{"id":22309,"date":"2011-11-03T11:18:04","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T15:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=22309"},"modified":"2016-12-05T15:03:27","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T19:03:27","slug":"the-rice-cooker-chronicles-my-rice-ball-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/03\/the-rice-cooker-chronicles-my-rice-ball-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rice Cooker Chronicles: “My Rice Ball World” by Meredith Hodges-Boos"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rice Cooker Chronicles<\/strong><\/a> is a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking\/eating and being alone in Japan. The brain-child of JETwit founder \u00a0Steven Horowitz<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(Aichi<\/a>-ken,\u00a0Kariya<\/a>-shi, 1992-94) <\/strong>(and inspired by the book <\/em>Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant<\/a>), this series is curated by L.M. Zoller<\/a> <\/strong>(CIR Ishikawa<\/a>-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11), the editor of <\/em>The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight<\/a><\/strong>. A writer and translator for <\/em>The Art of Japan: Kanazawa<\/strong> and <\/em>Discover Kanazawa<\/strong>, ze also writes <\/em>I\u2019ll Make It Myself!<\/a><\/strong>, a blog about food culture in Japan.<\/em><\/p>\n

New submissions always welcome. \u00a0Just e-mail it to Leah at\u00a0jetwit [at] jetwit.com<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

******<\/p>\n

“My Rice Ball World”<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Meredith Hodges-Boos (ALT, Ehime-ken,<\/a> 2003-2005).\u00a0 Please visit http:\/\/meredithhodgesboos.blog.com\/<\/a> for more essays on her time in Japan and current literary projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I dragged my tired body into the entryway and found just enough energy to pry off my shoes.\u00a0 The door rattled on the track as I slumped into the main room of the house my husband and I shared as Assistant Language Teachers.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m home,\u201d\u00a0 I muttered to Greg and I blinked into the bright light of the room.\u00a0 The glare and blare of the used Playstation we\u2019d bought at Hard Off lit up the tatami in a rainbow of colors.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, welcome back.\u201d\u00a0 He nodded over his shoulder then proceeded to pound the opposing character on the screen.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d been home for three hours\u2026the same amount of time it took me to get back from my farthest high school. I tried very hard to not hold it against him.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t his fault I had eight schools or that I hadn\u2019t eaten anything other than a piece of toast at four that morning.\u00a0 The busy schedule of the day hadn\u2019t given me time to eat anything else.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to break taboo of eating on the bus yet again.<\/p>\n

But that was okay.\u00a0 Everything was fine now because I had a sweet, delectable, frosted cherry Pop-Tart waiting with my name on it.\u00a0 I\u2019d spent the long bus ride home imagining the taste of the overly sweet jam on my tongue, the gentle crack of the sugared sprinkles against my teeth, and the homey smell of the soft cakey back.\u00a0 My stomach growling hard enough to cramp, I headed for the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Pop-Tarts were one of the few comforts I had from home.\u00a0 Mom didn\u2019t like paying $12 to ship a box of $1.50 snacks to me.\u00a0 Although I did get a lot of care packages, the Pop-Tarts were a rare treat.\u00a0 People back in Tennessee didn\u2019t seem to understand that I desperately needed other foods that didn\u2019t contain something raw, fishy or some sort of innards.\u00a0 Pop-Tarts were safe, they were sweet and they were something I\u2019d eaten since I was in grade school.<\/p>\n

Yawning and still blinking, I grabbed the blue and pink box and reached inside, the stress of the day sloughing off my shoulders as my fingers sought out the shiny wrapper.\u00a0 The box was strangely light.\u00a0 My fingers hit the bottom.<\/p>\n

Inside I found nothing.<\/p>\n

It was empty.<\/p>\n

There were no Pop-Tarts in the box.<\/p>\n

I glanced into the other room.\u00a0 Next to my husband\u2019s rear was a shiny wrapper with the words “Pop-Tart, do not microwave in package” written on the front.\u00a0 I twitched.\u00a0 Other than the crumbs on the tatami, the pouch was empty.<\/p>\n

