Adventures in Mississippi

I went to Mississippi a few weeks ago and I just remembered that I have not written about it. So, after work I drove five hours to my mothers house in Mosspoint Mississippi on the coast. Upon arriving I crashed out until morning. Upon waking up I had to make my way out to the largest store (Walmart) in that tiny ass town to purchase jeans because all of my cloths were dirty before I left and Ashley had kindly taken all of our dirty clothes to her parents house. It was like walking in to the Twilight zone. All of the men and some of the women seemed to look like Limmy from the band Motorhead.

So I start looking for paints in my size and I start to notice another trend. All of the pants sizes seem bigger around than they are long. I wear a 33X34 pants size and all the pants were marked things like 38X28. After looking for about 15 minutes I find a pair that will work and start up to the counter. On my way I see some neat fedoras and decide that I didn't know which I wanted so I bought them both.

The last time I was in Mississippi I went to this great PoBoy restaurant that use to be a Chinese restaurant, that was run by Koreans. At this restaurant you can order PoBoys of various sizes from 6" - 36" and they have all the good Asian condiments such as my favorite, Saracha sauce. I tell my mother and step father that I would really like to go find that place again and my mother declines going but my step father says that he would go with me. It took about an hour but we eventually found it again (it had been about 2 years since I had been there last). I walk in and start talking to the lady at the counter, who seems to have some difficulty understanding my questions, when a man walks out at starts(in broken English) impatiently asking what I want. I tell him that I want a 12" shrimp PoBoy only lettuce at which point the lady starts to write down my order and the man turns to her and screams what I said into her ear. "12 INCH SHRIMP POBOY! ONLY LETTUCE!!! she finishes writing it down, ignoring the man and takes it to the back. I get my sandwich a few minutes later, put some saracha sauce on it and head out.

Unfortunately, I only was able to stay for 2 days, but on the second day fulfilled the last objective that I had come to do, other than seeing my mother, walking on the beach, and shrimp PoBoys. I went out to find an alligator. Mississippi has 3 major natural resources: Mosquito's, Spanish moss, and alligators. None of these things are very hard to find but I had forgotten that I was still technicaly winter time and Alligators were fairly dormant at that time. The first place we went to find them was a place called Sou Bayu. We went here for several reasons: It is the home of one of my step fathers best friends, it has a bar on the property (so we can drink while looking for the alligators), and this is the last place that I saw alligators in the wild... about 10 of them last time. oh and did i mention that this place is a mobile home park too? oh yah classy! So we get there and grab some beer (bud or miller are the only choices... sigh) and walk out of the bar to talk to the locals and find some gators! to no avail unfortunately, all of them were sleeping where ever alligators sleep in the winter. So we left. On the way home my stepfather had the idea to go to an alligator ranch to at least get some pictures so we did. Not quite as much fun as finding wild ones but at least I was able to get my pictures.


After that I headed back to Birmingham so I could get back to the grind of studying and working. It is always lots of fun to go to odd little towns and see the local color, take in the local cuisine, and find the local wild life. I hope to be able to do it again soon.

Most cultures have a food that we find difficult to fathom eating: haggis, Tripe, fish eyes, etc. I wonder what Americans eat that the Japanese find odd or unpalatable?

curry soup

Yay I made curry soup and it was great! though it was my rendition of curry soup and probably tastes nothing like the curry soup that I have been reading about tastes. Perhaps next time I will look up a recipe and attempt it that way. oh by the way, in case you didnt figure it out already, it was an American bastardization and was flavored surf and turf curry flavor mmmmmm. sorry about the odd colorization of the image. I didnt have my camera with me and had to use my girlfrends and I dont know where the white balance is on it.

