Poseidon’s Projects

We are back online. All info is saved too! I didn’t think it was but I looked into it a little and found a way to get the old site back up.

New projects are on the way.

Such as www.jpytimes.com

I’m going to be moving servers. This is the first time I’ve done this type of thing so I’m not sure how long it could take. Once everything is finished processing though everything should be back to normal. I’ve backed up the site so everything should be saved. Hopefully all goes according to plan.

at keeping this updated. Oh man… like 2 months? That is terrible. Whatever.

I’ve been busying with work and therefore have had real troubles keeping this updated. Also 2 weeks ago my computer was giving me troubles. I bought a new computer recently and I guess one thing I should try and resolve to do is keep all my current photos uploaded to the site and also update more recently. Why is this you ask? Well let me tell you. When my computer broke I didn’t make a backup. I think I lost all my photos that I took since maybe February? That is a lot of photos. And not just photos of food either. Photos of friends and stuff like that. So from now on I’ll try and resolve to keep the site updated more. I know I’ve said this in the past. BUT right now it is summer vacation so really I have no excuse to not update at least everyonce in a while.

What have I been up to? Well not much really. Being broke and stuff. Recently I’ve been out taking pictures of the sky. Those have turned out pretty good. I’ll probably be uploading them in a little bit.

See you in a while.

I put up some pictures of me climbing. Check em out. Unfortunately no actual good pictures of me. Just shots of my back going up some rock.

I’m updating regularly! Wow.

Well. I have something very troubling to tell everyone. I wrote a while back that I was trying to cook with wine and that I didn’t like to drink that much. I had an epiphany the other night though. My epiphany is related to food. I basically decided that I like Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food. So I’m going to try and concentrate on learning how to make various foods from those regions. My vegetarian cookbook is nice in that a lot of the recipes are from around the world and they use ingredients from around the world. So there are some North African dishes I want to try and make, and Greek dishes, and Israeli dishes, and all types of good stuff.

But what I realized as I was making some improvisational spaghetti sauce was that I should really learn how to cook with wine and also DRINK wine. My good friend James has on more than one occasion said to me “If you like food then you need to learn to like wine.” Currently he is managing a restaurant in San Francisco I believe. His father is a wine broker. He is currently doing lots of stuff with wine. So I thought to myself, hell why not. So this weekend I went out and I bought a whole bunch of wine.

I got a bottle of American Chardonnay, bottle of French Cabernet Sauvignon, bottle of French Sauvignon Blanc, bottle of Italian xxxxxxx, and a box of Australian Shiraz (which is the wine that I bought last time). So far I have only tried the Chardonnay. And I enjoyed it very much. It is the second wine I’ve had in my life that is drinkable. It kind of tastes like sparkling white grape juice. I’ve had a German Christmas wine before at the Reed’s house that I also enjoyed. So now I’m going to keep trying wines and experiment with cooking with them. I’m sure some of them I will hate and some of them I will probably like. So let the great wine experiment begin. I will certainly be posting my results.

On the subject of wine, I’m interested in attending some wine tasting stuff in Tokyo. I’ve already done a whiskey tasting festival so there MUST be a wine tasting one. Also Costco has a pretty good variety of wines that I will be checking out. Also the currently liquor store I went to also has an extensive wine selection. But I’m looking for cheap wine… not expensive $300 bottles of the stuff. In fact, it is cheaper to buy wine here in Japan than it is to buy beer. So we shall see what the future holds.

Long time no hear. I’m sure everyone has been wondering what I’ve been up to for the past couple months. In March, my good friend Brendon came to visit me before he moves back to America. We had a good time. I’ll have some pictures up of what we did. We went rock scrambling (we did a little climbing but most we just scrambled around some cliff areas). Then we met up with Kozue the next day and went back with the intention of climbing the mountain and maybe doing some rock climbing. Unfortunately, Kozue tagged along which was the downfall of our plan to conquer the mountain. You see, Kozue had been up the previous night till 5 in the morning. She got maybe 4 hours of sleep? She was not in the best mood and we had to retire from our planned mountain adventures early.

A couple weeks passed after this and Kozue and I broke up. So there goes another relationship. Oh well. It was fun and we broke up on good terms so I’m not complaining.

