All the birds fly home today...

It's fly home day.

PS Movember

Do you hear that whistle wail?

Time for a monthly update! When I left you last time, I had just deepfried a lot of stuff. Now, here's a brief recap of the last month and a half.

I went on a trip to the southern end of the prefecture, which you can follow on this map, and some photos.

I did another trip to the south west, no map, but some photos are on flickr.

My hard-drive crashed, and I lost nearly everything, but I have since bought a newer, and bigger on.

Did a one day home visit. We played Life in Japanese, which is not as good as the English version, which is not very good to began with. Then made Okonomiyaki and played baseball.

I started spreading the gospel of Peanut Butter and Jam. How one could go their entire life without even knowing about it is terrifying.

Ate a large bowl of ramen, and learnt of giant bowl of ramen eating challenge. Hungry Traveler v2?

Began planning my spring break, Jan 28th to March 25th. Potential destinations include Korea, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Taiwan, Malaysia, and maybe more!

This weekend was the Kagoshima University festival, and next weekend will be the International University of Kagoshima's, and I'll have some photos on flickr soon after.

Got a deepfryer in [the room next to] my bedroom

I love you my deepfryin' machine.

I had 3/4s of an onion sitting at the bottom of my fridge, and I had already ised it in hashbrowns and in soup, so the only option left was to deepfry it. Now I'm no fool, and I know never to let any deepfry opportunity go to waste, so I made a trip to the store this afternoon and picked up some supplies.

Started simple with some sweet/regular fries.
















Then I used up that onion. Because the last time I used it, I slit it down the side to avoid the bulb, they were onion slivers rather than rings.













Finally I went for desert. Oreos, which taste great as usual, Peanut butter and Blueberry sammy, delicious but could have used more pb, swiss cake roll, tasted like a doughnut and fell apart, and lastly an apple turnover thing, sadly the japanese don't know how to make a proper turnover, so rather than being flaky like a normal pastry it was like a roll, which didn't taste all that great fried.
















I'm not a fatty, so I didn't it all of it. I also should mention I forgot to deepfry some macaroni which is supposed to be great, and I had some little wagon wheel looking things, but they were a bit melty so I didn't fry them.

Boil, boil grease sign me to sleep...

when I swing my swords they all choppable

I have now been in Kagoshima for just over a week, and I have recovered my password to this blog, so I figured I would provide an update.

As most have seen on fb, I am living in a small apartment that consists of a corridor leading to a bedroom. Along the corridor one can find such exciting things as a mini fridge, microwave, shower, laudry machine and toilet room. A large portion of my time thus far has been spent furnishing the apartment further, buying pots and pans, utensils, soap, and other such goods.

Excursions have been made over the week, flying solo or with the two other exchange students I've met, Feri and Masa from Taiwan. Both very nice people, one is staying for a semester, the other a full year like me. One of such excursions took me to Sakurajima, local volcano to see a few Japanese bands including The Polysics. Some might remember my previous trip to see the Polysics in 2007, comparably the first show was much better, but the band still had an unbelievable amount of energy and very tight set.

I have also learnt a lot in the past few days about myself. For example, I love grocery stores, but hate having to go for groceries. It seems I cannot fond what I'm looking for anywhere. These items more particularly non-processed cheese and icing sugar. I have hatched an evil plan to make friends with a baker and find out where they buy their ingredients.

I suppose that would be it for now.
It's a wide entrance, small exit like a funnel, so deep it's picked up on radios in tunnels

blaming my sister, until i'm free

In honor of the more than awesome days I've have been having, those upcoming, and of course The Unicorns, I will be making a list of my 52 favourite things(next to being me). The list is in no particular order more than likely based of what I did in the previous day(s).

Nineteen eighty something

headed to bed on sunday
well that's OK
my birthday's a week away
gonna have a cake, swim at the beach
wake up early, & go to bed late...

By the waters of babylon

I'm just here to hold your hand when you die

Sailor Tattoos

Through the roof of the sky up above, suck it europe.

Who cooks for you?

