Joy Ride

It was right after my Nozomi 68 super express passed Shizuoka, when, out of nowhere, a crazy idea came up to my mind, which turned out to be a magical way to enjoy the remaining 1 hour ride: Close my eyes and imagine I was driving that flying car I saw in the Episode II. It felt so real and even thrilling - another geeky pleasure of mine.

のぞみって時折、
プォーンっていう、ワープみたいな音を出しません？
あれがまた、なかなかの効果音でして・・・

Xiphophorus

So I'm always fascinated by people who can explain to me some things that are entirely new to me, in a few crisp words, like kids' newspaper headlines, and with respect.

For example, 'Ogg.'

We were sort of market-studying i-pod and the like at Yodobashi, when I got naive enough to ask this engineer how come 'Ogg' mattered to him, and his answer was "Because it's the format that goes with my PC, which runs not with Windows but with so-called Linux." (did I hear it right?)

To general people, he might have used more technical words, but to me, who still sharpens pencils with a knife, I don't believe there would have been better answers than that.

Moreover, I like this "headline" information because of the space it gives to me: if not interested, I can opt to skip to other topics with no bad feeling at all; if interested, I can go on to read further on my own will -I was, and now I know Ogg is an audio compression format that is open, free, and unpatented. What a progress in a day.


何それ？何で？と聞いた私の図太さも凄いですけど
それに簡潔に答えられる文脈力はもっと凄いと思います。

ちなみにOggには
「（あとのことを何も考えず）強引に押進める」って意味もあるらしいです。　
でもまあそういう行動も時には必要よね
（と言うことが既にoggy?）

Emotion

7/17 (Sun), 13:30: I was at Musashino with a friend of my sister waiting for our baguette, when she started flipping the Noritake knife and said, "This just reminded me of a ... whale."

The behavior and remark could have turned out to be nerdy or I'm-trying-hard-to-be-a-cute-woman-ish, but it was so her, natural and artistic, which I thought was undoubtly adorable.

Then, three days later, I found the cutlery is called "emotion."

Aptly-named, I thought, because what she told me the Coward Lion at the end of the lunch was that the most important thing (in relationships), after all, was to be true to myself and never be afraid of expressing my emotion.


素直がいちばん、ね。

Foxy Brown

Self analysis: One of the minor reasons why I like cooking is because it has so many words and phrases which I like the sound of, such as blend until smooth, drizzle (nuts) over the cake, and golden brown that is used to describe when cooked food (e.g. pies, muffins, chicken wings) is ready.

Golden brown. So lovely, especially when pronounced with a British accent. But what I like more is the Japanese term used for the same doneness: kitsune-iro, literally meaning fox color.

I don't know what people associate a fox with, but for sure this expression has no sly, negative implication at all (and has nothing to do with 1974 Jack Hill film).

In fact, it reminds me of a beautiful kita-kitsune (northern fox) I once saw in Hokkaido, and every once in a while during my holiday cooking I fantasize about him:

He's young and proud, gazing at me quietly with his sharp spine line nobly shining under early autumn sunlight. He nears me, as if to show off his pearly white paws, and stops 1-1/2 arm-length away from me. Minutes of silence, looking at him and looking at me. And finally, not knowing what to do, I just exhale "hi..." when he suddenly but gracefully leaps a half axel and slaps me with his brush. I blink my eyes, and he's gone. I just stand still, keep staring at the light scar he's left on my knee.

Have I read this kind of story somewhere? At Prof Ukai's English class back in college? Was it "The fox"? I'm getting oblivious...

And that's when my custard pudding is ready.


[きつね色になるまで]

英語では golden brown というのですね。
（例：bake at 180C for 20 min, or until golden brown）
でも「きつね色」のほうが表現として好き。
きりっとした、でもしっぽフワフワの
若いキタキツネを思い起こさせるから。

ドレミファ　ソ　ソ　ラファドラソ。

Egg-ology (2)

So my father, born on the Pearl Harbor Day, has never cooked hard-boiled eggs. That's a critical domestic issue to address.

But now I wonder, what about me, then? What makes me so sure I'm any better?

So I googled as usual, because being egg-headed is the last thing I want to be. But I must confess I was beaten more or less this time, to find out merely in minutes, my complete egg-norance of the situation abroad.

As far as I know, most people in Japan make boiled-eggs by keeping eggs simmered just until cooling them with running tap water (unless they've got a microwavable egg-cooking gadget.) However, apparently that's not a universal standard. For example, Betty Crocker's cookbook and American Egg Board, which I think are influential in the US, recommend the following:
1) turn off heat as water comes to a boil
2) let stand for minutes
3) then cool with water

"Remove from heat?! Um, okay," I bitterly smiled and nodded... until AEB proudly called it's let-stand method "more energy efficient."

EFFICIENT.

"Hey, do you mean I'm an inefficient person?"

Calm down, calm down. (I have a tendency to overreact to the word.)

Then self defense:
"Actually, I strongly believe 'keep-simmering' is more prectical here in Japan, considering the nation's family size, pan size and so on. Moreover, it agrees with our perfectionism or sophisticated sense of beauty: would rather gently stir eggs while heat is on, in order to get the yolk just right in the middle…" And eventually, my imagination went so far as to picture US-Japan secretary-level talks over which is more civilized in the way of cooking eggs.

But all in all, it wasn't that bad to get all these eggs on my face. Actually, it, uh, egged myself on, to enhance my egg-ability.


[一般的な ゆで卵のつくりかた]

日本では「沸騰してから5-10分ゆでる」だと思うのですが
参照：NHKきょうの料理　ゆで卵のきほん

米国では「沸騰したら火からおろし、余熱で凝固」がより一般的なのでしょうか？
参照：American Egg Board　米国鶏卵委員会

しかも「より省エネで効率的です」みたいなこと書いてるし。
なんかいやですねえ・・・　
「あなた非効率、要領悪い」って言われてるみたいで。（考えすぎ）

じゃあなぜこの「効率的」な方法は日本に浸透しないんだろう、と
ふと実践してみました。

2個目むきかけた時点で、自分なりの答えは出ました：
黄身、思い切り片寄ってました。しかも5個とも全部・・・
これが、日本の美意識に反するのかな、と。

ちょっと、アメリカ人に勝った気がしました。