And So It Goes

Gifting Myself

Well, Christmas Eve's Operation Brine Turkey Leg worked out pretty well: I roasted the leg/flank/whatever, made up a pot of mashed potatoes, and used the turkey drippings and a dash of white wine and Wondra Gravy and Sauce Flour to whip up some gravy. A few bumps, but that's to be expected: a bit too much salt in the brine, the roasting pan was too small and lightweight to handle well on the stove, and the mashed potatoes came out a bit lumpy, since I had to mash them with the only potato-mashing tool I had, a steel pasta ladle.

For Christmas itself, I decided to spend it in the traditional American way: shopping for gifts. Mostly for myself, as a way to treat myself. So I spent some time wandering the garishly lit shopping areas of Shinjuku (lots of Christmas lights strung up everywhere), and wound up buying a new Apple computer mouse (thinking buying an entire computer to go with it next year), a new Apple keyboard (the old one is acting up), a polarizing filter for my video camera, four foreign magazines at Kinokuniya Books, and, from Tokyu Hands, because they have everything, a potato masher.

Timing is everything

Yesterday after work, I dropped by the Hanamasa store between my office and the train station to pick up some groceries. Hanamasa is a meat wholesaler that operates retail stores -- kind of like a small-scale Costco, doing walk-in business for tiny restaurants and such -- that sells large packages of inexpensively priced food, especially meat. They usually have an odd assortment of imported food (potato chips, sauces, biscuits) and for awhile were importing stuff from Trader Joe's -- no longer, alas. They even have turkey -- Jenny-O brand (imported from the states) either frozen or pre-roasted, as well as cut-up turkey. On a whim just after Thanksgiving, I bought one of the pre-roasted ones, since my little convection oven probably wouldn't fit a even medium-sized turkey without the use of a crowbar -- not bad, but WAY oversmoked -- giving me the old-fashioned US Thanksgiving experience, complete with far too much leftovers.

In any case, last night I pondered whether to buy MORE turkey and cook it myself this time -- the turkey parts looked manageable, certainly -- dithered a bit, but decided no.

When I got to the train station, I realized that I had left my iPod on my desk, and not wanting to go the long weekend without it (today's a holiday), I trudged back, retrieved it, put it on, and started walking back to the station while listening to the podcast of "NPR's Most E-mailed Stories", specifically the interview with Ted Allen of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on tips for Christmas turkey dinners. I'm a fan of the show -- well, of the episodes I've been able to get my hands on -- and even have QESG desk calendar at the office, so I paid particular attention.

Allen's first advice was to cut up the turkey and roast/cook the different pieces separately. Hmm, good, I could do that, even with my small oven. And literally as I was passing the Hanamasa meat market again, he mentioned brining. This stopped me dead in my tracks. Allen raved about brining, brings flavor, juiciness, etc as I stood outside the store and listened.

Brining, in a nutshell, is soaking meat in salty water, which, through osmotic action, infuses the meat with water, salt, and whatever flavoring (spices, etc) you've put in the brine. Alton Brown of the TV show Good Eats raves about the technique in his book I'm Just Here for the Food, (which I have a copy of, of course). I've never tried it, but Allen's mention of (and effusive praise for) the technique suddenly brought it back to mind. So I turned right, walked back into the store, and bought a package of three turkey legs/flanks (inadvertantly following another bit of Allen advice ("Buy three legs and tell your kids it was an unusual turkey"). I brought them home, concocted a brine, more-or-less following a recipe from the Alton Brown book -- salt, orange juice, brown sugar, bay leaves, peppercorns -- and God willing and the creeks don't rise, I'll be having a roast turkey with real mashed potatoes (I also bought potatoes at Hanamasa) and gravy for Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow.

If it weren't for the fortuitous timing of hearing that podcast I'd probably be getting my Christmas turkey either from Leftover Turkey Stew or a sandwich at Subway's (yes, they have them here).

Shopping, the New Recreation

No, not really: it's a bit of an exaggeration to say that.  I did, however, spend Saturday shopping and I have to wonder if shopping isn't a form of recreation for people in this country.  I went, basically, because Liz invited me to go out to Costco with her.  I used to have a Costco card, but they were so far away and I shopped there so infrequently it didn't seem worth keeping up the membership.  On the other hand, I did need a few items, or could find some items that I thought I needed; besides, the pizza they serve there is mayonnaise-free American-style, just like the Costco's back home. Seemed as good a reason as any for getting out of the house.

So I made arrangements with, and rode the train out to the other side of Tokyo, out in Chiba, to Makuhari.  This is the equivalent of starting from Trenton, New Jersey, and riding a train out Long Island to go shopping.  This is an early to surprise and, given the nature of cost of retail business.  This is not the kind of store that fits into the highly priced downtown or urban area of Tokyo.  I rode downtown to Tokyo station, then caught the Keiyu Line eastward past the waterfront of Tokyo Bay to Makuhari. it'd been awhile since I've written a train far out this way, riding the same train that goes out to Tokyo Disneyland, which is built along the waterfront in what used to be industrial waterfront land. 

You still pass acres of warehouses, factories, and tank farms.  However, past Disneyland, you also start to see a lot of fairly new shopping centers and big box merchants, they kind that require parking lots and customers who drive up: a very American idea in a country where retail is generally close to the train stations.* I sometimes, cynically, think that this is a more a form of recreation than an economic necessity in a country as affluent as this one.

