Anger Burger

I’m so behind on my writing, it’s just one first-world drama after another around here (my Volvo broke!  I have too many friends!) and all of a sudden it’s like 10 days later.  Life!  What a racket.

Anyway, long story short: my friend Junko made me hotpot for my birthday!  I think technically it was nabemono, but I’m not big on technicalities.

Nabe is a beautiful meal and equally delicious and all of that is second to the fact that it is sort of suspiciously easy.  It helps¹ if you have a table-top gas burner (which can be reliably found at Asian markets for under $20) and one of these very nice clay pots (also can be quite cheap, though the nice ones are a little pricier) and then, well, you boil shit.  The more people the better, you sit around and boil down meat, tofu and vegetables, scooping things out as they cook.

The broth (which in this instance was a ginger & kimchee mash-up of Junko’s own design) gets increasingly flavorous as everything cooks until toward the end (as seen above) the broth is total ambrosia.  Bittersweet considering that by this point you are totally fucking stuffed and sipping the broth is torture.  Delicious, wonderful Japanese torture.  And no, it’s not exactly summertime eating, but it was my birthday and I could manipulate my Japanese friends into making nabe if I wanted to.

¹ And by “helps” I mean that you can’t do it without one.