In the three months we\u2019d been married, we\u2019d avoided the fabled first real husband versus wife fight.\u00a0 Three months was a good amount of time, my mind whispered, no shame there.\u00a0 Yeah, three months was a very satisfactory span, I nodded my head.<\/p>\n

Then I yelled, \u201cYou ate<\/em> my Pop-Tarts<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

Greg cringed and turned to me with that guilty grin of his, \u201cOh, was that the last one?\u00a0 Sorry about that.\u201d\u00a0 He turned back to the game.<\/p>\n

I threw the empty box at his head.<\/p>\n

Again, this may have seemed extreme, but remember, there are no<\/em> Pop-Tarts in Japan.\u00a0 And it would take over two weeks to get more.\u00a0 And it had taken me three<\/em> hours to get home.\u00a0 And I was hungry.\u00a0 And my husband had eaten the very last one<\/em>!\u00a0 And he\u2019d left the empty box<\/em> as evidence!<\/p>\n

So I did what any newly wed woman would do after a one sided fight, I left.\u00a0 I went out the door, slipped on my worn out tennis shoes and grabbed my bike.\u00a0 Greg would follow me eventually.\u00a0 But for now I was still hungry and I wanted time to be alone.\u00a0 The wind cut bitterly across my cheeks as I pedaled out onto the main street.\u00a0 Passing the small shops that lined our road, I swerved around the kids walking home and the old women on their mopeds.\u00a0 I kept my head down so I wouldn\u2019t have to explain why I was crying.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter much though; blonde hair flying at you on a bike in rural Japan was tantamount to a buffalo driving a clown car.\u00a0 So I waved half-heartedly to the people who shouted hello and nodded to those who bowed their good evenings.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I didn\u2019t know where I was going.\u00a0 A restaurant was out.\u00a0 The owners all knew me since I couldn\u2019t cook.\u00a0 And if they saw me this upset then who knows who else would know by the next day at work.\u00a0 The last thing I needed was for my superiors chastising me for making the town worry over something as silly as a Pop-Tart.\u00a0 The grocery store was just as bad since the cashiers knew me too.\u00a0 So I compromised and pedaled towards the setting sun and the safety of the blue and white sign with the milk bottle and English name:\u00a0 Lawson.<\/p>\n

Lawson is a chain of convenience stores found all over Japan.\u00a0 To someone as gastronomically challenged as myself, the store was like a second home.\u00a0 They stocked most of our dinners in a week, from fried rice boxes, to dried squid legs and beer snacks, to specialty ice creams.\u00a0 Greg and I had agreed that even if I had cooked more, it would have been next to impossible in Japan.\u00a0 Both of us spoke some Japanese, but when it came to reading labels in the grocery, we were hopeless.\u00a0 Not that I cooked that much to begin with.\u00a0 Cooking had become something of a phobia for me.\u00a0 In junior high, I\u2019d been shuffled into the Home Economics class with the other girls.\u00a0 I\u2019d burnt every dish without fail.\u00a0 My teacher took pity on me and my less than savory dishes and gave me a chance for extra credit.<\/p>\n

At six thirty in the morning, I stumbled into the Home Economics room with its line of angry ovens and glaring pots and pans.\u00a0 My task was to make sugar cookies, the most simple of all recipes.\u00a0 It was such a foolproof assignment my teacher let me do it completely by myself.\u00a0 I found out later she\u2019d been asleep in the staff room.\u00a0 I did my best.\u00a0 I mixed and followed the order of ingredients to the letter.\u00a0 With the oven pre-heated and the cookie sheet greased, I slid my cookies in with the conviction that this time would be different.\u00a0 This time I\u2019d make something edible at least.\u00a0 Then the bell rang and I headed to class and left the cookies to bake.<\/p>\n

Five hours later as we filed out of the school, the fire alarm echoing in the halls behind us, I remembered said cookies.\u00a0 Smoke billowed out the window of the Home Economics room like an angry finger, pointing me out.\u00a0 Sniffling and sobbing, I walked up to the vice principal and said, \u201cI\u2019m so sorry.\u00a0 Those were my sugar cookies.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was transferred to Wood Shop the next day.\u00a0 A week later I cut off the tip of my ring finger.\u00a0 The study hall teacher was very worried when I showed up in her class after that.\u00a0 Luckily, I survived that class without so much as a paper cut.\u00a0 Anyway, after that cooking was very low on my list of priorities.<\/p>\n

