Thursday, March 13, 2003

 
Once again, sorry for the lack of updates, but I have been quite busy (yes,again) (last 2 days cleaning and gardening and finishing up that website) .. and on top of it, the online connection (please all sing along, you know the words) is getting even WORSE ... (in fact, i just got kicked again after 2 minutes, not enough time to download the 11 emails that were waiting for me. And it only took me half an hour of trying to get those 2 minutes). It is very possible that this is a bug in the phoneline, so I will have to drag those Telecom people out here ...

On a related, but more positive note, the island's one and only ISP is coming down with the pricing. Not much (20% so now it is 40USD for 40 hours a month instead of 50USD) but it is a good start. Still hoping for some "unlimited for night owls" plan ...

Soon again more, everything else is fine, it seems the latest hurricane Eseta is passing us by 500 km, but we had lots of rain the last 2 days and today it is very windy.



#posted by Peter 6:08 PM

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Wednesday, March 12, 2003

 
Cute cat pic of the week





#posted by Peter 2:16 PM

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Tuesday, March 11, 2003

 
Late Weekend Summary:

Sorry folks that there has been no update yet .. but I was pretty busy over the weekend, doing some website design and trying to upload stuff, which mainly had to happen during the very early sunday morning hours, which in effect made me take a morning nap on sunday. We then did some supermarket shopping and other typical weekend things: laundry, cooking, eating, playing with the cat, reading and such.

On Saturday we went to Daikoku (again) and had all things we had not tried before ... they had sea urchin sushi !!! Having something else then tuna or snapper on your rice is rare, so when we saw that on the specials board, we went right for it (and now I think we should have ordered more) .. then we had the fillet teppanyaki, which was very very yummy .. and then we tried the seafood combination, which is shrimp, fish of the day, a lobster tail and usually 2 oysters, but we substituted them with squid, since Ritsu is allergic to Oysters ... turns out it was a wise decision, the squid was actually one of the highlights ... the shrimp came in their very greasy white sauce, gladly only 2 of them, in that little amount it is actually nice .. the fish was ok, the squid was yummy .. and the lobster tail was the disappointment of the evening, while it looked very nice, and was not bad, it just had no lobster flavor to it. One thing I also noticed is that everything gets the same "butter with soy sauce" treatment .... works great with meat, kills any subtle flavor on seafood ...

Sunday night, still on a seafood crave, I made 2 different kind of shrimp for us: steamed with odl bay spice, and sauteed with garlic ... both turned out yummy and the frozen shrimps from thailand were good, though their consistency was weird .. too soft ... nothing really to bite.

Monday (yeah, I know, not weekend) I made us japanese yakitori (stuff on skewers) as interpreted by a gaijin ... fairly easy to make, and a unique flavor ... I made basically 2 different kinds of meatballs, which then where quickly fried, then drenched in a sauce, but on skewers and grilled on our neat little george foreman grill. Wanna make it at home (Berna ? )

Pork: about 250 gr. of minced pork, mixed with crushed garlic and ginger .. about 3 teaspoons of sugar, an egg and if the mix seems to liquid, add breadcrumbs.

Chicken: 250 gr minced chicken, again with the garlic / ginger treatment, but no sugar, instead some finely chopped spring onions. (makes it later easier to see whaich is what :)

form little balls, I got 25 out of each mix, and fry them seperatly, let cool a bit.

Sauce: In a small pot mix cooking sake (or cheap sake from the liqour store) with sugar ... once disolved add soysauce .. I think all is in equal parts .. but be careful with the soy sauce .. rather add some later ... let simmer and hoepfully at some point you have a slightly viscose mix ...

Put the meatballs on skewers, and brush generously with the sauce, keep the rest of the sauce for later ...

Fire up your bbq or oven taster of george foreman's lean-mean-fatkilling-grilling machine and bbq the meatsicles ... chop some more spring onions into the sauce, drizzle over the finished skewers and enjoy.

So much from chef Peter (personally: I liked the pork ones better) . Another hurricane may be heading our way, so I keep getting ready for this :)

#posted by Peter 10:40 AM

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Sunday, March 09, 2003

 
Isn't it sad ? I bet most journalists have already written their initial "war coverage" .. just waiting for it to happen .. just like they have their obituries of most famous people written and handy .. I feel so sad (sorry for getting political) .. but the world has been such a nice place 4 years ago .. the biggest problems were the Euro conversion and the Y2K threat ... do we need those things that induce fear in use to go on with our lives ? Makes you wonder about "the matrix" .. where agent smith explains that the first matrix was a paradise .. but it did not work .. do we need those conflicts ??

All what happened since 9/11/01 reminds me of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" ... in order to control .. you need an outside enemy and an inside enemy ... did they EVER find out who mailed the anthrax letters ??

#posted by Peter 8:06 AM

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