Japan Week 35

March 29- April 4, 2010

We went to bed on the night of the 28th with virtually no snow on the ground, we woke up at 7am on the 29th in the midst of a full blown blizzard! I took these pictures around 10 am, at which point we had 13 inches of snow!!

The snow continued into the afternoon but it had slowed down drastically. By the time it quit we got an intense 16 inches of snow! About a month ago this would not have been to surprising, or difficult to deal with but once Spring officially rolled around last week and the weather started to settle down many of the snow plows, mostly the large ones meant to handle blizzards, were parked for the season. Fortunately we will in a neighborhood with schools in every direction so we have high priority when it comes to plowing. As usual, they did a great job and our roads were nice and clear. The sunset was simplistically beautiful tonight so I took a short walk to catch it! Just like last time, they say this will be the last big storm of the season. I really hope they are right! There is snow in the forecast for the rest of the week but the temperatures are also supposed to pick up so we should not get anything major. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and I'll keep you posted!

פסח שמח - Happy Passover!

Our Birthdays have come and gone which means, it's time for Passover!! This is our first Passover together as a married couple, and also Eric's first Passover away from family and friends. As you probably know, during passover you cannot eat any leavened products, hence the need for Matzoh! Something you may not already know is that there is a list of many other foods that are to be excluded during passover; some of which include, corn, rice, soy, tofu, etc. See what I'm getting at? Eating only Kosher for Passover foods while living in Japan is an even bigger challenge than it was back home. But we're doing it! No rice or soy means no Sushi for Eric, that will probably be the hardest thing. Fortunately Eric's parents mailed us a box full of key things for Passover, including 2 boxes of Matzoh, 1 package of Chocolate Macaroons, 1 package of almond macaroons, 2 kits of Matzoh Ball soup, 2 kits for Potato latkes, and 1 jar of matzoh meal. I'm very excited to put my cooking skills (or lack there of) and the new list of ingredients for the week to the test! We of course kicked off passover with Matzoh Brye for dinner :)

For those of you that have never been fortunate enough to be introduced to Matzoh Brye, it's simply eggs and matzoh crackers (broken into pieces) tossed together and cooked like an omelet. It can be served with a variety of toppings but we stick to syrup and a little salt. I think it takes like waffles, but Eric makes the valid point that I would never put salt on my waffles. I can't really think of any better comparison, I guess Matzoh Brye is just it's own special thing. Several people have asked me recently how we make it so I thought I would share in case you are interested. It's a good time to try it too, since Passover just ended the grocery stores (at least in AZ) are practically giving away the Matzoh!

Eric and Melissa's Recipe for Matzoh Brye:
*Serves 2 people as a meal.

5 pieces of Matzoh (We used regular unsalted matzoh, but you can use any variety)
2 Eggs
salt
1 tbsp butter

First you will need a large mixing bowl out and ready. Quickly run the matzoh crackers one at a time under water, do this quickly, you want to moisten the cracker, not saturate it. Then break into small pieces in the bowl, the size doesn't matter too much. After you have done this with all 5 pieces of matzoh mix in the 2 eggs using a fork. Sprinkle in a little bit of salt and mix until the egg covers most of the matzoh pretty well. (It's really a scientific recipe, NOT!) Now you are ready to cook it.

Melt 1 tbsp (or so) of butter in a pan on medium heat, then pour in the matzoh and egg mixture. Try to get the egg spread evenly throughout. Let it cook for a few minutes (roughly 5 min) until you easily shift it around in one piece, then flip it and cook for the same amount of time on the other side. Put the Matzoh Brye on a plate and serve with a little bit of salt and maple syrup.

If you want to learn more about Passover, check this out: http://www.jewfaq.org/holidaya.htm

Along with Passover came beautiful weather! By the end of the week we had absolutely no snow left on the ground, only up on the mountain. From Thursday to Friday it rained almost constantly for 30 hours! According to the Internet we got 2 feet 11 inches of rain!! No snow, No ice... just clear blue skies and greenery reappearing! It's almost too good to be true, like an April Fools Prank, but so far so good!
Eric went with his supervisor this week and got our Drivers License exams set up. We have to pass a written and performance portion. The driving portion is on a closed course but we have to simulate our driving as though there are pedestrians and other vehicles, we also have to memorize the map and pray we don't make a wrong turn. We're pretty nervous about it because everyone we know has had to take it more than once, some people even 5-6 times! Eric is our guinea pig and he goes first in a few weeks. I however, am waiting until after the MCAT which means I have until the end of June, now I just have to make sure I can pass the test before my temporary license expires in mid July!

This weekend Eric and I followed the recommendation of a friend and drove to Aomori City to see "The Gold Line" which is a mountain road that is closed during the winter due to the snowfall, in the Spring they have to plow the road so they begin by plowing the 8.1km stretch of road enough for pedestrians and people are allowed to walk through it and see the incredibly high walls of snow from the winters accumulation. After that, they allow cars to drive through for the weekend while the walls are still up. Then, they finally demolish the snow walls completely to prevent flooding. On average the walls are about 30 feet high and it was expected to be even higher this year because of our intense snowfall this winter. Unfortunately with the ridiculous amount of rain we've had this week the walls were entirely unimpressive. Even more unfortunately, I made a wrong turn and drove us nearly 50 miles in the completely wrong direction! I figured it out much sooner than 50 miles; however, we were on a private toll road through the mountain so there was no opportunity to exit or turn around before then. Needless to say we never got to the Gold Line, but we did have a fun time exploring the wrong places :) It actually turned out to be a great day, just not what we had planned to do. The picture above is from the Internet, I wanted you to understand what it is I am talking about.

On our way home from Aomori City the sunset was incredible, it was really hard to capture out the window of the car while on the expressway at 80 km/h but this is what it looked like. (it's funny that 80 km/h seems so fast to me now, that's only 50 mph)Japan is nicknamed the land of the rising sun, and it is quite appropriate!

Our 35th week in Japan ended with Easter! My parents mailed us an Easter Basket and it was quite a nice surprise! As was the mysterious Easter Basket that showed up on our door Easter Morning! Thank you Mr./Mrs. Easter Bunny whoever you are! We had Easter Bunnies and Jelly Beans and all kinds of goodies, including an Easter egg dying kit from my parents. We had Genny over for an afternoon Easter Extravaganza! We dyed eggs, made dinner and then went to church. It was definitely a peculiar Easter dinner, because of the Easter/Passover overlap and the fact that Genny is a vegetarian; so, we had a Vegetarian- Kosher for Passover- Easter Dinner. It consisted of Matzoh Ball soup, Mashed Potatoes, Salad and stuffed olives :) Random, accommodating, delicious and fun! After dinner Genny and I met up with Katie and Karen and we headed to church, and it was in English. We had a great day!
Genevieve is a master of dying eggs! Eric is eating a chocolate reeses bunny :) and dying eggs!

After it was too late, Eric discovered that I didn't make I hard boiled eggs, I made soft boiled eggs, so we couldn't eat them... but it was a fun project anyway! Next year I will boil them longer!

Here are some of the eggs that we colored. The dye kit was a Zoo Theme... hopefully that will explain our egg design choices!