Dinner with the Fujiwara's

(written on May 18)

Motoaki and I have finally decided to become grown-ups and are going to start planning meals weekly so as to save money, time, and our waistlines.  I came home on Tuesday night to find nothing to eat in the house.  Well, we had food but nothing that really went together as a meal and nothing that was healthy.  It was a little late to go to the store and I was TIRED so  I ended up eating peanut butter and jelly and he had cup of noodle. 

This pissed me off because I have been trying to eat healthier.  I have recently started keeping track of my weight on my smart phone with an ap that logs what I eat/drink and how much I work out.  I then fill in a weight loss goal and it tells me how I can alter my life-style to meet my goal (aka today you ate too many carbs- lighten the carb intake or excercize 30 more minutes). 

I'm usually pretty good with my lunches but I am horrible with dinner because I am tired and don't care.  Cooking takes too much effort.  And Motoaki likes to cook, but he cooks like a man- lots of red meat, lots of use of the fry pan, etc.  In looking at the weight logging I had been doing on my phone, it became clear that I needed to take action to figure out how we can be smart about eating and the best way to do that I figure is to set a plan and stick to it.  I figure that if we plan out what we are going to be eating, we won't spend 30 minutes deciding what to eat each night and just cook.  A lot of times one of us waits for the other to get home to decided what to eat.  Then we have to go to the store to get the ingrediants.  Then, in the store we (or especially Motoaki) fall to the temptaion of pre-packaged meals like fired chicken, potato salad, etc  It leads to us eating crap most nights. 

SOOOO...Anyway, after finishing my sandwich I pulled out a fresh notebook (I have a bad weakness for buying them whenever I go to LOFT, but that's another blog) and told him we needed to make a list of what to eat the next three days.  I also pulled out the cookbooks I have received as presents and the one Japanese one that is called "quick and easy
" and we decided on stuff that looked simple/healthy/delicious.

Today I went to the grocery store to put in my plan in action.  This was easier said (thought) than done.  First off, people in Japan go to the grocery store WAY more often than people in the US.  This is largely due to the fact that

a) they eat fresh food more often (fish, raw egg, moyashi- a kind of bean sprout that seems to spoil quickly, etc)
b) a love people live with extended family so they have more time- mom might work every day but grandma/grandpa might be free to do the shopping
c) they don't have space in their kitchens to store food

Because they go to the store more often, they buy less when they do go.  But we just don't have time to do that.  Not to mention that we spend more than we should because we just buy random things.  By making a plan each week we can plan to put excess stuff to use (aka, if I can't buy only one carrot because they are sold in packs of four, I can use two for one meal and use two in another meal). SO the shopping carts are REALLY small compared to what I have gotten used to in America (think Walmart).  So there was the whole problem of being able to get all the stuff and get it through the store.

Another problem was that the Japanese food Motoaki selected had a lot of seasonings/spices that I hadn't used before.  He had told me what they were, but I only knew them in Hiragana (あいうえお） and a LOT of stuff was written in kanji (辣豆瓣酱).  I could have easily asked some of the staff to help but I really wanted to force myself to be independant.  So what could have taken 2 minutes took 30.

 A few of my students who finished Jr High last year and who are in high school now ran into me and a lot of jokes were made about the bulk in my basket, but I stayed strong.  But I was happy with the food I got and it worked as last night when I came home we had beef mixed with bean sprouts, salad, and pineapple for dinner.  Not the healthiest thing, but still a step up from PB&J and cup of noodle.  We'll see if it sticks...