Sarah Joy Albrecht

In a grocery store where seasoned dried fish bites eclipse potato chips on the snack food aisle, familiar food is always comforting.

The egg, a.k.a. tamago, is one such item.

Eggs are easy to prepare, versatile and healthy to eat.

More importantly, though, eggs are identifiable to this American mom without having to break out the katakana and hiragana charts. (Unlike trying to discern the regular milk from the “yogurt milk,” which are sold side by side in nearly identical cartons, and will alarm taste buds if one accidentally buys the latter and pours it unsuspectingly on breakfast cereal).

Japan utilizes the metric system. The application to egg storage and sales are no eggception ;) (Couldn’t resist!) Eggs in are sold in clear plastic cartons in quantities of ten instead of twelve, unless you purchase them on a military base, where a little Japanese grandma in a back room unpacks Japanese eggs repacks them by the dozen in gray cardboard cartons and finally breaks even when she’s filled 120 cartons. (Kidding!)

Eggs are sold in a variety of sizes, and in a Japanese grocery store ten small eggs will cost about 150 ¥, 160 ¥ for medium eggs and 170 ¥ for large eggs.

Because hard boiled eggs store easily, they are a popular bento appetizer. Just about every store has an aisle dedicated to making bento beautiful. At “The Great Superstore” we discovered florescent plastic egg molds that turn the ordinary egg into an extraordinary lunchtime creature pal. Simply place the hard boiled egg into the clamshell creature mold, latch the mold shut, and throw it back into boiling water for a few minutes and presto! The once-oval chicken egg pops out looking like a kawaii (cute) sakana (fish)!

One of our favorite ramen shops at the Elm Mall in Goshogowara serves an oversized bowl of shell-on boiled eggs to enjoy with table shio (salt) while waiting for the delicious main course.

Other restaurants, such as the Sukiya, an inexpensive Japanese-style curry chain, serve a raw egg to crack open and add as a condiment to gyudon. (After dining at the previously mentioned ramen shop, it should be noted that two of our children (with my uninformed blessing) ordered the raw egg from Sukiya’s ala carte picture menu and quickly discovered that they were not the hard boiled eggs they were craving, resulting in two very large globs of egg goo on our table. It may be a while until we go back again. Just sayin’! )

Here are a few eggcellent Japanese tamago dishes everyone should try. Please note that I’ve linked to episodes of my favorite Japanese cooking show in English, “Cooking With Dog,” wherever possible :

Omurice (Chicken Rice Wrapped with Fried Egg)

Okonomiyaki (Japanese Assorted Pancake) (Similar to egg foo young, but grilled instead of fried)

Tamagoyaki and Tamago Nigiri

Katsudon (Tonkatsu Deep Fried Pork and Egg Bowl)

While there needs to be accountability in American companies, it needs to be in house – not by an international financial regulation board whose members are not elected by American citizens.

Since we’re borrowing international money for our national to stay afloat, however, consequences like this should not come as a surprise.

As I wrote last September, before the elections, in my Nolan Chart Article, Bad Assets and Band Aids :

“Where will our drowning-in-debt government find the money to make this [bailout] purchase? It’s simply not there. This burden is going to be reshuffled to the taxpayer by way of inflation – because even in 2008, even though “green” investments are en vogue, we still can’t grow money from trees. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The money has to come from somewhere.

Even scarier than inflation, this bad assets solution requires the unconstitutional nationalization of financial institutions. I wonder if the act of Congress will include an amendment? How will Congress legally get away with this otherwise? It will be an entertaining song and dance for sure – the opening act to a muddy Presidential election….

Debt makes for slavery. It makes me have to ask, is there an underlying, perhaps even sinister, purpose to acquiring more debt? If China owns so much of the debt, would they not benefit from pressuring our government into nationalizing the financial institutions? …

Yet Americans are greedily buying into this no-accountability government-to-the-rescue mentality, selling their souls for tax breaks, stimulus checks, and the ability to keep McMansions that they never should have been able to purchase in the first place.”

Wake up!

Bailout = Slavery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utb7XQCOtEs

Some links to Interweb findings I enjoyed today:

Current Events: Should Obama Control the Internet?

“The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce “access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.” This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.”

(Full content of the The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 in PDF)

Parenting: Our Pile of Stones

This is one of my new favorite mom-blogs! I laughed through tears as a I read this beautiful post about a little toy elephant that served as a reminder of God’s love through loss and life.

Food: 10 Swoon-Worthy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (Tom sent this to me!)

The tastiest grilled cheese sandwich I have ever eaten was at The Dash-In Cafe in Fort Wayne: Grilled sourdough bread, melted Swiss cheese, wilted baby spinach and sauteed portabella mushrooms with a hint of honey mustard.

