Food for thought

So today was an interesting one. One that merited a post on this sleepy blog of mine. I know I should keep it up, so that I can maintain at least one creative outlet in my life. Seems like most of my hobbies nowadays are usually either 1. mindless mouse clicking in the pursuit of false achievements or 2. exercising (which, in retrospect, is probably just a "healthier" alternative to #1). Anywhoo, back to the interesting day. As a bit of an aside, I should mention that yesterday and many of the days before were pretty crappy but today, I think, is especially noteworthy because I heard a few interesting insights that I want to share with some of my military and non-military friends alike.

1. Met an older man today who said he spent some time in Hinesville. A place that he describes as "America's armpit". Pretty accurate, given that it's really effing humid there and the humidity just enhances the collective BO of the community. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of hanging out in Hinesville. Anyway, he went on to say that many of the locals around Hinesville don't like the military presence. Some are for economic reasons (he mentioned how the city once planned to sue the government for the base not finishing on the construction of a building, which would have created jobs for the local economy) but many are for social reasons (saying that many of the men don't like how the military servicemembers seem to come in and take many of the local women).

As I'm sure many know from history books and popular media, there's a lot of racism in the South that goes many ways. Between black and white and any other color for that matter.  But what doesn't really get talked about is the relationship between locals" and "military". There's a lot of countries throughout the world where locals don't like US military bases in their country. Here in Okinawa, many locals don't care for the US military presence because it feels like an invitation for wars and battles to take place here. I get it. It's understandable, especially given many of the unfortunate news reports of local girls getting abused and/or raped by servicemembers. But in Georgia??? When I was in Georgia, I cannot tell you how many times I've heard people say "Oh they're JUST Army wives, they don't know anything". Plus, many of the more desirable jobs preferred hiring locals instead of military spouses. DROVE ME NUTS! I had always attributed comments like that to some combination of sexism, ignorance, and just plain old jealousy. But after having my insecurity validated by a stranger pretty much made my day. VICTORY IS MINE!

2. The man then told a story about how he tried to help this seemingly 90+ year old local with her groceries by lifting her basked for her at the checkout line. Instead of thanking him, she grabbed her
basket and hit him with it! She then proceeded to scowl and growl at him (his words). After speaking with a manager, he found out that she was of the generation of Okinawans that did not care for American presence in Okinawa. His story echoed an accepted fact about Americans living in Okinawa, which is that there are 2 kinds of Okinawans: 1. those that embrace Americans and American culture and 2. those who lived through World War II and lived to despise Americans.

Later that day, I encountered another gentleman (considerably younger) who added a little bit more context to this accepted fact. MANY OF THESE OLDER OKINAWANS DISLIKE MAINLAND JAPANESE MORE THAN AMERICANS! Turns out, many of these Okinawans feel dismissed by the Japanese government because 1. Japanese war propaganda at the time demanded that people, instead of becoming prisoners of war, perform seppuku/harakiri (ritual suicide) 2. American soldiers treated Okinawan prisoners and civilians better than what war propaganda was suggesting and 3. upon losing the war, the Japanese "gave Okinawa away to the Americans".

I've been told that I look very Okinawan so I don't worry too much about encountering any 90 year old women wanting to throw down. But wow, HOLY BALLS, MAN!

On a related note, I'm really juiced to exploring some of the more historical places and festivals around here.

Dirty 30

Shortly after my last post, I celebrated my birthday. The big 3-0. I wish I had some big fancy epiphany about how beautiful aging is and how I'm that much more at peace with myself and the world around me. Instead, I felt a lot like the episode of South Park where Stan, upon aging another year, realizes that most everything he hears sounds like shit. I came upon this conclusion when Todd and I were planning what to do for my birthday. I told him that I would be content to do a quiet evening for two. No getting drunk off my ass and vomiting my insides the following morning. As fun as getting reckless used to be, it's just no longer my cup of tea anymore. I mean, I just no longer see the fun in hating the smell of orange juice simply because I had an especially strong screwdriver that resulted in me virtually screaming into my toilet how much I hate my life. I can't do it anymore!