Much to my surprise, a few stops before Makuhari, I saw an enormous, nearly finished retail building under construction along the line: an IKEA store, at least 7 stories tall (though 3-4 of them will probably be the parking garage. The closest IKEA, I understood, was in Singapore, so was taken by surprise -- a pleasant surprise, I have to admit. Yes, i like shopping at IKEA, and keep your opinion to yourself thankyouverymuch.

I met Liz at Kaihin-Makuhari station, and we rode the little 100-yen "pocket bus" out to the Costco, sitting off be itself in an empty field. As I expected, I bought some things I wouldn't have ordinarily gone out of my way to buy (including a T-FAL folding Healthy Grill. Like I need another kitchen appliance) and some staples, including a massive jar of peanut butter, a package of Farmer John bacon (Japanese pork producers have yet to figure out the "curing" portion of bacon making), a few pounds of M&Ms for my office desk's candy jar, and a heavy loaf of "rustic bread" (it's batard size but weighs 900 grams -- nearly 2 pounds).

This should hold me for awhile.

P.S.: One little thing that happened startled myself and Liz on the train ride home: the train stopped at the station that serves Tokyo Disneyland, and like just about every urban Japan Rail station platform I've been on, the PA system (or Tannoy, for you Brits) played a little melody to signal the train's impending departure. Almost always it's some non-descript little deedle-dee-dee -- but here, in a move certain to cause Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing (what with his Disney and Wacky Japan fetishes) to wet his pants in glee, played a few bars of -- "It's a Small World". Liz and I looked at each other: we didn't just hear what we thought we heard, did we?

*In fact, some retail stores OWN train stations and train lines -- Seibu, Keio, Tobu -- and have used them as springboards for developing real estate and shopping complexes along their routes.

New York State of Mind

I decided to take the day off to take care of some personal business downtown. I had a bit of a frustrating morning, so for lunch I treated myself and my friend Liz to a long, luxurious repast at the Grand Central Oyster Bar , where we shared fried oysters, oyster stew, Oysters Rockefeller, and Clams Casino (which I washed down with a bottle of Brooklyn Lager), finishing with some really rich slices of Key Lime pie.

After I finished my business, I stopped by Dean & Deluca to pick up some bread and Italian coffee, and then got my shoes shined very nicely while reading the latest issue of the New Yorker. I was too full from lunch to even consider eating dinner; otherwise, I might have stopped by Nathan's Famous for a chili cheese dog on the way home.

As you have presumably figured out despite the Big Apple name-dropping, I'm still in Tokyo, and I'm referring to New York restaurants with branches/franchises here. There's a certain fascination with foreign brand names, especially those associated with New York or Paris. The Tokyo version of the Grand Central Oyster Bar, for example -- complete with the meticulously reproduced tiled ceilings and archways of the original -- can be found in the still-fairly-new New York Dining section of the Shinagawa train station shopping arcade. The arcade styles its look after New York -- one of the little dining spots has a couple of booths in a mock-up of a NYC subway car -- and it even has a branch of Dean & Deluca.

I find it all rather strange to think that though I've been to New York twice in my life, I'd never set foot in such New York landmarks as the Oyster Bar, Dean & Deluca's, Nathan's Famous, the Doughnut Plant, Barney's New York, or Brooks Brothers until I came to Tokyo. That they all have branches here is a status thing, presumably: here is a World City, where the all the famous and high-status brands can be found. Which is why I can find real mozzarella di bufala in many places but never matzo-ball soup or matzo meal.

Bum knee

My left knee's been bothering me lately -- it's been pretty painful, I couldn't walk without limping, and the whole left leg feels swollen and inert if I sit in one place too long -- so spurred by a suggestion from my co-worker Sonja, I made an appointment on Friday with physiotherapist's office for today. Sonja found the place through a web search, looking for relief for her own knee problems, and I just made my own appointment for the same day. My appointment was for 1 o'clock and hers for 3, so we figured we'd have lunch in between appointments.

The lunch was also part of the reason I made the appointment: Liz (The Liz Connection, at datigz.blogspot.com), knowing of my quest to find matzo-ball soup in Tokyo, had told that a Jewish-style deli had opened near Shirokane-Takenawa station -- theoretically, very close to the physiotherapy office, and that was enough to seal the deal.

It took some time to find the office: it was actually in an apartment (albeit a modern one) nearer to Hiroo station than to Shirokane-Takenawa, a place I had trouble locating at first. The practice is run by an Australian couple, who have two exam tables separated by a curtain in their small living room. Not a great deal of audio privacy, I'm afraid.

Diagnosis
The wife looked at my leg and knee, and after some poking, prodding, and having me stand barefoot in front of her, told me that I have very flat feet, causing me to walk in a way that strains the muscles on one side of my leg enough to pull the knee joint out of true -- which explains the popping sound I can hear when it suddenly snaps back into place.

Her solution was to sell me a pair of shoe inserts with very high arches -- high enough so I feel like I'm walking pigeon-toed, a feeling the therapist assured me would go away eventually as I got used to the inserts. For the moment, she suggested that I use the inserts only a couple of hours a day until they became comfortable. The therapist gave me some deep-tissue massage on the calf muscles and instructions for some stretching exercises to loosen the leg muscles and keep them from pulling my knee joint out of whack. We'll see how well it works.

Lunch
The overlapping timing didn't work out, so Sonja and I wound up having a late lunch, after her appointment, by which time I had finally located the deli: David's Deli is the name of the place, and as advertised, they had matzo-ball soup. Middle Eastern/Israeli-style food, including falafel, couscous, and other such dishes. I'm definitely coming back.