if you do it yourself and make sure that you’re not ripped off!

I’ve been to the Saraga market in Bloomington – yeah! I am so proud of myself. I was actually the only non-asian in this market and people looked weird at me :-). And of course – I had no idea what I bought (just asked other customers). But I got excellent Chinese green tea and original Japanese green Tea leaves (not tested yet). I guess I’ll go there more often, I even found this weird Japanese “Bonito” (or so) fish stuff.
… and then Kroger wanted to ripp me off … forr the 4th time. So I had an item that was labeled as “2 for $5” and was charged $6.27 (obviously an error – such a strange price) at the cashier. I am beginning to develop the habit to remember all prices and check them afterwards. They gave me the money back without any question … but still! It is the 4th time … this is no coincidence (actually, I’ve not seen anything getting cheaper yet).
And, I finally cooked wakame soup with the (excellent)  ito wakame (dried seaweed strips) that Jungjin gave me last year. And it is excellent! I have to do this more often (looks like more Saraga mart). It’s easy too … I just took lots of water, soaked and rinsed the seaweed, added 2 cans of tuna, 1/2 celery “head”, 3 carrots, 7 mushrooms, soy sauce,  pepper and the ultra-hot Korean seasoning that I found in my cupboard (courtesy of Miho, some months ago). And yeah, it’s really easy (just wait) and tastes very good (and is nearly fat-free (only the fish)). This is the pot after I ate half:

Yeah, many of you know that I am convinced that US food is just bad (gene manipulation, hormones, yadayadayada), and eating out is even worse. I found my own way to get around it … I cook my lunches myself and freeze them. I tried a new recipe – Japanese style – and thought I should share it! It’s easy and really delicious and your roommates will love you.

Ingredients for three lunches:

– 2 cans (2x100g) sardines or 1 can (400g) mackarel

– 1/2 onion

– 1/2 big cabbage (fresh)

– soy sauce, pepper

– 2 cans green beans/corn or peas

– 3/4 cup cooked rice

Recipe (in a big pan!):

– fry the cut onions until they’re glassy (soft)

– add cut cabbage and fish, fry until cabbage is soft and tastes well

– add soy sauce and pepper until it tastes good

– mix remaining ingredients

So I did it and that’s how it looks like:

The 1/2 cabbage – before murdering aehem cutting!

The onions *hmmm* – I did both recipies (mackarel and sardines at the same time)

Done!

And you’ll have this nice fishy smell in your kitchen (and the whole house if you did it right) which will also stay for several days. And even better, when you re-heat the stuff, it’s going to smell nicely fishy. So people told me that they smelled my food in the second floor of Lindley hall. My colleagues will love me soon ;-).

A note on US apples: *ARGH* why do those people have to wax fruits? I guess to cheat on the customers! I bought 5lb apples, waxed (there were no others) … and they are brown inside! Man, and the bag says: “Meets or exceeds US extra fancy standards, Product of USA”. Extra fancy? Yeah, they have this shiny effect – great :-/.

… US DOE answers to the Japanese Earth Simulator (from 2002): “If we allow the Japanese to deploy our strategy uncontested, we will surely lose the lead in other computational science disciplines.”

It’s really worth a read :).

Yeah, isn’t that cool … now everybody can browse Bloomington’s streets online. Some links below:

1) Maxwell Terrace, my current home, the red car in the picture is mine 🙂

2) I was living here, here, here and here last year :).

3) view on my lab (okok, many trees :))

4) brian park