So the other day I reached a pivotal point in my cooking career. I safely, and some might say deliciously, mixed together a concoction of chickpeas, lemon juice, tahini, olive oil, garlic powder, and salt into a middle eastern dish commonly known as hummus.

What makes this event pivotal is it took me nearly two months of preparation to reach this point.

I’ve enjoyed hummus for quite a number of years, and partake in it whenever given the chance, but the idea of making it myself was only recently realized. This cumulative event can all be traced back to one instant, when the ever gracious and thoughtful Denise Amtsbuechler gave our family a container of hummus as a way of thanks for watching over Dylan and Olivia for the day. That stuff was gone by weeks end. One of the particular delights I found was in toasting a bagel, and then spreading the hummus on top, the cool mixing with the warm, and the delightful tang as it made contact with my tongue. The next time we were at the Amtsbuechlers, I implored Denise for the recipe, which she kindly gave me. I don’t need to tell you that I consider Denise to be my second mother now.

I kept that recipe safe and protected for the long dark months leading up to my departure for Japan. I would take it out every now and again, just to make sure it still said “1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder”, and not “1/3″. I had visions of dazzling friends and foreigners alike with this mysteries Arab dish. When I found out that my predecessor was leaving me behind a blender, I almost knelt down and wept for joy.

After arriving, I quickly made plans to start up an independent hummus outlet catering service, and set out to amass the needed ingredients.

The needed ingredients.

I have to admit; one never really sees the flaws in a great plan that always turn out to be the most obvious. After checking several times, I came to the unequivocal conclusion that the ingredients were written completely in English. I also was able to determine that the labels on all the cans here were written undeniably in Japanese. I further surmised that things had different names in Japan from what they were back home. Now this wasn’t such a problem for such items as salt, and olive oil—I already knew how to find those—but then there were items such as chickpeas, garlic powder, and particularly the exotic tahini.

Over the course of a month and a half, I was slowly able to figure out and locate these varies items. I asked friends, I searched through international grocery stores; I did whatever it took. Life without hummus was not an option. The clincher was when on a whim I decided to look up tahini on wikipedia to see if it could offer me some advice, and found that instead it went one step further and actually listed what tahini was in Japanese! Wikipedia, I love you.

Having finally secured all the needed ingredients, I set aside an entire morning to the sacred ritual of hummus making. I had all my little bottles and cans neatly lined up, still gleaming from the polish I had given them the night before. I cleaned off the blender, had a fresh loaf of bread sitting expectantly on the counter, and had a nice classical album playing in the background. I had even that morning spent some time on the internet researching conversions for the recipe in metric units, marking them out on the few measuring cups I had found in the cupboard. My preparations were complete, and with nervous hands I took out the sacred text and read from the first line.

Step 1: Open one (1) can of chickpeas; drain and rinse.

“No problem” I thought to myself as I took the can from it’s place in line, and set it in front of me; my hand meanwhile rummaging in the drawer behind for the needed can opener. Time passed. The shadows on the floor grew long. Children were born, grew old, had mid-life crises and bought new convertibles. And still my hand found no can opener. Something was wrong here. Something was terribly wrong. Who in their right mind doesn’t have a can opener??

The Japanese, that’s who.

You see in Japan, the wonderful country of convenience, all cans are made with pop-top lids. You simply pull the tab, and viola, instant access. Who wants to mess around with a can opener? Unfortunately for me, I had purchased my precious can of chickpeas at the import store, and so it was made in the traditional manner; it’s makers assuming that the ding-dong who bought it also had a can opener handy. How can one be literally so close and yet so far away?

Unfortunately the purchase of a new can opener would have to wait until my next trip into Tokyo, the city of plenty, which as it so happened was this past weekend. While there I bought a fancy new can opener (an import of course, from the UK), and a nifty set of measuring spoons to boot, with both the English and metric units clearly labeled.

On Sunday, at roughly 7:00 in the evening, I made my first batch of hummus—the details of which were recorded in the annuals of the kings.

Tonight I had it again.

And yes, the second batch is already on its way.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend Geisai 10 in Tokyo. Giesai is a huge event put on twice a year by Takashi Murakami, and is one of the few art fairs held in Japan. Here’s a link for more info if you’re interested in the details:

http://www2.geisai.net/

This was actually the first art show I’ve been able to attend since getting back to Japan, so it was quite an exciting experience for me. I would have probably tried to go to more over the past month and a half, but being cut off from the internet makes such outings nearly impossible. Hooray then for a new computer and internet!!

