Anger Burger

I have this dream…

Other than the one where Chris Knight asks me to marry him.  This other dream is where I’m famous in Japan and they want me to come over there just so we can go grocery shopping for condiments together and translate the labels for me.  AND GUESS WHICH ONE JUST CAME TRUE?  More or less.

Basically, a kindly woman named Amy took pity on my pathetic fumblings with Japanese cuisine and HAND-CARRIED ME AN AMAZING ASSORTMENT OF GOODS FROM JAPAN.  Mega-Christmas, pretty much.  But like, a surprise-party Christmas.  And I didn’t have to listen to a certain domestic partner of mine throw a tantrum for the entirety of November and December.  I’m sad that Amy and I didn’t get to meet in person, but I did get to go to her hotel after she left and tell them I was picking up a package.  I pretended like we were spies and this was a data transfer.  I even put on sultry make-up.  True story.  I may have ruined it by exclaiming “YAY!” when they handed me a heavy paper bag.

Amy is practically a total stranger to me, but I imagine she’ll roll her eyes when I say that even her handwriting is good and kind.  I should also point out that Amy sent an incredible PDF explaining — with images! — what each item was, all the ingredients, how it is used and when it expires.  I mean, for reals, at this point, if Amy were a man, I’d be telling Mike it was fun but I have to go.

Now, c’mon.  Someone packed all this in their luggage for me.  Are your eyes misting?  Mine are.  Also, I’m actually getting shaky with excitement at this point.  Totally true, and good insight as to why I have high blood pressure.

Item the first!  Well hello, what are we?  And can I say: the Japanese may kick our asses at many things, but I’d like to motion for package aesthetics being at the top of the list.  All those in favor say aye.

Closer inspection reveals — hey, I know what that is!  That’s an enoki mushroom.  A jar of some kind of mysterious enoki mushrooms, which in Amy’s letter reveals itself to be… Indeed!  Jarred, seasoned enoki.

And I know what this is, too!  This time I have witnesses to my shouting “HOORAY!”  The actual word, like I’m a comic strip character or a greeting card.  Because this, this is one of my favoritest condiments ever, yuzu kosho, and for some inexplicable reason I’ve never tried to find it here in the US.  It is a paste of yuzu peel (a lovely citrus) and chili pepper.  Kind of spicy, salty, bitter/astringent and a little goes a long way.  Very fresh and invigorating.  Oof, my stomach grumbled while typing that.  Hush, you!

Next up, something that I don’t recognize at all.  And I can’t read a thing on it.  Amy says: concentrated chige-nabe, and yet again, what a coincidence –  I had my very first (sort of) chige-nabe not one month ago.  And it was fantastic, a hotpot made with a healthy dose of kimchi.  And for those that don’t like kimchi, I’m afraid I’m going to pull the ol’ sushi line out on you: you’ve just never had good kimchi.  And this bottle of hotpot soup stock is making me salivate.  Glaaar.

This is golden sesame sauce for shabu-shabu, which is kind of like hotpot.  In hotpot, you make what amounts to an interactive stew, while shabu-shabu is named after the sound of swishing very thinly sliced meats and vegetables through rapidly boiling water, cooking them in a matter of seconds and then transferring them to a small dish where you have an ongoing condiment experiment. I love it because you get to play mad scientist, mixing up mutant sauce from all kinds of stuff (like this gorgeous-looking golden sesame sauce) and then quickly dipping a piece of, for example, lightly cooked beef in and then slurping it up awkwardly and burning the shit out of the roof of your mouth.  Maybe that’s just me.  I have a suspicion that this sauce will also make a killer salad dressing.  Stand by!

And here this looks like soy sauce.  But it has art on it that appears to be oysters:

And indeed, Amy says it is:

Soy sauce, sugar, mirin (sweet rice wine), shaved bonito extract, salt, oyster extract, konbu (dried kelp) extract, shiitake mushroom extract, alcohol

Okay, no joking now, I’m getting sort of woozy with hunger.  My stomach is gurgling, my blood sugar is dropping and I can think of 1001 uses for this oyster-dashi soy sauce.  Amy points out that it is used for making dashimaki, a Japanese rolled omelet that I love and keep trying to make to clumsy results.

Can you believe all this?  And I’m not even halfway through the package yet.  I’m like the Julia Childs of Japan, but without the skill, just the oafish disregard for etiquette.  Stay tuned for more!