The door to Lawson swung open into a warm, overly bright line of foods and drinks.\u00a0 On the far side of the store some of my students were looking at the naughty comics.\u00a0 They looked up, blushed and quickly scattered to the fashion, automotive and, ironically, the cooking magazines.\u00a0 I simply grumbled and headed to the safest food in the store, the onigiri<\/em> rice balls.<\/p>\n

I grabbed the first three I came to, their wrappers crackling in my hand.\u00a0 Without another thought, I set them down on the check out counter and waited, not daring to look up.\u00a0 Setting my students straight was one thing, but facing the concern of our usual cashier was another.\u00a0 \u201cMeru, is this all?\u201d\u00a0 She asked, her dark hair swinging into view of my lowered gaze.\u00a0 I muttered something that must have sounded like a polite yes<\/em> and nodded.\u00a0 My own blonde hair was a tangled mess from the day and the wind as it slid over my red eyes.\u00a0 \u201cOkay, 315 yen please.\u201d\u00a0 She said.\u00a0 I forked over the money, thankful that I had enough after the bus fare that day.\u00a0 The coins clattered as I missed dropping them into the cashier\u2019s hand.\u00a0 They fell to the plastic sheet covering Lawson\u2019s new ad for their late fall products.\u00a0 Ah, I thought, they\u2019ll have oden<\/em> again soon.\u00a0 I should tell Greg\u2026<\/p>\n

Biting my lip, I took my receipt and darted for the door.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want anyone to see me crying.\u00a0 Outside the last light of sunset faded away behind the mountains and the ships in the bay lulled in the waves.\u00a0 The wind had turned cold now that the sun was gone.\u00a0 I sighed and leaned up against the cigarette machine, clasping the rice balls in my hand.\u00a0 After three deep breaths I straddled my bike.\u00a0 Tossing the onigiri <\/em>into the rusty basket, I tried very hard not to shiver.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeru!\u201d\u00a0 The attendant had followed me.\u00a0 I ran my fists over my eyes and looked up.\u00a0 The cashier handed me a small can of hot cocoa.\u00a0 She knew I didn\u2019t drink coffee and I didn\u2019t even know her name.\u00a0 \u201cHere.\u00a0 It\u2019s warm.\u201d\u00a0 Thank God for the Japanese and their wonderful warm cocoa in a can, who needs hand warmers when you got hot chocolate?\u00a0 Without another word, she smiled and went back inside.<\/p>\n

Dumbfounded and touched, I waved to her as I peddled out of the parking lot.\u00a0 She bowed.\u00a0 The cocoa was a warm weight in my pocket.\u00a0 Still I had no idea where to go.\u00a0 Across the street was a small shrine.\u00a0 It seemed as good a place as anywhere so I parked the bike again and went under the tall red gate.\u00a0 Two stone foxes watched as I shuffled through the fallen leaves.\u00a0 I headed for the wooden steps of the main building, my supper stuffed in my pockets.\u00a0 The cold seeped in through my coat as I sat down, chilling my backside and shoulders as I leaned against the stairs.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a scene in one of Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s animated movies, Spirited Away<\/em>, where the main character eats rice balls after losing her family and getting lost in a strange world.\u00a0 Huge, round tears drip down her cheeks as she stuffs the onigiri <\/em>into her mouth between sobs.\u00a0 I spent the next few minutes eating the first rice ball reenacting that particular scene.<\/p>\n

By the second one, I\u2019d calmed down.\u00a0 The silence of the shine took the edge off of my anger and hurt.\u00a0 It occurred to me then that this was one of the first meals I\u2019d eaten alone in Japan.\u00a0 All the others had been with co-workers, or friends, or with Greg.\u00a0 Even my traveling meals had been secretly scarfed down with people all around me on trains or buses.\u00a0 Alone now, I took a moment to look at my meager dinner.<\/p>\n

