駅弁 ~ Station Meal-in-a-Box ~

I recently read a book about ekiben (駅弁, "railway boxed meals", according to Wikipedia—I'd always associated bento with lunch, but I guess you can have it for dinner, too). I was standing in the food studies section at the library and thought I'd pick something up.

The book was titled Ekiben Monogatari (『駅弁物語』, Stories of the Railway Boxed Meal) and published in 1979. Its author, Uriu Tadao (瓜生忠夫), was born in Taiwan in 1915 and worked later as a media critic while also writing about ekiben.

I admit I love ekiben—I get it every chance I get (unless I'm overladen with luggage), mostly when I take the shinkansen. I got one last at the beginning of August (pictured—though I threw away the wrapping and don't remember much about it, except it had something to do with being a light summer meal)!

The book was unexpectedly a great read, despite its moments of sexism. The concurrent rise of the ekiben along with that of the Japanese railway system, the relationship between ekiben and imperialism as the military purchased ekiben from vendors in exchange for supplying them with white rice (hot commodity during wartime), changing nature of trains (e.g., windows that passengers can't open) under modernization and the development of express trains and what it did to the economic structure of platform sales of ekiben... All really interesting and new to me.

In the book Uriu gives a recipe for making "Torimeshi" (「とりめし」), an ekiben he likes from Takasaki Station (高崎駅) in Gunma Prefecture (群馬県) in the Kantō region. Apparently he got the recipe from the (then?) owner of Budō-ya (葡萄屋) in Tokyo, a restaurant that specializes in chicken dishes and yakitori...and what do you know, they're still in business. I'm including a rough summary of the recipe below, just so I won't forget it.


The Meat Half of the Torimeshi Topping

400g ground chicken
8 T sake
4 T sugar
3 T soy sauce

Put meat into a pot, mix the sauce and pour over meat. Cook without stirring. When done, serve over half the rice in a bowl. (If you want to reheat, add sake or water.)


I love recipes like that. Now for

The Egg Half of the Torimeshi Topping

2 eggs
1 T sugar
Salt

Combine ingredients and pour into a pan with no oil. When it begins to cook, mix vigorously with chopsticks. Serve over the other half of the rice in a bowl.


He says torimeshi goes well with a simple chicken soup, made with ginger, garlic, salt, pepper...with a little bit of soy sauce, green onions, and some mitsuba (an herb, kind of like parsley or cilantro). Mmmmmm.

GSA #5: Things You Can Do Because You're a Grad Student

Actually, I'm talking about the things I did as a grad student that I hesitate to do now that I'm...not. This doesn't mean that I actually can't do these things now, or that I should have been doing them while I was a grad student, either...

• Reading stuff from the series A Very Short Introduction. I read the Literary Theory one for the first quarter of the theory sequence and thought, "How cool! I wanna learn about cosmology!" But now that I'm not a grad student, can I still read, say, Marx: A Very Short Introduction or Foucault: A Very Short Introduction? I suppose I can say I'm learning how to explain this stuff in clear terms to my students...
• Wearing flip-flops. A fellow TA once said to me, "You always dress like a businessperson!" (as if that were a bad thing). Turns out I also love wearing flip-flops. But am I allowed to wear this stuff around campus, at least on days when I'm not teaching? Or is that too...SoCal...?
• Bumming housing off of friends. Why not, I say. If I have friends living in whatever city I'm visiting (e.g., for a conference), why not ask to stay with them? Isn't that what friendship means?? But as a young professor once said, at some point you kind of have to start paying to stay at a real hotel.
• Eating while walking. This sounds stupid, but food always tastes better when consumed while walking. I'm drawing a line at eating while walking around the department, but am I allowed to eat, say, a Family Mart onigiri while taking a nice stroll around campus? Or is that taboo, too?
• Napping in my office. Well, as a grad student, I wasn't exactly napping, I was just falling asleep from simple lack of sleep. But if I at least close the door and turn off the lights, am I still allowed to do that? (Oh wait...I just saw a news story about napping at the workplace in Japan...and The Internship (2013) definitely said Google has nap pods...)

The fact that the weather is cooling down means I no longer have to arrive at my office just to take off my majorly sweaty shirt and sit there in a sports bra. But does being a non-student also mean I have to show up at work perfectly made up and wearing clickety heels, too? And where can I go to enjoy some quality music performance on the cheap, like I used to with ArtPower's grad student comp tickets??

お祭り

土曜日は充実した一日でした。

最初はアパートの掃除！家がキレイだと、気持ちがいいです。
それからコメダ珈琲店で読書。（ミルクコーヒーって何ですか？）
その次は大須観音へ行きました！（次回は昼間に行きたいです。）
大須観音駅の辺りは、着物のリサイクルショップが沢山ありました。嬉しい。

それから歩いて久屋大通へ。その日は偶々お祭りでした。ラッキー！
その後東急ハンズANNEXで買い物をしたら、その日は「ハンズメッセ」で大セール。またラッキー！
そこからまた歩いて、今度はビックカメラに。枕を購入しました。

は〜、疲れた。楽しかったけど、ちょっと歩きすぎた一日でした。

"Real" "'American' 'Tacos'"

The other day at the grocery store I bought two items that I ordinarily would not buy: One was meat, and the other was lettuce. (Seriously...I'll never understand what prompted the gods to bring lettuce into this world.)