This past weekend was a long weekend. I went to a bunch of places. On Friday night I went to my local bar. There I met my two friends Kazuo and Raita (who we have nicknamed Liar because he is constantly lying and telling stories which aren’t true). Raita turns to me and says “Would you like to go to an onsen?”
I ask him “Uhhh sure. When?”
“How about right now?”
It was 9 at night. He wanted to drive 2 and a half hours away in the rain to enter a hot spring. I said sure. So Kazuo, Raita, and myself drove 2 hours away in the middle of the night to some remote mountain town to sit in a hot spring for 2 hours. It was very interesting and a nice experience. I’m sure I’ll probably be doing it again. We got back around 3 in the morning and I finally got into bed around 4. It was an interesting night.

On Saturday the weather was nice in the evening so I rode my bike around and took some pictures of the sky and such. Hopefully they came out okay, as I haven’t put them on my computer yet.

The next day I went to a mountain climbing area. I’ve known about the area for a while now but I hadn’t yet to make a visit. So I thought to myself “What the hell why not go check it out.” So I did. When I got there though I was surprised to see some of my rock climbing buddies there. They asked my if I brought my gear and if I wouldn’t go climbing. Unfortunately I only brought my camera. So they invited me back the next day to do some climbing with them.

So on Monday I went climbing. It was raining in the morning a little but had dried up by the time we got there. So I did some climbing in the area and it was pretty fun. Apparently depending on the weather they go climbing there pretty much every week. So it looks like I’ll be climbing outside every weekend or so… as long as the weather is good. I don’t have an pictures of me climbing but I have some pictures of the area from the previous day.

On Tuesday I drove about 2 hours away to Costco. It was nice but I don’t think I’ll go to that Costco again. They didn’t have some stuff I was looking for. But it was a nice drive out there and it was fun and relaxing. I’ll probably be going to another Costco nearby to pick up some more stuff. Maybe this weekend. Depends on the weather. Might be doing some more climbing =)

So this weekend I finished 3 projects. Wow. I was able to clean up my house a little bit. I was able to bake the Greek casserole and try the banana bread recipe. The casserole wasn’t so great. In fact I would go so far as to say it was terrible. I probably won’t be trying that recipe every again… these cheese sauce on top was just too hard to make. I had no idea what I was doing and I think I definitely messed it up. The banana bread came out pretty good though. I made 12 loaves of banana bread this weekend. In my opinion that is crazy. Fortunately for me, Japanese groceries have a section of “clearance” produce. This is produce that they have determined to be unsell-able. Why? Because the bananas were ripe. They had black spots on them. So clearly they are in edible. So the first time I went to the supermarket. I picked up 8 fairly large bananas for $1. Then yesterday evening when I was making 10 loaves for my school, I bought something like 16 overripe bananas for $1.60. It was a pretty good deal in my opinion. If I ever go to the supermarket and see bananas with brown spots all over them, I’ll probably end up making a loaf of banana bread. It is a fairly easy recipe and after making 6 batches of it I’m fairly confident in my ability to make banana bread.

The tomato sauce that I made for the casserole did turn out okay. I probably won’t be making that style again but I’m going to try and play with the base sauce and make it maybe a little saltier. The sauce I made came out very very sweet. And then after it went into the oven it became even sweeter. Its actually pretty good if it hasn’t been baked. So I may start using it for spaghetti. Going to have to add way more salt though. I like a salty tomato sauce. The recipe though does make a lot of sauce.

What else was interesting this weekend? Ah yes. So in Japan they have Valentine’s Day right? This is the day that girls are supposed to give boys chocolates. In America everyone is spreading the love around. Not so here. In Japan on March 14th, they have “White Day.” This is a holiday where men who received chocolate are supposed to repay the person they received chocolates from. So if Kozue gave me chocolate (she actually gave me a cheesecake) on Valentines Day, on White Day I’m supposed to give her flowers or jewelry or something. She unfortunately had to eat my casserole and my banana bread. Check out the pictures for the recipe and just some funny interesting pictures.

