The Savage Muse

There’s an old saying that goes, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. I’m convinced this saying was also meant for me. The pile above was lovingly picked and lovingly traded by a class of grade three children. The jam was also made by the children and they presented it to me. The gesture tugged my heart.

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“I will trade you this big strawberry,” I waved the strawberry by its stem in front of the little boys. One of them scrunched his face in contemplation. “I will trade it for three of those medium sized ones.”

“Deal!” I made the exchange with the little boy Kou who grabbed the strawberry and greedily stuffed it in his mouth. With little red sticky fingers he gingerly took three strawberries from his plastic container and placed them gently on my pile. “Shank chooooo!” He and the other boys ran off, squealing, one of them tripping over and smearing red stains of fruit pulp on his cargos.

It was only moments before I was just sitting on my desk, ostensibly occupied with important matters when all I really was doing was pushing paper, doodling, or attempting to balance a pencil on the space between the nose and the upper lip.

“Do you like strawberries?” The sudden English question struck me as odd. I looked up from the paper and pushed it aside when I realized the voice belonged to the vice-principal.

“Yes, I do.” I answered. “I like them very much.” He looked pleased with himself with his obvious success in communication, waved me along and said, “Good. Get coat and be in the front. Five minutes.”

Now I found myself in the middle of the madhouse of strawberry fueled children and I saw myself turning into a similar red sticky fingered madwoman. I loved it.

So I am officially participating in ARTEVEKTOR, an art show on July 18th in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

Nothing big. Whatever.

What can I say? Karma rules.

I have a new shirt designed by David Murray of Seibei. I met him and his band of merry men at Design Festa Vol. 31 a couple weeks ago. I feature the shirt in the opening sequence of my latest video blog.

Design Festa was fun. I think my video sums it up pretty well, so I don’t think I need to delve into detail here except that my two favorite things from the show were dinosaurs, my Seibei shirt and the dinosaur mural done by MAGO.

I also spent about a hundred dollars on art supplies bought at Sekaido, a five-storey art store found in the heart of Shinjuku. That was probably the most expensive part of my trip, my art supplies. I’m excited to start painting again. Before I left for Japan, I was encouraged by some of my friends (read: Momo) to continue this silly hobby of mine. I never realized how much I would miss it until it was gone. I knew I would miss it and had packed it away on my little luggage to be brought to me next month by a couple of my visiting friends, but I had pined away for my paints and my beloved brushes to be in my possession after two weeks landing here.

Besides, I’m taking part of an art show next month.

Yeah, nothing big. Just an art show here in Japan.

Comedians, clever comedians, are not only articulate, but are incredibly smart people. I am blessed to have friends who are smart so they’re also very articulate and very funny.

I recently posted a whiny complaint on one of my bestest’s wall how the rainy season in Japan has prevented me from running for the past two weeks but has encouraged me to stay home and eat anko-filled pastries instead. As a reply she wrote this haiku:

rain traps me inside
scarfing down anko pastries
two weeks since I ran

(I love her. She read this:

spring is passing by!
…birds are weeping and the eyes
of fish fill with tears

yuku haru ya
tori naki uo no
me wa namida
- The Narrow Road to Oku – Basho (1689)

And her initial response is to say, “[...] Is this just some elegant way of expressing the fact that everything gets f*cking DRENCHED during the rainy season?” LOVE HER!)

Then another friend of mine saw the pastry haiku and took it up another notch and replied with a 5-7-5-7-7 haiku rendition of the above, but in Japanese. Here it is in romaji:

Ame furite
Uchi yadoru koto
2 shuukan
Soto hashirezuni
Anpann shokusu

Today a friend of mine jokingly mentioned how he would love to write Horton Hears a Who … and a Zombie, but fears the lawyers who will come knocking on his door anxious to sue. This began a tirade of mash-up suggestions like Cat in the Hat: Vampire Hunter; One Fish, Two Fish and Sea Serpents; and Green Eggs and Ham and Zombies. etc.

My suggestion was Yertle the Turtle meets Bobby the Zombie. I wrote the following example:

“And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he
met Bobby the Zombie, who hung from a tree.

He hung limply, swung swiftly with arms full of dread.
No wait! Not dread, just a big rotten head.”

And look, I even wrote it in anapestic tetrameter just like Seuss.

Nerd out!

