Breakfast

I've recently turned over a new stone in my life - a healthy diet. Well, it may not be entirely healthy, I can't quite read the nutritional information on the packaging here, but I think it's pretty much balanced, fresh, and not loaded with the bad stuff I read about online. And no where does my new-found focus on smart eating present itself better than in my breakfast.

I like to start with a nice bowl of miso soup with some tofu and wakame. Wakame is a kind of seaweed; I get the dried variety because it keeps longer and I love watching it change from these little crispy flakes into big green chunks of seaweed. Tofu is also a big plus in the miso. Back in the states, I remember getting little pieces of fried tofu, but now I use big, soft, fresh cubes. Throw a little Chinese pepper into the mix and you've practically got a meal right there.

After the soup, natto. Very few people outside Japan know what natto is, and for good reason - it's the worst food you'll ever have. The basic description is fermented soy beans, but that leaves out the full sensory experience of this decidely Japanese food. It stinks, it's sticky, it's brown, it's soft. When you eat it, these long strings of goo attach to everything; imagine caramel but thinner and longer. No one likes natto, unless you're Japanese, or you really make yourself like it. I took the second option, resisting the gag reflex and eating the stuff everyday until - gasp - I came to like it. Now, the Japanese will go on and on singing the praises of natto; claiming it fights diseases like cancer and AIDS; it's the best fertilizer in the world; it keeps you young and healthy. The truth to most of these claims is dubious, but I'm sure it's certainly not bad for you. It's also pretty cheap and easy to prepare, which fits well into my menu.

Western foods are also on my breakfast table, but with a little Japanese twist. I can't get away from toast and jelly, and I've never had better than the stuff I eat here. The Japanese love thick-sliced bread, which is perfect for toasting, and have some rather tasty blueberry jelly on the cheap. My piece de resistance is the bowl of chocolate cornflakes, yogurt, and chopped banana. Yogurt is a very popular ingredient here, especially in drinks, so tubs of plain are a good buy. And you can't go wrong with bananas and cornflakes, even the chocolate kind. Finally, being a Florida boy, I have to have my daily fix of orange juice, no question.

Lately, I've been gorging on kaki - persimmons in English. The Japanese diet is very seasonal, and kaki is an autumn food. I wolf down around 3 a day, and since they're in season, that's only like a dollar. The goal is to cut back on my sugar, switch over to more natural foods and snacks. The Japanese do not throw pounds of sugar into everything they eat, so just being here has already made me cut down. Back home, I was never one to jump all over a bag of Oreos, I never really had a sweet tooth. My, how that's changed. I'm a total chocoholic, I love anything remotely sweet now. The ice cream case at the grocer's my as well be full of crack. The upshot is that I actually really like food now, it's not just stuff to stop my stomach from grumbling. In the end, eating and cooking have become a great pleasure for me.