29 June 2010 (Tues): It was four years ago that I met Dir. Ab. Now I recall. At that time I chatted with him about the World Cup. Tonight, Japan vs. Paraguay. Interesting, because the Embassador to Japan from Paraguay is of Japanese descent - a second-generation in Paraguay. Watching him comment on TV about Honda's performance evoked some thinking on the issue of a migrant's "identity" and "national loyalty" in modern times.
Although A. dislikes thinking about "national affiliation," preferring to treat everyone like his own kind, he never gets tired of eating a few homecooked dishes from his homeland despite his long term residence here. For me there's hardly a time that I get tired of his version of tamagoyaki, for example. But I know that not everyone will like this. Once he woke up at about five in the morning to prepare it for his colleagues. To his disappointment, they simply stared at it. After eating it (he supposed that they finished it), they did not comment on it. He then surmised that it was not well-received.
I love it. It's my comfort food at home. And it is nutritious. A. makes it so by adding a lot of chopped chive and fresh cabbage into the beaten egg mixture. A normal Japanese housewife uses a pair of giant chopsticks to help her turn the egg in the pan, but A. uses a wooden ladle that we use for stir-frying on a non-stick pan. No hassle really. It fits the width of the squarish Japanese pan and flips the egg with precision. When one side is "cooked" enough to be turned over to the other, turn off the fire and cover the pan with a wooder lid.
A. uses two eggs only with a bowl of chopped veggie. Yummy...
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