Failing At...

Dinner!

Now this is not necessarily a Japan-specific failure, my cooking skills tend to end with the microwave, but this failure is taken to whole other level when you: a) have no microwave and b) are forced to cook with totally unfamiliar ingredients.

And yes, it is true I could buy lovely Western ingredients, but then again I’m not going to be that guy paying what essentially amounts to an Asshat Gaijin tax because I need to buy expensive Western ingredients, when I could just learn to live like a local. And besides, I’m in Japan, I’m eating/cooking Japanese food goddamnit.

But I must say, I’ve had some pretty spectacular failures.

First and most basically, is my failure at conquering the temperamental bitch known as Japanese style rice. I’ve yet to get it cooked properly. It’s either crispy and cemented to the bottom of the pot or it is a sloshy soup-like consistency. I really need to buy a rice cooker quick considering I’m in the land where rice goes with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Second is the fact that I’m just a total shit cook with no patience, and that has nothing to do with the ingredients I’m working with. I just assume that everything is as simple as I think it must be. Need to cook a hamburger? Why just throw it in a pan and fry it of course! If you don’t mind burned outsides and totally raw insides. Need to make tempura chicken? Batter it and throw it in lukewarm oil so the batter falls off and melds to the bottom of the pan!

Third is the fact that I can’t read the directions on the back of the box, and clearly me and the person who makes the illustrations are on totally different wavelengths, because they’re not worth dick in helping me make a decent meal.

Thankfully, for whatever reason, Spam is popular here in Okinawa. Yes, I bought my first can of Spam the other day out of curiosity (desperation), and it actually wasn’t half bad.

I’m not kidding.

I don’t want to make it a regular thing, but when your cooking skills equal zero, you can’t read directions, and you don’t have the time to waste an hour and a half cooking a meal for one, Spam starts to look pretty appetizing.

Yet somehow, inexplicably, I think I’m gaining weight. I can’t believe it. I really don’t want to have to start exercising.

I certainly don’t have the time to both cook a meal and exercise all in one day.