This week, I came across Andrea’s blog and her encouraging words are really sticking to my heart — especially after our recent Hoki fish (a.k.a. Hokke in Japan) meal that was scrapped on the cutting board.

Her post made me giggle. “Sorry Jesus. Those fish were pretty on the outside but were infested with worms on the inside. Looks like we’re having hot dogs instead! Would you like mustard, ketchup or both?” There’s got to be a parable in there somewhere…

Andrea is a mom of four children, close together, and is soon expecting baby #5 to arrive. I could relate to every word of her post! I appreciated her reminder that Jesus my friend.

Please stop by her blog, The Flourishing Mother, and send her hug in the comments ;)

Thursday, March 19, 2009 – I Made a Meal for Jesus

I made a meal for Jesus.
I think He would eat chicken….maybe? Along with His felafel.
I made it with Love.
Instead of lamenting I am 20 weeks pregnant with my fifth, tired, and why doesn’t anyone ever bring me a meal out of the blue when I need it? Or why isn’t there some magic fairy meal-maker?
I cut up the onion, celery, carrots, carefully.
Thinking how He would enjoy eating it.
Probably sopping it up with yummy, crusty bread. And maybe some wine?
I would use my best china, of course.
It gave me immense pleasure.

So maybe when I am making dinner each night for my family… (and breakfast. and lunch. and snacks. Oh mamas, it never ends, right?)
…I’ll think of serving Him.
And how He would smile. And enjoy it. …and I’d probably cry.
‘Cause He would understand my heart.
And what I put into it.
And why.
And He’s already given me everything I will ever need, so He wouldn’t need to bring me a meal.
‘Cause I feast daily at His table.
And because of that, I am honored to serve Him.

For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve; and to give His life as a ransom for many. ~Matthew 20:28

Jesus is our friend.

John 15:12-15 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

When my friends and I were reading The Purpose Driven Life together, “Becoming Best Friends with God” was a chapter that really humbled me. Andrea’s posted brought back wonderful memories of PDL discussion in my friends in Laura’s living room.

Here are some excerpts from Chapter 11 of Rick Warren’s book:

“God wants to be your best friend.”
“In Eden, we see God’s ideal relationship with us: Adam and Eve enjoyed an intimate friendship with God. There were no rituals, ceremonies or religion – just a simple loving relationship between God and the people He created. Unhindered by guilt or fear. Adam and Eve delighted in God and we delighted in them. We were made to live in God’s continual presence, but after the Fall, that ideal relationship was lost…”
“Then Jesus changed the situation. When he paid for our sins on the cross, the veil in the temple that symbolized our separation from God was split from top to bottom, indicating that direct access to God was once again available.”
God “planned the universe and orchestrated history, including the details of our lives, so that we could become his friends.” (Acts 17:24-31 from the Sermon on Mars Hill)
“The classic book on learning how to develop a constant conversation with God is Practicing the Presence of God . It was written in the seventeenth century by Brother Lawrence, a humble cook in a French monastery. Brother Lawrence was able to turn even the most commonplace and menial tasks, like preparing meals and washing dishes, into acts of praise and communion with God. The key to friendship with God, he said, is not changing what you do, but changing your attitude toward what you do. What you normally do for yourself you begin doing it for God, whether it is eating, bathing, working, relaxing, or taking out the trash.”

In October of 2007, I wrote the post, “Can I Trust in Jesus” after visualizing Jesus, as our close friend, sacrificing himself on our behalf. Here’s an excerpt:

Imagine you are sitting at home enjoying a delicious meal with an old friend. As you are talking, the familiarity is so great, it is as though he can read your very soul. You love him deeply and never wish to be separated from him. Your friend is kind and good. For as long as you can remember, he has never wronged you – or anyone else, for that matter – in any way.

Suddenly, you hear a loud crash in the adjacent room….

Time to go wash some dishes for Jesus ;)

I’ll leave you with this (of course I recorded it!):

We need to love our children enough to overcome the embarrassment of our past to teach them how to have a better future.

We must not give children the notion that adults are perfect. We need to teach them that ‘seeking forgiveness’ does not have age limits.

Photo Credit: Horse10735 via Flickr

The goal of parenting is not to make our children like us, it is to raise up warriors for Christ.

In fact, if we indulge our children in hopes of winning their approval, our strategy will backfire. We won’t end up with children who like us at all — we will end up with children who are too selfish to visit us when we are old.

It is our responsibility to say “no” to them and to teach them what is right. To say no to unhealthy indulgences is to love them.

Parenting must not be rooted in short term self-gratification, but in the purpose of glorifying the eternal God.

Put the weight of eternity behind your parenting.

Photo Credit: BadaBee via Flicker