The event itself took place in Odaiba, which is right on Tokyo bay, a place I don’t usually find myself going to—due mostly to the distance—so even the trip out was quite enjoyable. I headed over there with Jessica, a friend from Western who just recently arrived in Japan to start teaching herself, on the new Yurikamome line heading out of Shimbashi. The line itself was nearly breath taking as it carried us well above the Tokyo skyline, connecting to Odaiba via the beautiful Rainbow bridge. The event was set up at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center, a huge facility with very striking design. Because of the long commute, and a couple delays that caught us in Ikebukuro, we arrived at Geisai with about three hours before it was scheduled to end. Normally this wouldn’t pose much of a problem, three hours is still plenty of time to spend at an event such as this, but as we made our way across the convention center to where is was being held, a slight since of panic took hold of us as we noticed a rather long and intimidating line issuing from the ticket booth. As we took our places at the back of the line, we were further dismayed by the complete lack of movement on the part of the members of said line. This was getting us no where… Literally.

About thirty minutes passes, during which time our place in the line remained exactly the same, until suddenly people with loud speakers started issuing commands for us to move from the ticket counter to where the entrance for the event was. We weren’t quite sure what was going on, until one of the workers at the event, who’s job apparently was to seek out foreigners and out them at ease, told us in English that the sponsors of the event were terrible sorry for the long delay and other hardships that we had been subjected to, and though it could never make up for all the pain suffered on your part, we hope that you would except this small and utterly worthless gesture of apology by entering this event for free.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (^O^)/

Though we only had two hours left in which to enjoy Geisai, it ended up being more than enough time, and we were able to enjoy all the different displays and artists booths to complete satisfaction.

Afterwards we headed back to Ikebukuro where we ate at Shakey’s, and I was able to have pizza for the first time since arriving here.

And I have to say, the pizza that day tasted particularly good.

I went to Geisai #10 this past weekend. I’ll have a post on my adventures up sometime tomorrow, but in the meantime I put up some pictures from the event on my Flickr account so feel free to head over there and check them out.

Thanks

Yesterday, before I went to bed, I was on my computer and on a whim decided to put on the Writer’s Almanac; listening as Garrison Keillor lamented on the anniversary of 9/11.

I had had no idea.

It was the first time since being here that I felt really disconnected from events back home. It’s a strange realization. I mean I still read a variety of news sites, and know all the major events going on, but there’s something about things like anniversaries and holidays that especially take you by surprise. I remember last time I was here and realized that the ordinary day I had just spent in Japan was Thanksgiving day for everyone back home.

I suppose when you sit down and think about it, such occurrences are certainly expected and make perfect sense. And if I had been back in the US versus being here in Japan, would the substance of what I did that day really have altered that much? Perhaps not, and yet the shock of the realization was still enough to make me wonder how I had ever managed to spend my day in peace. I tried to pay penitence by watching the trailer for World Trade Center several times. I read through testimonies. I tried to think what I had actually been doing at the time the crashes were.

It’s interesting how little it can take to change the scope of an entire day. For me, one radio broadcast was enough.

Another recent realization is that I’ve already been in Japan for a month and a half now. And I’ve been teaching already for about two weeks. It’s nice to know that I’ve already started to devolop a basic day-to-day routine, and kind of know what to expect from tomorrow, next week, and the months to come. There’s a sort of stability that’s emerging that I’ve been enjoying. It’s also nice to have Tokyo so close, and my weekends would feel much more constricting if I wasn’t able to get out to the big city whenever I wanted. It’s also a great asset to have a working computer and internet capabilities again, which allows me to keep connected on the different kinds of events and shows going on in the wider world around me. There’s actually a design exhibition coming up soon that I might be able to attend.

I’ll continue to try and expand on my experiences here, and hopefully update with some pictures soon.

On a final note, the weather has started to cool off a bit, which is really good news. Most likely though it’s due mainly to the several days of rain we’ve had, but with luck it won’t be much longer until autumn arrives.

Ah my faithful sweaters, soon you will be able to see the light of day again.