The day after my birthday, I was very lucky to catch a military flight (free ticket!) out to California to see my family and friends. The 2 week trip was great. Got to see my family and spent some time with some of my best friends. Everything would have been perfect, save for the fact that I caught a cold AND a case of the stomach flu for almost half of the trip. I had never had the stomach flu ever before in my life and yet there I was, with a bad case of the bubble guts. It was seriously getting in the way of me getting some good eats in. On a lighter note, I lost 5 lbs!

Going home is getting hard. Not just because traveling in itself is expensive, but seeing the familiar after spending time in a foreign place reminds me just how much I miss being around the people that understand the method behind my madness: my friends, family, acquaintances and even the trusty landmarks have what I want when I need it (I really do miss Sephora and MAC lol). While goodbyes are often painful, I do remain thankful that life has afforded me such a wonderful foundation of friends and family so that I may have the strength to build the life that I want. With this said, I want to sing praise to this little something new that I've come to appreciate as a result of living here: Japanese curry.

It's weird, I guess, that I've only really come to appreciate curry NOW as opposed to all the other times in my Berkeley life that I've been exposed to it. I had a roommate in college that cooked it every week and I had coworkers who would introduce me to different Indian restaurants in Berkeley alone. I suppose my relationship with curry is the type that had to be just the right mix of time, place, and chemistry. Anyway, I picked up a pre-arranged "beef curry" tray from the local commissary for $10, which beat the alternative for a good Japanese curry restaurant, charging around $10-15 per plate! Directions were incredibly easy to follow and super fast to make.
- put 2 tsp of oil in large frying pan
- brown the meat and onions over medium heat (be careful. sirloin beef can get tough really quick over too much heat)
- add in potatoes, carrots, and 2 1/2 cups of water. let water boil. once boiling, reduce heat to simmer and cover.
- add in curry blocks. mix curry blocks as they melt.

Didn't realize the curry came in block form. Know what else comes in block form? Chocolate. DO NOT TEASE ME WITH YOUR CHOCOLATE APPEARANCES! Also, do not tempt dog with this. Pretty sure dogs shouldn't eat spicy food. Their farts stink enough as is.

Wait about 10-15 minutes for the sauce to thicken. Then, it'll look like THIS bad boy:

Here is the savory, mildly spicy concoction, made up of potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, beef chunks, and the curry sauce itself. Lighter fare than the local favorite, Coco's, but still tasty and well worth the effort. Also totes worth it to smother it in shredded cheese. Cheers to good eats and saving money!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year folks. A new year, a new beginning... or at least that's what we tell ourselves. Every day is a new day, full of opportunities to "break the mold" and do something different. Sounds cheezy and cliche, I know, but it's real if you let it be relevant to you. You know what's a more effective motivator than optimism? CONSEQUENCES. Yes, I'm talking about actively thinking, "what will happen if I don't do something different?" It was Albert Einstein who once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results." I think Hitch said it too. *Kanyeshrug*

So I started working out recently. Not just because a good portion of my Facebook is starting to show either 1) pictures of food or 2) people logging in how fast they run or train for some upcoming marathon (more power to you folks). It was because I got sick of my jeans starting to get a little too snug and it making me feel too self conscious to even leave the house in something that didn't cover my stomach. So every day, I did a little something different. I'd wake up at 5am to go to the gym, say yes to invites to go to an aerobic class, went out for walks, and step away from the computer once in a while to dance around the house. Seems cool to say that I do that, but the best part of doing those things (or anything, really) is the moment between doing nothing and getting up, where I told myself, "go". I don't fight myself, I don't make excuses. I listen to my intuition and just go with it, and I feel happier for it. That, I think, is the best part of it all. Knowing that even if your body is tired, you know what you need to do... thinking about all the reasons for the change in the first place... what will ultimately make you happy.

