my weekend - part 2

Scroll down and read "my weekend - part one" first!! It immediately precedes this entry - the photo is me in a snow globe at Zoolights (at Lincoln Park Zoo) over winter break.

I got back from the homestay around 1 and was happy that Aaron had not gone to bed and I talked to him for a while and did some laundry. I have a second load that I need to put in the wash tomorrow.

Then I realized I needed some paper to write a thankyou note to the peoples whose house I was at and went to Maruetsu and wore my new coat. I walked around the grocery store for a while and decided that I wanted to make chili (I had taken some frozen hamburger out and put the tub in a dish of water to thaw). I went up to the 100 yen shop and got a little stationary set (12 pieces of paper and 6 envelopes) and then went back down to the grocery store and looked at the canned beans and then tried to find dried ones, but they had none, so I got a can. I also realised I needed some sort of spicy spice (by which I mean, not fennel or oregano) and didn't find any cayenne (also, I don't think I could use a whole thing of cayenne pepper) and got togarashi (which is a japanese mix of spices, predominantly chili pepper, but with sesame and other things as well).

I was walking back and decided that I would buy some fruit (which I had looked at but decided it was too much at Maruetsu) from the vegetable market and I got a bag of mandarin oranges and a bunch of bananas. The store lady commented on the little monster keychain on my purse and said she didn't know who it was and I said I wasn't sure either, but I showed her the inside with the pictures and another old lady who had comeup behind me to pay for her vegetables apparently knew about the designer who made the pattern and told the checkout lady about it (in Japanese).

Then I returned andcooked dinner. The outside of the hamburger had thawed, so it came out of the tub, but the inside was still crunchy with ice crystals. It eventually cooked through and I added a canof tomatoes andthe beans to the hamburger and onions in the pan. I sprinkled a bit of togarashi in, but I ended up with something more like soup than chili (my meat to tomato ratio, combined with the fact that I have diced tomatoes and not tomato puree, was too heavily on the meat side). I put a bunch of grated cheese on the top ina bowl and it was quitegood. Tomorrow for lunch I think I will put some toast in with it and then it will actually be like french onion soup.

Luckily I have not misplaced the thank you letter I wrote when Ami and I visited the first family in December, so I can just add a couple sentences and be done!