american cooking

I have been racking my brain to decide what American food is and I have decided that America doesn't have any cuisine of its own. Most of Americas food is derived from bastardizations of other countries food. On one had this is great, we have some really delicious food that makes us a culinary adventure anytime that you want to try something new. On the other hand it is really difficult to pin down a recipe that I would take to Japan to describe American cuisine. Sure I live in the south and I could technically make grits, collard greens, cornbread, black eyed peas and other stereotypes but I don't think that is a good representation of who we really are. Please put in your vote on what American cuisine really is and Ill keep working on it. I leave you with a recipe that I designed and that I currently am eating.
noodles in butter sauce:
1 large package of egg noodles (I prefer the spiral kind)
24 oz chicken stock
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of green olives
1 can artichoke hearts
1 can cream of mushroom soup
12 oz mushrooms of your preference
mix together butter and chicken stock boil until it has reduced by half volume. next add olives, artichoke hearts, cream of mushroom soup, and mushrooms. simmer for 5 minutes. combine with very well drained prepared noodles then serve.
I have found that pork goes very well with this so feel free to add diced ham, bacon, or prosciutto.
I can not stop thinking about curry soup I think I am going to attempt a rendition of that tonight. Ill be sure to post the results.

dark beer....

In response to a comment from my last post. as my Friend Keelie pointed out, Sapporo beer is a light beer and lightighter beer is on the other end of the spectrum from where the beer that I like it so... out of curiosity has anyone found a dark Japanese beer? If so I need to try it out... please post any that you all have heard of!!!

places to live

When applying for the JET program, every one gets to name a place that they would like to be sent to. Not that it is a guarantee that you would be put there but it is still nice to be able to have a say in it. I have done a little research into interesting cities and have found a ton of them. In the next few posts I would like to introduce them starting with my first choice Sapporo. I like living in a city with the population density of Birmingham, it seems to be a nice balance. Birmingham and its metro area contain about 1,100,000 people and the city is about 150 sq miles. Sapporo on the other hand has about 1,800,000 people and is about 3X’s the size of Birmingham. Though it is larger than Birmingham its population density is still probably higher in reality because the cities size includes mountains that are not often inhabited by large numbers of people. Also, I like the cold and the average annual temperature in Sapporo is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. More over Sapporo gets 190 inches of snow a year. I have only experienced “real” snow (more than a 2 or 3 inches) 3 times in my life that I can remember. I have been told that it doesn’t take long to get tired of snow but I am willing to give it a shot. Speaking of snow Sapporo has an annual snow festival every year which includes ice sculptures! Sounds like a blast to me.
Good food is a huge necessity for me and Sapporo is known for Curry soup and miso ramen both sound super tasty to me. It also doesn’t hurt that they have a famous brewery there that makes Sapporo beer and that they have an annual festival that includes beer gardens and food during the summer. All and all this place sounds ideal for me. Next post Ill get off the north island and talk about a place that is a little warmer.

What would I bring

So I was reading another JET hopefuls blog Flying sound. He has just finished the interview process of the application and recounted some of the questions that they asked him. This has given me a ton to think about. The most worry some question was "what would you bring to Japan to teach people about America?" After a few days of thinking about what I would do I decided that I would bring my cooking skills. Several great advantages of this; first is that taking a skill instead of an item takes up much less space in my luggage, second is that every one like food! Thinking about it food is one of the biggest defining factors of any and all culture,s so it seems like one of the easiest ways to teach about America.

mmmm soooo good!

I want to announce to the world that their are some things that America Bastardized from other countries (including Japan) that turn out bad... BUT I have found one of the things that turned out great! and it is pure gold baby! I was in Walmart spending the last of my cash on food for the coming week when I walked past the ethnic food section much to my suprise I found Golden brand curry mix making me jump for joy in the middle of the isle. Upon closer inspection I noticed that there were some very dirty bottles that looked like they had been on the shelf for half of an eternity. I was shocked at what I saw, Tabasco Soy Sauce. I snatched up one of the sticky and dust covered bottles and tossed it in the buggy with partal glee and partal horror. So when I made it back to my girlfrends house I took it to the sink and gave it a nice scrubbing befor opening it up. After that I ripped of the seal, poured some into the palm of my hand, and tasted it woah moma is it good! I should have guessed that spicy soy sauce would be good due to my love to Wisabi and soy sauce mixed to gether for sushi. I was just suprised at how well tabasco did it. so to all the people out there who like spicy food and soy sauce you should try it out. you wont be sorry!