It is getting very warm here. I no longer have to worry about freezing to death at night. Soon it will be so warm I’ll start to wear shorts outside. My favorite season is Fall and Winter in America. Here in Japan I think my favorite seasons are Summer and Fall. The homes here are just not insulated properly for the cold. Oh well. The newer houses being built right now are getting properly insulated. So maybe if I decide to live here forever I’ll have to buy a proper house.

Last night was a trip to say the least. So I tried making the falafel mix. The final product turned out pretty good in the end, however, it was quite the trial actually cooking them. You see, I’ve never fried anything before in my life. Apparently you fry falafel. You can see the position I was in. However, I persevered and came through. Please by all means check the pictures I took of the ordeal. Also you can see the incredibly messy sandwich I made in the end. What a fool I was to substitute a bagel for a pita pocket. Although thanks to the bagel substitution I am making some headway in my project to eat everything in my freezer. I’m going to need more Tupperware tubs though.

Back in the day, I can’t remember what it was I wanted to fry, but my mother wouldn’t let me fry anything for dinner. She said it was too dangerous. And now having done some frying myself, I feel her opinion of frying is, in fact, true. My arm was splattered with oil only once. And by splatter I mean that very tiny droplets only. In no way shape or form did I cook my arm in hot oil. All of my readers can be safely assured that my arm wasn’t in anyway burned. Not even first degree. It just felt hot for a second and quickly extinguished. No red welts either. In fact, I shouldn’t even have mentioned it except for the fact that I love to make my mother worry. I love you mom
So here is the whole process start to finish. Open falafel mix box. Combine the entire box with 1 and 1/4 cups cold water. Mix thoroughly and then let sit for 15 minutes so the mix has a chance to absorb the water. Heat oil to 375 degrees F. I used peanut oil which has a pretty high smoke point. That means that peanut oil has to reach a very high temperature before it starts to smoke. I don’t have a fry thermometer so there was no way of telling what the temperature of the oil was. I read online before starting this adventure that you can stick a wooden chopstick into the oil and judging by the bubbles be sure you are ready to put the food in to fry.

No I must digress here for a moment. My gas range since I got it has been very annoying. The range on the right is for frying. Whenever you can the pan off that range it automatically shuts the gas off. But for a while I was very puzzled. Even if I hadn’t even moved the pan it would shut off. So I wasn’t sure what was going on. Last night when I was frying it did this as well. Right in the middle of heating the oil, the range would shut off. So I consulted the owner’s manual. Apparently there is a sensor in the range that determines when the temperature is too hot and it shuts the range off automatically. This prevents leaving the oil on the heat for too long and having the oil catch fire. So I thought that was neat. But then I realized, “Damn, that probably means I have passed 375 degrees a long time ago.” So I decided to throw in 1 falafel just to test it. When I put the falafel in the oil immediately sprayed and this is when it hit my arm. The falafel immediately turned brown and was starting to blacken. So logic would suggest that the oil had well passed 375. Also in my internet readings it said that when you add food the oil it cools the oil. So I was like, well to cool this oil down all I have to do is add food to it. So I started my cooking. By the 2 batch of 3 falafel we were doing pretty good. It was taking about 2-3 minutes to get them brown all the way around, and this is what the box said to do. So I was fairly confident that I was at around 375 and doing everything correctly. I made a bunch of falafel and will be making falafel pitas for lunch this week. Tonight I’m going to try and make some tzatziki sauce. Last night I used marscapone cheese. It has absolutely no flavor but it was soooooooo creamy and spreadable. I figure if you toss some flavor into the cheese it would turn out pretty good. So I was thinking either use yogurt to make the tzatziki or use the cheese. I’m still undecided.

Tonight I will be making cornbread with the Jiffy corn muffin mixes I got on Monday. In my house we exclusively used Jiffy mix until the faithful day when my mother opened a box and it was crawling with meal worms and beetles. From that day on we switched to a different brand. So I’m excited to try Jiffy again. Hopefully without the worms and beetles. Even if there are beetles in there I’ll probably just end up throwing it all into my food processor and make the muffins anyway.

Current projects: Irish Soda Bread, Banana Date Bread, Greek Casserole, assorted other foods, and cleaning my kitchen/rest of the house.

I went shopping!