Okay, so it wasn\u2019t a Pop-Tart.\u00a0 But if I\u2019d been in America\u2026would I have been this angry over not getting an onigiri<\/em>?\u00a0 Pop-Tarts were all sweet, inside and out.\u00a0 It reminded me of how it had been in college and home.<\/p>\n

Things had been so easy then.\u00a0 I had my family around me, including Greg of course, and everything had made sense.\u00a0 I knew what to expect.\u00a0 There was a plan, a rhythm so familiar I didn\u2019t even notice it anymore.\u00a0 It hadn\u2019t taken me days to figure out what a sign on the road meant.\u00a0 I understood every part of a conversation without having to guess about certain words.\u00a0 It was the sweet cake-like bread backing, the sugary coating and the sublime delight that was the jam in the center.<\/p>\n

Japan was not sugary\u2026not a piece of cake at all.\u00a0 I glanced down at my onigiri.\u00a0 <\/em>There was a gap in the nori<\/em> seaweed covering where I\u2019d bitten into it.\u00a0 The taste of it was bitter and crunchy and soggy all at the same time.\u00a0 It was something I\u2019d never tasted in America.\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t bad, just different.\u00a0 Inside was full of sticky rice.\u00a0 Each grain was the same size, the same color and had the same taste.\u00a0 The unity and subtlety of it was suddenly astounding; like the people around me in Japan.\u00a0 Everyone worked together.\u00a0 No one wanted to stand out because the group was more important.<\/p>\n

I sniffed again and took another bite.\u00a0 In the middle of the rice ball was a burst of taste, tuna and mayonnaise.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t sweet, but there was something just as good.\u00a0 It was like the tiny victories of my time in Japan.\u00a0 It was when a student finally understood, the light in their eyes that lit up.\u00a0 It was like finding the street we\u2019d been looking for without getting too lost.\u00a0 It was pushing the stop button on the bus at the right time and having the driver grin.\u00a0 It was making a home here, far away from everything I knew and thriving.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t sweet, it was filling.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey.\u201d\u00a0 Greg ducked under the gate, holding my coat under his arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey.\u201d\u00a0 I looked up, blinking and smiling a bit.<\/p>\n

He sat down beside me and draped my coat over my shoulders.\u00a0 \u201cYou okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mad?\u201d<\/p>\n

I shook my head.\u00a0 \u201cNah, not anymore.\u201d\u00a0 I handed him the last onigiri<\/em> and opened the warm cocoa.\u00a0 \u201cHere.\u201d\u00a0 I drank half of it and gave him the can.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks.\u201d\u00a0 He ate them in silence beside me his eyes glued to the stone foxes surrounded the waving rice ropes and folded white papers whispering in the wind.\u00a0 \u201cYou ready to get out of here and go home?\u00a0 This place is spooky.\u201d<\/p>\n

I stood up and offered him a hand up.\u00a0 He took it, relieved.\u00a0 \u201cNah, this place is like a rice ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greg raised an eyebrow but said nothing.\u00a0 We walked to my bike.\u00a0 I was kicking back the stand when he finally said, \u201cYou sure<\/em> you\u2019re okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d\u00a0 I grinned up at him.\u00a0 We\u2019d survived our first big fight and I\u2019d handled my first solo meal as well as could be expected.\u00a0 Across the street I saw the cashier at Lawson peeking out the window.\u00a0 I held Greg\u2019s hand and made him wave as I did.\u00a0 She smiled and went back to work.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m fine. \u00a0But don\u2019t you dare eat my Pop-Tarts again.\u201d<\/p>\n

We walked home to our rice ball world hand in hand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rice Cooker Chronicles is a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking\/eating and being alone in Japan. The brain-child of JETwit founder \u00a0Steven Horowitz\u00a0(Aichi-ken,\u00a0Kariya-shi, 1992-94) (and inspired by the book Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant), this series is curated by L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,70,413,6],"tags":[392,438,440,439],"class_list":["post-22309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anecdote-article","category-food-drink","category-rice-cooker-chronicles","category-writers","tag-cooking-in-japan","tag-onigiri","tag-pop-tart","tag-rice-ball"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-5NP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22309"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40615,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22309\/revisions\/40615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}