Shoyu and Tail

The Japanese Blowfish

I'd like to say that I missed a day of posting because Blogger.com had some technical problems. While this did delay my previous post, it's not the whole truth. The whole truth involves a couple of four letter words: fugu and sake. Fugu is Japanese blowfish. Yes, THE poisonous one. You have to sign a liability release form in restaurants prior to ordering it. Noriko's parents mail-ordered a packaged dinner ($200!!!) and two days later we feasted! I don't remember signing anything.

We had fugu sashimi (pictured above), fugu skin peelings, fugu stew (both pictures below). Fugu sashimi is cut very thin. The thinner the piece, the better the cook. It is served on a decorative dish whose pattern is meant to be seen through the slices of fish. J-Pop and Ma were a little disappointed the dish we received wasn't more colorful.
Fugu from the stew.

Fugu stew: fugu, cabbage, mushrooms, tofu (and some seasonings)

According to the experts (actually I guessed and they confirmed), the poison is in it's liver. Either one of my mutant powers is immunity to fugu poison (how cool!) or I didn't get any bits of liver in my bowl. Fugu-man would be a good name and the costume would be easy enough. Now we're getting around to the part where I passed out soon after supper (and neglected my blog). Before supper, Noriko yelled upstaris to me, "Are you going to drink with Dad tonight?" I imagined a couple of tiny shots of sake and said ,"Sure! After all, we're eating fugu tonight!" I also halfway thought that maybe the sake would help neutralize any poison I might ingest. Well it turns out our little sake glasses were full size water glasses. I sipped on and finished one during the sashimi course of the meal and needed a refill by the time the stew was ready. Me and J-pop had a few good laughs about some things I can't remember. J-Pop had the tail of the fugu floating around in his. I have to admit, I was a little jealous. I wanted something floating in mine. Soon he was in his usual prebath position, prone on the floor, half asleep, repeating English words he knew that were related to the "potato recipes" show we were watching, "Sweet potato. Baked potato. Fried potato." I was on the other side of the kotatsu (see earlier blog entry for definition of kotatsu), prone, silently repeating those words, half asleep.

Seeing I was headed for dreamland, Noriko suggested I hit the sack. Now you know the whole story behind my missing blog entry. The fugu was good. The sake was good. The potato was good.

Note: We also had lightly fried sardines and aji (a very tasty fish). You can see those pictures in a later entry about my favorite thing in Japan: the food!

Definitions: Shoyu- pronounced SHOW (as in "show and tell") and YOU, soy sauce