Eating Fido

As a wannabe chef, I might have thought about making a submission to the Carnival of the Recipes #3, a showcase for recipes from all around the blogosphere, but got pretty miffed when I saw the introduction at the top of the page:

This week, we have a lot of great recipes to choose from. I am adding a rule, though – The Carnival of the Recipes will not link to any recipes involving household pets or horses, I don?t care if you live in France or Korea!

I really do not want to offend the author of the page or start any shit, but I’m sorry – that’s sounds racist as hell.
I can understand people being uncomfortable with what is eaten in other countries. Perhaps your tastes different from, say, the Marmot’s. But to specifically name countries (okay, specifically Korea – I don’t give a fuck what anyone says about France anymore and yes that’s my own prejudice speaking) kinda puts people off I think – well, then again the author says she “doesn’t care” so maybe I’m raising this issue for naught… I guess I care. It sounds too much like a dismissal of foreign food and culture. That’s kind of ironic since the author claims that she loves that they “are getting recipes from people all over the world.” So we can pretty much define “their” worldview as excluding cultures that eat horses or animals that Americans consider “pets” (a challenge in itself – I’ve had friends back in the states with pet cows, chickens, fish, sheep, and pigs, among other “acceptable edibles”). I find this a shame, because I really would have liked to share a recipe in the Carnival forum.
Note: If the author ever reads this post (and why should she; I’m a proud fucking nobody!), please do not construe this as a personal attack. I think I know what you were saying; it wasn’t a big “fuck you” to the rest of the world but rather a statement of what you are comfortable with, and I can accept that. I just needed to point out that it sounded kind of harsh from my current station overseas.
UPDATE: Check the comments. I feel really bad about writing this post now, but it would be wrong to take it down. I thought about this for a while, then I replied to Beth and John by e-mail and apologized. My recipe is for humble pie, but I’ll be damned if I can make it the same way twice… The only constant is swallowing your pride first.

Big Aftershocks

There was a magnitude 5 shaker in Wakayama earlier this evening when we were in a liquor store – all the stacks of bottles started moving back and forth, which was not the most reassuring of circumstances. A large aftershock came about five minutes ago… It was also a mag 5 but it felt a lot stronger here and they’re predicting tsunamis this time. There’s an emergency broadcast running in English and Japanese… Our little island should be okay. My place is half a mile from the coast so we should be cool. The shitty thing about living on an island is that it isn’t covered in the news… They predict tsunamis in Wakayama, Mie, and Kochi, and we live somewhere in between that plot. I guess that’s what air raid sirens are for (well, that and North Korean missile strikes). Cell phone lines are congested so I can’t get through to friends in Nara. Interestingly enough, land lines are working just fine – so to people who don’t use hard-line phones at home anymore, now’s a time to reconsider.
Shit, now they’re telling everyone living “near the coast” to evacuate. Is that very responsible for an island nation? Then again, we sat though The Endless Summer II yesterday and I have absolutely no interest in finding out what a 20 foot wave looks like coming down my street.

Lowriders of Thailand

These pics are from last year. We pulled into a highway reststop in the Thai countryside and were delighted to find a young entrepeneur selling coconuts from the back of his slammed pickup:
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When I say slammed, I mean, look at that hydraulic kit!
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Check out the custom paint job – glittery goodness! And the gold door handles are to die for!
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Matching gold grille job… This guy probably accessorizes better than his girlfriend!

The Glass Is Half Empty

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This isn’t a good picture, but you can clearly see why I hate ordering draft beer in Japan sometimes. Where many would argue the aesthetic value of a 70/30 (in this case 50/50) beer to head ratio, I would say that it looks good in a commercial but otherwise I want a full glass of beer. If I saw this in America, I would conclude that the bartender set the CO2 pressure on the tap too high and ask for another. Whoever poured this beer needs to learn how to tilt the glass sideways when they’re pouring, or be put in charge of working the bottle opener.

The Missing Kitten Epilogue, or, How a Ferret Stole My Thunder

So I suddenly got to thinking about the little black kitty I rescued a few months back, because, well, I miss him (BTW, the name Yoda stuck). I realize that I perhaps never related his ultimate fate here (a true catblogger I shall never be – hurray!). He was accepted as carry-on luggage when my sister went back home, and he now lives with Adam’s cat, Boo, and my dad’s little anklebiter dog, Jak, at our home in Fountain Valley, CA (AKA Pleasantville – a city so nondescript it’s often chosen as a relocation site for the FBI’S witness protection program).
I still haven’t posted my pics from my trip down to Kyushu (upon review I found them to be a bit -ahem! – disappointing) in July, but the trip was memorable as I went for the sole purpose of passing Yoda off to my little sis, and basically carried him in my arms everywhere I went. Girlfriend did not accompany me on this trip, so it was kind of nice basking in the glory of cute cuddly one-eyed glory afforded by the little rascal (A message from Justin’s auto-disclaimer circuit: It was nice in the sense that I could appreciate how a single, unattached man would have enjoyed such attention), especially since I discovered there’s not a whole lot of places that will kick you out for holding a cute ball of fuzz to your chest, even if they have “No Pet” signs. It’s kind of embarassing, but at the Japanese pseudo-mall, I would walk into a store and feel like a cool guy for Having the Coolest Toy, the kind Not for Sale in most stores.
Anyway, cut to the Kikuchi gorge, which is a beautiful, well, gorge – with a river running through it where people go to hike and take in nature in its purest (in Japan, anyway) form. The majority of people who visit this place – at most – take a daypack with drinks and snacks, except for the occasional nerd photographer that takes a huge camera bag, tripod, and other geekcessories w/obligatory yellow NIKON tags on everything (don’t even say it – I only took my consumer-grade Coolpix and a lens cloth). I took great pride in only packing in a kitten (had my little bro carry the backpack). So I’m in “Got a Kitten for the World to See” mode, hiking the trails and making people happy when they see me, when I come to a narrow part of the trail and stop to let people coming down pass. The last person in the gaggle is a withered old lady in a sunhat and Chanel shades, holding a ferret in her arms.
Suddenly aware that the cool factor of my kitten has dropped several degrees, I awkwardly try to start up a conversation with the stupidest opening line I can think of: “Is that a ferret?”
She answers, “yes.” (I can just picture those ancient eyes rolling up behind those Chanels.)
I try another angle; for some unconscious reason I need somehow to steal this venerable pair’s thunder, but am apparently ill-equipped in the wit department on this particular day: “Nice weather today, isn’t it?”
This does not even elicit a response and I can picture the words “jesus hurryupandgetthe FUCK OUTTA MY WAY!” written all over her face.
Yoda, who had been asleep during the hike, wakes up and starts wriggling around in my arms. He wakes to find an extremely interested predator staring straight at him from two feet away. There is a moment frozen in eternity when I can see the ferret is about to pounce – which I use as a chance to escape up the trail, away from the demonic obachan and her pet hellhound. To be quite honest, I don’t know who was more upset, me or the cat, but I pet his head as we retreat, mumbling “must stay away from eeevil ferretses, gollum – they only wants tasty kitten gutses!”
In retrospect, that kitten was a blast to carry around. I have a feeling I could stop using underarm deodorant, if I only had a puppy. Hell, with a baby I could stop wearing socks…
Hmm…