Food is important to me. I love to cook and bake, and those activities are gigantic stress relievers. It doesn’t matter how bad of a day I’ve had if I can make myself a good dinner. The process of preparing it and eating it is restorative, even more so if it’s healthy. I nearly went to culinary school, and I would love to take more classes.

The food here is a challenge, more than I expected and more than I want it to be. It’s not just that I’m insanely picky — I have a sensitivity to corn and I’m pretty sure mushrooms aren’t my friend, so it’s a health thing too. I’ve made leaps and bounds of progress from where I used to be and I love to try new things, especially when I can cook them myself, i.e. when I can more or less control or know what I’m eating and how it’s prepared. In that case you can probably talk me into trying most anything.  But all of the rules that I follow to keep myself feeling healthy get shot down here: not only is much of what I’m eating new to me, I also usually can’t tell what it is or how it was prepared or what ingredients were used. I can’t read the dang description and I can’t talk to the server or wait staff, because I’ve run smack into the language barrier. I can’t even google the name of the dish, because while I have the Japanese keyboards enabled on my phone, I don’t know how to get to what characters to input in any sort of efficient manner. I’m completely, utterly in the dark and have no control except for what I point to and smile and nod. And did I mention that I don’t trust pork?

So, for someone with a picky palate who is paranoid about food safety and feels best when in control of her diet, international travel is “stretching.” 🙂 My process for feeling good about food gets broken. But I just gotta do it — eat it without knowing what it is and let go of the controls. (Haaaaahaha. Ha.) I’ll readily admit that this is as much a psychological hurdle as a culinary hurdle.

So in that spirit, there are a few things I want to try:

• I’d like to go back and try the udon noodles we had when we landed here on Wednesday/Thursday.
• Soba. I saw this on one of the Anthony Bourdain episodes and it looked good.
• Shabu shabu, because there’s a shabu shabu place opening in Denver so I’ve heard of it before.

And in the comfort zone: there’s a pizza place on base and I’m probably going there today. Travis said before we left that he’d bet good money that I’d end up eating at McDonalds before we left Japan, and I said “no way, absolutely not, ewww gross bad I’m better than that” and yesterday I said ok that’s a real possibility.

One final note: I’ve realized lately how vegetable addicted I’ve become. I make sauteed kale several times a week, I love asparagus, I make a great bruschetta with grilled eggplant and roma tomatoes, hatch chiles are my favorites, and roasted sweet potato? Yes please. I don’t see vegetable-heavy dishes here, at least not where I’ve looked, so if you know of a dish or a place to go, please let me know.