Today is my rest day. Resting, of course, from yesterday's workout and last night's festivities. Thank goodness for my favorite hangover/comfort food, a little something called "lugaw". It's essentially a rice porridge dish, with fixins like chicken, boiled egg and the like. All sorts of savory goodness AND good for you!

1 cup of rice
1 lb of chicken, cut up into pieces
2 green onions, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of ginger, minced
4 cups of chicken broth
1 pinch of saffron
1 tablespoon of salt
1 tablespoon of ground pepper
1 tablespoon of olive oil
optional: boiled egg, lemon/calamansi juice, sriracha (red hot sauce)

Heat olive oil in a pot. Toss in the minced garlic. Once the garlic is toasted, set aside.

Toss onions and ginger in the pot. Once lightly browned, add chicken, salt, and pepper. Once the chicken is lightly browned, add the rice, saffron and chicken broth. Heat until boiling. Once the water starts boiling, cover the pot and set the heat to medium. Stir occasionally. Should take about 20-30 min to cook. Once rice becomes yellow and soupy, put into a bowl and serve with toasted garlic and green onions on top. I'm used to having this with lemon or calamansi juice on top and extra green onions but thanks to Clarissa and my hubby, I'm partial to putting a boiled egg and sriracha on top. Hits the spot every time.

Enjoy!

Lumpia recipe for whatever, man.

Happy Holidays! Hope you folks had a Happy Thanksgiving. In hindsight, I probably should've taken pics of some of the food and friends but who has time to play the voyeur when you're playing hostess? We had a small potluck with a bunch of the hubby's coworkers, which was pretty fun, except I wish they sorted out who's bringing what at least a couple days before Thanksgiving. We ended up with more alcohol than food! I drank awamori for the first time, which I'm now pretty sure that it doubles as gasoline. I don't know if maybe I just drank a low quality brand or something, but it's not nearly as smooth as I'd imagined. In the weeks spent playing the waiting game in a hotel room learning from AFN programming how awamori is something that the Okinawans sort of pride themselves over, I imagined awamori to be something smooth like wine or soju. NO. This hits you like a ton of bricks. It pushes you against a nearby wall and makes you say bad words. I DON'T CARE FOR IT.

On a lighter note, my husband cooked the turkey, which is pretty impressive given that he doesn't really cook that often. I was happy to make lumpia (Filipino eggrolls); a recipe which I had sort of developed while living in GA. Since I love the taste of both vegetable and meat varieties of lumpia, I mixed the two into one happy, savory batch. Funny story, I was at the commissary with the hubby when I asked him, "Hey honey, do you want me to make lumpia this week?" Out of nowhere, this woman turns to me and says, "Can I live with you? I love me some lumpia." LOL. Made my day.

Anywhoo, this is my recipe for lumpia. I usually prefer this over buying the pre-made store variety of lumpia mostly because I like the blend of veggies and meat. Plus, it's more fun to make food yourself. Makes for better portion control, I imagine.

1 lb ground meat (pork or beef)
1 chopped carrot
1 chopped onion
2 chopped green onions
8 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp minced ginger
2 cups bean sprouts
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground pepper
1 egg, beaten
oil for frying
lumpia wrappers

First, fry the garlic and onion for maybe a min or two. Toss in the meat, salt and pepper and continue to fry until brown. Drain the meat. Once drained, toss the meat mix in a large bowl with the ginger, green onions, bean sprouts, and soy sauce. Hell, if you like other veggies like corn or cabbage, throw that in there too! Whatever makes your heart smile. Once the mix is done, put a couple spoonfuls of the filling into the lumpia wrappers and close the wrap with a little bit of that egg wash. Some use water to close the wrapper. Fry that puppy up and enjoy with your favorite side sauce! You don't even have to wrap that filling either. You can just put that meat on top of a bed of rice and call it a day. Whatever, man. Whatever.