What happened was this: I was at the local grocery store, minding my own business, when I encountered a box of Old El Paso Taco Kit on the clearance shelf. I felt so bad! Poor little Taco Kit...no one wanted him, so they reduced his price and tried to cast him off...

And then I thought, wait a minute. I haven't had tacos in weeks! And since I haven't been able to find corn tortillas, maybe I can save this little guy AND satisfy my cravings at the same time!

Hence the lettuce (which, also, was on clearance (man, I love Japanese grocery stores)). And I bought chicken (ALSO on clearance...WTF) because I was craving fried chicken before I found the OEPTK. And then I went home to make myself some OEP Chicken Tacos. And you know what? The end product actually looked like real American tacos! Just like they sell at Taco Bell!!!

Which, mind you, was the first meal I had when I landed in the United States all those years ago.

Grad School Awesomeness #4: On Mentors and Committees

I remember my friends talking about how asking a professor to be on their committee was like making a marriage proposal. I guess that depends on what kind of marriage proposal you're into, but I agree that the makeup of the committee can be significant in the lives of grad students.

While "the committee" and its formation are unique to each, I've come to terms with a few things about them over the years (and am a little bit wiser for them):

1. Your advisor, chair, and mentor can all be different people. You're probably assigned a first-year mentor/advisor based on what you write in your application, but that person doesn't have to be your chair (or even co-chair) when you write your dissertation. Nor should you expect that person necessarily to be your mentor—the person who actually mentors you through your intellectual and professional development, with an eye to what's good for you as a young scholar. You don't have to expect all of these things from just one person. 
2. Your favorite prof doesn't have to be on your committee. Sometimes it's better not to have your most favorite awesomest mentor-est professor on your dissertation committee, especially given the drama and unpleasantness that can be involved in the Ph.D. process. That way you can still have that mentor to go and talk with about all the things going on in your grad school life, without having that person be involved in the messiness of revising, applying to jobs/fellowships, etc. It's very comforting to have that neutral space. 
3. Your favorite prof may not be other people's favorite prof. This is obvious, but a professor who is good to you—reads your drafts, gives you advice on jobs, helps you get funding—may not be the same way to your friends. So don't go off being a jerk about it, talking about how awesome this prof is with people who don't share your sentiments. Just like you can't be nice to everyone, profs can't be nice to all grad students equally, either. On the flip side, if you know a prof who is being a jerk to you, understand that maybe that prof is spending time and energy supporting and mentoring someone else. And that's OK too.

The wonderful thing about writing a dissertation is that so much of it is influenced by...everything. And that the work you produce is possible because of the committee you have—whether for better or for worse—is kind of cool. Having a different committee would influence you to write a different dissertation, of course—but no matter what, it's your dissertation, something that you can be proud of regardless of what committee members' names are on the first page.

習うより慣れろ

昨日は東京（と言っても八王子）の方に、三味線の合同稽古で行ってきました。楽しかった〜。（日帰りだったけど。）

南大沢／橋本辺りを電車が通った時は、「お〜、懐かしい！」とか思いました。ホント、なんか帰ってきた感じ。

三味線の会の人達とも、時間を過ごすのが嬉しい。気さくな人達が沢山。共通点の三味線意外でも、結構気が合う。

でも、名古屋での生活ももう一ヶ月以上経ちます。やっぱり、最初は戸惑っていても、慣れちゃえばこっちのモン。

クヨクヨしてる暇はありません。とにかく行動する！分からなくても、毎日やってれば大体の事はできる様になっちゃいます。

ちなみにイメージは撥入れです。いつけ運命的にこの生地の帯に巡り会えたらな〜、とか思ってます。その日が楽しみ。

Favorite Things

It's Friday here and I am having one of those "appreciate all my favorite things" kind of a day. (It's primarily because I am reading Hayashi Mariko's Wedding Diaries (林真理子、『ウェディング日記』) and I am reminded of just how much I like her writing...in a different way from liking Ueno Chizuko's chip-on-the-shoulder style.)

These are a few of my favorite things: good books, good music, good people. Wine—white, rosé, sparkling (sometimes red). All wrapped up in good conversation.

Food, good food: chocolate, ice cream, flan, panna cotta, crème brûlée. Mango, watermelon, Asian pear, pineapple. Fried rice, ochazuke, and lots and lots of chicken karaage.

If I have nothing else, I can be happy being alone with a candle and some flowers. And then I won't feel so bad.