my further culinary adventures

So apparently the only thing I am capable of writing about is food. Today I went to Saty (the grocery store with the biggest selection and is also the bottom of a department store) and bought ground beef and a can of what I thought might be tomato puree but ended up being about 6 whole plum tomatoes, fennel, oregano and some bread.

I made a sort of red sauce, but I used a whole big onion and so therefore it was rather heavy on the onion aspect... I sauteed the onion and the ground beef at the same time, each in half of the pan, and then added the tomatoes and had to cut them up with my spatula. Then garlic (fresh, since I have so much of it, I used two cloves), fennel and the oregano... I had cooked the pasta first. Stupid spaghettis, though, so it was not quite how I like it. I intentionally made enough for lunch or dinner tomorrow, so I hope the spices have a bit more of a chance to saturate the sauce overnight.

All in all, though, it tasted really good and had a nice texture, even if the texture was mostly supplied by onions. Luckily, I only have one onion left, so soon I can start over using a different vegetable.

Also, today I bought my ticket to come home at Christmas, so I am excited!!!

Since my birthday is Friday, I am trying to decide what to do, but I am kind of lacking in ideas. I was talking to Scott before Japanese class and we had vaguely discussed going to a bar or something (since I'm turning 21, it would only be appropriate, although kind of redundant since in Japan you only have to be 20), but there don't really seem to be any interesting looking bars around the dorm. An american graduate student named Daniel had told Scott about someplace that was going to have a band of some sort playing on Friday, so maybe we will do that. I don't know that it's what I want to do, but I also don't really know what I want to do. Maybe get pizza or something. Or thai food... I have seen a thai restaurant a couple blocks away... There is a british sounding bar type place called something like "the lions head pub", which I thought might have potential, if only for the fact that they might serve fish and chips... but since it is British and not Wisconsinian, it would likely not be all you can eat. And really, what's the point if you can't eat french fries and deep fried cod until you are going to explode?