Now that I've finished another year of school, I have absolutely nothing to do during the day. Most of my time is spent idly watching shows on my computer, but I've gone through about a dozen series already this month. All this free-time also means more painting. I painted a couple things today, and will need to pick up some more canvas(read wood) soon.

enjoying the weather, BBQ tonight, hoping for a bonfire soon.
Until the lion learns to speak.

Ch-ch-cheese Cake!

Since Tuesday I have been trying to make cheesecake, but due to exams and a number of other projects, I haven't had the time. Thankfully after last night's Accounting 202 final, I am in my mind finish, as stats is dumb and I don't care for it. So when I got home today I started baking.

The recipe was for mini cheesecakes, made in muffin tins. Unfortunately I lost our reusable muffin wrappers last year, and we haven't gotten any new ones. The tasty little bite-sized nomnom are sitting in the fridge cooking off, and stuck in their tray. Hopefully once they've cooled, I can pry them out or something.

I did eat one out of the pan and it was pretty fantastic. I put extra sugar, and some uncalled for vanilla and cinnamon in the graham cracker crust, which makes a phenomenal difference. I have frozen berries defrosting to make a little bit of a glaze to put on top.

These are great days when your yolk is easy.

Update: got the cheesecakes out and they are great.

Joy of Bacon

East Asia has become a pretty big part of my life somehow. Having myself spent a year there, and looking at another year(2010 Japan or bust!), and a handful of family and friends who have either lived/are living/will be living there it seems understandable. This has also provided ample opportunity to cook Asian foods.

As we speak I'm letting some chicken defrost so I can make peanut butter and teriyaki wings, and am going to try to make some peanut tofu noodles.

So here's how what I used;
1 can Coconut Milk (Asian Food Store, or maybe Superstore)
1/4 c. Smooth Unsweetened Peanut Butter
1/4 c. Red Curry Paste
1/2 Tbsp Salt
2 Tbsp White Vinegar
3/4 c. White Sugar
1/2 c. Water

And here's what I did;
Put it all in a pot, and brought it to a soft boil. Whisked it all together until it was smooth, and there were no chunks of curry paste or peanut butter. Let it simmer for a couple minutes, and it was done.

What now you might ask. As I mentioned I'm making Thai peanut noodles, which I can't wait to try with some sort of mango drink this summer, and wings(let them marinate for a couple hours). It's rumored to be good on fries and I would imagine would add to nay stir fry.

The best thing about the peanut sauce is the mix of flavours you get;
Salty [x]
Sweet [x]
Spicy [x]

Tonight I'll be going to pick up some cream cheese so I can make mini cheesecakes, and will post about that at some point. But until then, If I'm not mistaken, the answer's bacon.

Emaciated on the meager

Dear Friends,
I too have decided to start a blog. For the time being this simple blogger page will more then suffice and depending on how much I love you all, we may see bigger and brighter things in the future. I have wings, but they aren't meant for viewing.

You may be asking yourself what I have to contribute to the internet, but rest assured that in these past 12 years of internet use have trained me well. I have learnt a number of tricks through osmosis, so remain calm as I layout my game plan.

1. People love food, and I love to bake. For the past 3 monthes I have had no Wednesday classes, and thus decided that every Wednesday I would cook or bake something new. These adventures lemon squares, crack'n'cheese, samosas, deep fried PB+Js, doughnuts and many other things. What I would first like to propose is that through this medium I share such adventures with you. You can even ask for some of the stuff I make, becasue we all know I don't need to go another week eating mint brownies, raw cookie dough, and lemon squares three times a day.
   
2. I like to make things, or more appropriately, plan to make things and never follow through. Having planned dozens of art projects or planning to make all sorts of different contraptions, but never following through I hope that maybe you can hold me accountable to them.
   
3. While we are on the subject of art, I now have a venue to post different drawings, projects, and paintings. Now that I have a venue to display something, I will do more to create something for you to see.

Ladies, and gentlemen, I would like to end this christening post by saying that this blog will not be a rehash. You will not find bad summaries of other blogs talking about zanny and crazy news, because frankly that is a waste of both our time.

So to you I say;
Across your ocean and your floor, into arms of ever more,
Jeff