Okonomiyaki, etc

I decided sometime around 3:45 that I was hungry and that not having eaten any meat all day probably wasn't a good idea. I convinced Tori to walk to whole foods with me but then she changed her mind because it was "raining." I went anyway and got myself a little snack. A bit of spinach, some Brazilian chicken salad (which was delicious) and a couple of pieces of broccoli. I actually said to myself, "Hm, I haven't had any cruciferous vegetables all week..."

Later in the afternoon, I of course ate several more bit sized pieces of shredded wheat, mainly because they were there and because I was working late. (Summer hours are killing me.)

It was decided that C-lo (short for Carlos, a nickname for Carl) would come over for dinner. Of course, I had almost no food, so we decided to buy ingredients and make stuff, per usual. As I was waiting for him, however, I started throwing away the aging and potentially dangerous foodstuffs in my pantry (some of this shit expired in like '02). I happened to come across a bottle of Okonomiyaki sauce in my cabinet. If you haven't had okonomiyaki, it's a real treat. I hadn't had it in years (5 years maybe?) so, we decided to make that. That's right, I had no ingredients for the pancake itself, but I had SAUCE so we went for it.

Carl and I bought all the stuff and made what I think were delicious okonomiyaki, along with small salads of Spinach and other mixed greens. I had 10 spritzes of Asian Silk(tm) on mine, much to his amusement. We also has "Salad Toppins" which is a bottle of random crunchy things to put on salads. Not bad. I made four pancakes, per the recipe, and Carl ate 2, but I had one. It's almost as though I was saving room for the slice of cake (sliver, really) and the small glass of icy milk that I was going to have about 30 minutes later. (Also with dinner, he had a miller lite, and I enjoyed the last of my Blue Moon Summer Wheat Ales. I love those things.)

For anyone interested in what Okonomiyaki is, it's basically a cabbage pancake. We used chicken (although pork is best), shredded cabbage, all purpose flour, eggs, and water, a fairly simple recipe. It can get fancy, with corn, mochi, etc. Oh right, we also added cheese. When I lived in Nagoya, I used to frequent an Okonomiyaki shop with this old lady ("Baa-chan, if you will) who made the BEST Okonomiyaki and she would put cheese in it, must to the disgust of my Japanese friends. It was the closest thing to soul food in Japan, in that it was greasy and it made you feel stupid all afternoon. Baa-chan if you're still alive (she was old as hell, then), this is for you!