Today was a day off for me. Why? you may be asking yourself. Well on Saturday I had work. So as a result I had off on Monday (ie today). Kozue and I went shopping today in Tokyo. First we went to National Azabu which is an international supermarket. I bought a bunch of powder mixes to make food. They had a “brown bread” mix but I passed on that. Instead I got a veggie burger powder mix, a falafel powder mix, 2 Jiffy Corn Bread mixes. That store just has so much stuff I’d like to try. Their vegetable section is insane. They have celery root and parsnips. Now some of your may be wondering to yourselves “What the hell is Brayton talking about?” I have a very large cookbook with lots and lots of vegetarian recipes in it. Most of these recipes I unfortunately can’t use because I lack the ingredients for them. However, today at National Azabu I saw a whole bunch of ingredients that I can’t normally buy in my area. So needless to say that today was fun. Also more importantly I learned that they have changed their hours to be open everyday of the year. This means I can start going there on the weekends when I feel like picking stuff up. However the bill for going to Tokyo is pretty high. About $25. So that automatically inflates the prices of anything I buy. Oh well. They do have an online site and I may try and either order from their in the future or I’m going to instead start driving into Tokyo.

After National Azabu, Kozue and I went to eat at an Italian restaurant. I had a really nice pizza and Kozue had a really good pasta with red sauce and mushrooms. I know this because I finished it for her. After that we went to a store that Kozue wanted to go to. She bought 2 shirts. Tokyo is really expensive. 2 shirts from this specialty hemp store cost around $150. It was pretty expensive. Kozue’s style is totally hippie-ish. I have no other way to explain it. But what she bought looked very nice and I can’t wait to see her wear the shirts.

After shopping we returned home and I had half a mind to make some cornbread but I stopped. I’m probably going to make cornbread tomorrow for breakfast, maybe wake up extra early to prepare it. It is too bad I don’t have Dad around to do that anymore. I have yet to make cornbread from scratch again. I need to try and do that as well. Or at least make some muffins and then freeze them after they are done cooling. Which reminds me that my latest projects is trying to eat everything I have in my freezer. That way I can have room in my freezer for things that I’m going to start making, like tomato sauces and doughs. We shall see.

Current food projects = Irish Soda Bread and Greek Casserole. I’m thinking Soda Bread is going to get made first.

I don’t drink wine. I actually hate wine. But a recipe I have in one of my books calls for a “rich hearty wine” in one of the recipes I want to try. So I asked my personal sommelier “what is agood rich hearty wine?,” to which James replied “an Australian shiraz or the same style of wine made in the region in France where it was born or a Cabernet Sauvignon.” So I took his words to heart and I read up a little about the two wines on the internet. I then remembered that my local international food and liquor store had an Australian wine section so I decided I would try to go with the Shiraz. However, as my other readings on the internet pointed to, you shouldn’t cook with a wine that you wouldn’t drink. I don’t really drink wine so I decided I’m going to have to try this sucker out before I put it into my food.

So today I had the day off and I did some things and I went shopping. I ended up getting a $10 bottle of Australian Shiraz today. I just opened the bottle up and tried it. It tastes like butter. I’m not kidding. It is actually kind of tasty. I’m not about to go drink the entire bottle tonight or pour myself a full glass to drink, BUT I’m definitely going to use it to cook. By the way for those wondering why I needed the wine in the first place, I’m going to be making a Greek casserole and the tomato sauce calls for the wine. I figured if the sauce was good, just start making lots of tomato sauce. I think basically spaghetti is my favorite food. Especially when I can eat it with some nice garlic toast. As I’m sure my entire family can attest to.

What else did I get today? Some avocados I saw were priced $1.28 which is cheap for avocados. Which means they are very ripe and they are trying to get rid of them before they spoil. What this means for me is I can buy some cheap avocados and use them right away and not have to wait for them to ripen. I bought a block of feta cheese that I’m going to be using in the casserole. I bought some sesame paste which I’m going to use to make hummus. I bought some guava juice. I also bought some potato chips. Wow. I’m really living on the wild side. Oh, and I added thyme, oregano, and rosemary to my ever growing spice collection. He who controls the spice, controls the universe as they say. I did forget to get some bay leaves though. Although rather than buy bay leaves I’m just going to leave them out of the sauce recipe. I’ll let everyone know how the casserole turns out. Probably delicious.