monday is a new day

my partner in crime, jill, and i were similar in many ways. one of those ways was that we both loved our food and drink. after living together for just over a month jill declared "monday is a new day". this meant that we were going to stop behaving as if we were on vacation - stop eating and drinking loads, stop lounging around all the time. i planned to eat slightly healthier, slightly less, and start practicing yoga on a regular basis.

the fact was that we had had enough time to discover many of the yummy foods japan had to offer. the izakayas that we visited had picture menus (for easy ordering) and every time we visited one we knew what things we wanted. of course gyoza (pan-fried dumplings), deep fried oysters, tiny eggplant halves with miso, french fries, sashimi, edamame (green soybeans), and atsukan (hot sake!). white russians at karaoke. fried chicken and egg on rice concoctions from the mini-mart, onigiri (filled rice balls wrapped in seaweed), and late night bowls of ramen.

and as if that weren't enough our home cuisine creations were evolving too. every friday night was "gyoza night". we cooked up a couple packages of supermarket gyoza and sat on our little sofa watching videos. we started making pizza toasts. we managed to make nachos in our toaster oven (in japan they didn't have tortilla chips, but we did find "plain" unflavored doritos - seriously). other favorites included beef stroganoff and jill's fabulous mac and cheese (which i now make for myself and claim it's my recipe - sorry hon!).

so despite riding the bloody bikes everywhere all this food was starting to add up. and i behaved for a little while. but then came christmas. and our trip to tokyo. japan is just a food lover's paradise, what's a girl to do?