Culture shock tarts.

Culture shock - A condition of confusion and anxiety affecting a person suddenly exposed to an alien culture or milieu.

When I began to tell my friends and family that I'd be living in Okinawa, I heard nothing but praise about how much fun I'd have here. Between my dad (who was stationed here while working in the Navy) and various friends and cousins who have lived here (all on the government dime!), everyone told me that I would love it here. To their merit, they weren't liars! With all the good eats, breathtaking sights, and its fascinating culture, Okinawa truly is an experience to itself. While there isn't a day that passes by that I don't think to myself how truly fortunate I am to live and learn in such a wonderful and peaceful part of the world, I'm somewhere between being really ecstatic and also painfully anxious over the process of adjusting to this place thousands of miles (and dollars) away from home. 
 
First, it's understandable for anyone to get a little homesick. After all, it is a stressful experience in itself to move from one place to another, let alone adjust to a completely alien environment where the subtleties of the local language and customs escape one's understanding. The experience is compounded when you take into account that as a military spouse, you're not there for your own career, you're following your husband's (or wife's) career. Now, I'm not saying that as a military spouse (or any kind of spouse for that matter), one resigns a sense of autonomy, but there is a clear difference between "going" versus "following".

Second, and perhaps the most annoying aspect to living in military communities is that there is this very specific stereotype of Filipino women who are married to Americans. It is assumed, primarily by the soldiers themselves, that the woman is probably a former PROSTITUTE.

/facepalm

As if there is no chance in the world a nice, college-educated Filipina-American could or would even want to marry someone because they actually love someone who just so happens to be a soldier. O_O

From my understanding, the assumption comes from soldiers who, when serving a tour in Southeast Asian countries, encounter Asian bargirls who refer to themselves as "juicy girls". Not all of these bargirls act as prostitutes but the stereotype is all the same. There have been a couple of times where my husband has been asked if I was "picked up" in Korea or the Philippines and I swear, sometimes it makes me question the merit of even having a college degree (from one of the top universities, mind you!) if I can't smash it in the face of the next ignorant jerk who assumes that I have lived a life far removed from what I have actually lived.

I'm not even going to waste the energy into writing an essay on how I wish the world was less judgmental or how people need to listen before they speak to save themselves the embarrassment of looking like an asshole. However, I am going to say that life here, as a wife and as an individual, is challenging. It is incredibly scary to rest the future of one's fate in the hands of another person's career goals. Especially for me, who has spent the majority of my life learning how to be a leader. While I accepted to live a life married to someone in a mobile career, part of that love is living with the challenge of constantly being uprooted and transplanted. In that state of disorientation, not only must one build a foundation for the family, but also transcend the negativity (both within and outside oneself) and find a way to grow as an individual.

In spite of it all, I consider myself an optimist. As I drift through this country, trying to keep my head above water while trying to figure out what opportunities are available for me here, I am reminded of the night I was consumed by a piece of candy.


This takes place about a year ago. In the company of one of my childhood friends, we spent the evening evening eating ramen and talking about my insecurities about living the mobile life and the fear that by constantly moving, I might be missing out on great things if I had just stayed home. At the end of the night, we stopped by a candy store and my friends picked up a bag of the most delicious milky, chewy candy. It was chewy like a Hi-chew, with gummi and fizzy tart pieces in the middle of each piece. Every bite was savory and comforting, engaging in sensory overload of the palate. It was the most exciting candy I had ever tasted since Pop Rocks.

When I arrived in Japan, I looked for the same candy in every store I visited. I searched every candy aisle, only to be stumped by the fact that 1) I can't read Japanese and 2) I didn't even know the candy's name. All I knew was that its packaging was blue and white and might have some sort of circular designs on its packaging. Of all the places I searched, I eventually found the candy again at the local commissary; hidden in an area full of Japanese treats. There are perhaps hundreds of different kinds of candies here in Japan and it didn't take me too long before I found exactly what I was looking for. When I found this, I swear, it was like the scene in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, where Charlie unwraps his chocolate bar and finds he's the lucky winner of the golden ticket. I danced in joy and sang my happiness over finding MY candy! In that moment, I truly believed that if I can find exactly the type of candy I'm looking for, despite not knowing how to read Japanese, I can find anything.