Much of my Golden Week was spent lolling about and being lazy. Yes, I could have gone to some special event elsewhere, but let’s face it – I’m poor and will continue to be poor if I go out of my way to explore anywhere else besides my quaint city. I’m not complaining though. I do not mind spending the necessary expenses to go back home for my best girl friend’s wedding or spending the money for my upcoming two day trip this weekend to Tokyo’s Design Festa; that money I had allocated in my travel expenses and put aside. In my opinion, I can be a tourist any time I want in Japan. At the moment, I prefer being snuggled in some corner in the library and running into my students at random spots.

Like … at the local bakery.

The local Baker and the Baker’s wife invited me to one of their barbeques. Me being a fan of their breads, pastries and meat in general accepted the invitation and had been drooling over the idea for almost two weeks before the event. I had a great time meeting everyone and anyone who was in the neighbourhood.

As an aside, Japanese children and I get along like peas and carrots. We are full of silliness.

Note the usage of alliteration. Usually I would title my videos in a complete sentence describing the plot of the video as straight-forward and blase as possible with my name as the subject of the video, such as Ana Fails at a Foot Spa. This time around, I just wanted to switch it up a bit.

I must be like Holy Mary and am undergoing immaculate conception because that’s the only reason I can think of that explains why I have only been scarfing desserts and chicken karaage. Apparently, I do not eat anymore. Eating involves chewing; I inhale.

Anyway, to appease my cravings I made a lemon cheesecake. (I ostensibly made it for a dinner party, but I used that as an excuse to make it, eat half of it and then take the rest to the party.) I could have easily bought a cheesecake, but I am rather dissatisfied with Japanese cheesecakes I’ve tasted so far. The Japanese version of cheesecake seems to be a mix ricotta cheese with cream cheese, or a mix of cream cheese and a whole lot of whole cream. In short, mine rocked.

I used the same shortbread crust recipe from the lemon bars and the most basic cheesecake filling recipe I could find.

… makes these decadent Lemon Bars (via John James).

For a while I was suffering from oven withdrawal. I was probably some sort of full-time housewife in my past life as I find no difficulty in shedding my femme fatale suits, tying those pastel-coloured apron strings around my waist and dipping my hands into the occasional flour and butter concoction. I found myself dreaming of buttery pastries, crumbling cookies, and light fluffy cakes. At first I thought simply eating them would soothe these thoughts of mine, but they kept nudging me further and further away from the grocery section of APITA and into “Household Appliances”, specifically the toaster ovens and the microwave/oven combination (wonder) machines.

Alas I could not buy one. With my meager teacher’s salary and impending imperative trips, I had to be strict to the ol’ wallet and tied it down.

Thank god for karma! I was in my weekly Tuesday night Japanese lesson, helping put away pillows and tables into the closet like a good Samaritan when I noticed a small, but tall toaster oven.

“Why is there a toaster oven in here?” I asked.

The nearest Japanese person turned around and replied, “Do you want it?”

Is it small? Yes. Is it light? Yes. Does it have heat measured in Celcius and not some arbitrary scale from 1 – 10? Yes.

I looked at the kindly Japanese person and uttered, “Yeeesss …”

I took it home that night.

Working with a toaster oven is not without it’s flaws. The following recipe is from the John James’ site, but I’ve halved it a bit to adopt the portions to fit my toaster oven.

Lemon Bars via Smitten Kitchen
Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

These are bold and tart lemon bars, ones I feel are best in smaller doses than Ina Garten suggests. I’ve made a few changes to the recipe–increased the salt in the crust, reduced the sugar in the lemon filling and an encouragement to grease your pan.

For the crust:
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup confectioners sugar

Lemon layer:
6 extra-large eggs at room temperature
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 1/4 cup flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet.*

(*We have a gas oven and I had to figure this out thru trial and error, but I found that upping the heat to the equivalent of 300 °C made for a better square. However, you will have to watch the baking a little more closely.)

Ana Edit: Same goes for a toaster oven. I had to wrap tinfoil at the top to make sure that it did not burn. I may remake this with less filling next time. I also did this recipe without the use of an electric mixer, so feel free to try it out.

For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and, with the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into the greased baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. Chill.

Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

For the lemon layer, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes (less if you are using the thinner topping), or about five minutes beyond the point where the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.

Cut into triangles and dust with confectioners’ sugar.