morning, but just feeling like I'm dragging compared to usual) but this will be sure to get me ready for whatever the next week will throw at me. Let's eat!

In certain areas of Japan the power companies have big problems with raven nests shorting out the power lines. They started sending out crews to take down the nests so the ravens started building decoy nests to fake the power company workers out. Ravens are scary smart. Much respect. I got hit by the truck of my second vaccination shot. I feel slightly better than I did this morning, and I hope to feel better still by tomorrow so I can go back to work. If I can't, at least I have sick days so I won't miss out on any pay. Public sector work is great if you can get it. So for tonight let's do chicken noodle soup to ease our weary bones and achy muscles and chilling fevers. Or at least mine.

My wife makes these things called porcupine meatballs where you mix rice in with the meatballs and bake them and the rice at the top sticks out and becomes crispy and, indeed, they resemble porcupines. They are delicious, and I think they will make a great dinner to share with everyone tonight. I hope your winter goes well. Do you suffer many power outages? We haven't had one since we've been back up north, the last one we had was in Cleveland and lasted for part of a single (snowy April) day. I don't remember many power failures when we lived in Japan, either. There were a handful before that, though, there was one towards the end of winter where power for the whole city was out for nearly a whole day. Our apartment was frigid by the time the day was over, but thankfully everything kicked back on just when we were ready to sit down for dinner. I remember another big, multi-day power outage that affected almost all the Midwest and New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, but for some reason up here in the UP we were spared. My dad used the occasion to buy a generator for the house. When we finally are able to build our A-frame in the woods, we're probably going to invest in one of those, because winter storms up here can be truly wicked, especially for those living outside the little cities we have.

I think it's been a while since we've had a CURRY SUNDAY, so why don't we have one now, for old time's sake? For tonight's curry we'll go with the tried-and-true (and my favorite) S&B Golden Curry with pork, mushrooms, potatoes, and onions. We'll serve it over basmati rice and I'm going to have a nice, tall glass of iced mugi-cha to go along with it. I should be ready to face the new week after this!

Welcome.

There's nothing quite like relaxing in front of a fire. I'd trade places with that cat in an instant! I'd just need a pillow or three hahahaha. We're getting our second spring today and tomorrow and then we're back in rain/slow mix on Saturday. Eventually it'll warm up to the point where it's comfortable for me to walk to work without a coat. For tonight we'll make some okonomiyaki, known in English as the Japanese pizza or the Japanese pancake or the Japanese omelet. made with dedicated okonomiyaki flour, cabbage, bonita flakes so thin they dance when put on anything hot, and special okonomiyaki sauce, they are a well-loved treat, and since "okonomi de" (the root word of the food) means "however you like it" you can add any extra ingredients you want. I like to add mushrooms and bacon to mine. We'll set out the teppan and grill it up for you right before your eyes.