There's a snake in my drank

A funny thing happened on the way to the candy store. While taking delight in being surrounded by local treats and goodies, I came across this treat: habushu.

Habushu is a liquor that combines awamori (a local liquor similar to sake) and the preserved body of a habu snake. From watching some of the more educational programming on one of the AFN/MCCS-based channels, I have gathered that somehow, this drink is believed to have some kind of medicinal properties. The awamori itself is based on the distillation of herbs and honey, which sounds tasty in itself, but obviously the real allure of the drink is the addition of the snake itself. I've heard that the snake is supposed to get you more eff'ed up as its venom shuts down the kidneys so that the body doesn't filter the alcohol. As you continue to consume the drink, once the liquor is consumed, you just keep refilling the jug with more awamori until the snake is dissolved. Makes economic sense when you realize that a jar of this bad boy can cost upwards of US $1000.

I'm not sure whether I really want to try this. God forbid a fang gets stuck in my gums. How do you floss that out?

How do you say "cheap eats" in Japanese?

So we've been here for a week and I wish I could say that I've accumulated a week's worth of foodie-worthy pics but somewhere between developing a case of cabin fever and learning really quick just how expensive moving and being a food lover really is, there hasn't exactly been a lot of opportunities for food to inspire some sort of enlightening experience. As anxious as I was to just hurry up and get here, settling in is moving slower than expected.

Before I got here,  I thought we would be staying at some hotel with tatami mats for floors and small pods for beds. Thankfully, Okinawa is much more Americanized than I thought. We're staying in the Shogun Inn at Kadena AB. It's not a bad gig. It's not the Holiday Inn but it's cool. There's a small kitchen, complete with microwave, fridge and sink.  

I wouldn't say that the living has been shitty but let's just say that it is, as a friend of mine once said, "it's a little better than terrible." I love having lots of space to move and this place doesn't afford much of it. I'm literally getting sick of looking at my husband all day. Kidding! *nervous laugh* It could be worse. One of the hubby's coworkers once stayed at the Shogun Inn when they first got to Okinawa and apparently the piping was all messed up and somehow they got some sort of blackish-brown substance oozing from their bathtub. O_O Luckily for us, there hasn't been any problems with the water. Another plus, we are walking distance to a huge commissary/exchange (like Super Wal-Mart status huge) and some supercute vending machines that sell drinks like this:

... an aloe and white grape drink with little jellies inside. It tastes like a green Hi-Chew candy! Haven't seen any vending machines that sell women's underwear just yet but I haven't lost hope.

It sucks not having a car.  I hate having to constantly ask for a ride to go places. But I'm not exactly in a position to feel comfortable driving on the other side of the road. Thankfully, we're within a fair distance to a number of different low-cost food vendors, so we've been eating a lot of junk food and, once in a while, indulge in relatively low cost meals like Okinawan soba and chicken karaage:

 

The pictures don't seem to do the food justice. I mean, Okinawan soba really is my new favorite comfort food. There's fish cake and the most tender (and mildly sweet) pork belly and pork ribs I have ever tasted in my life. Both meals totaled to about $20 US total, which is pretty decent considering that both dishes came with a lot of ways to stuff your mouth with carbs on top of carbs.

A close second is udon, which can get much more hearty than the the oriental stores in America taste like. Just the other day, I had a bowl with egg, tofu, tempura, scallions, and fried onions and holy moly did that put me in a food coma.

Now that I think about it, it's probably a good idea that we're forced to walk everywhere. With all this eating that I'm doing, I could use the exercise =X