|
|
|
| 2000 |
| August:
|
Healthy vegan snack, vegan peach cobbler, stray
cats, and so on. |
| September:
|
Vegan pizza and brownie as well as experiences
at several vegan restaurants. |
| October:
|
New soymilk product and vegan ramen noodle, and
so on. |
| November:
|
Stories about the meeting with Japan Vegetarian
Society chairpersons, vegan wedding meal, and experiences in
Kyoto and Vietnam. |
| December:
|
Attended Japan Vegetarian Society's meeting,
delicious vegetarian food in YOKOHAMA China town, wasting time
and money on staling foods, and trip to Penang. |
| 2001 |
| January:
|
Experimenting some vegan breakfast recipes, receiving
an e-mal from the reader, pondering bug's life, and so on |
| February:
|
Tried a macrobiotic restaurant in Tokyo, and
the trip to Laos. |
| March:
|
Struggling to get a vegan flihgt meals at Malaysian
Airline. |
April:
|
Having vegan wedding plates again, business
trip to Cambodia and Vietnam, and busy days. |
| May:
|
Nayonnaise discovery and some food disasters. |
| June:
|
Life is going on. |
| 2002 |
| February: |
Attended a meeting on refugee issues in Japan
held by Amnesty International Japan |
| March: |
Fresh soy milk and fasionable fake leather sneakers,
etc. |
|
April |
A conversation with my husband over a TV show
and "Meatarians vs. vegetarians." |
| May |
A trip to the U.S. for research. Had an opportunity
to attend a fantastic vegan wedding of my friend's. |
| July |
A thought on eating whale meat. |
| 04/08/2001 |
|
Attended the wedding of my husband's cousin. Coincidentally,
the party was held at the restaurant I experienced vegan plates
in November. That was great because I couldn't have requested
my special meal if the couple selected other places. So I
was happy all the day. The wedding was also filled with happiness
(certainly!) and the couple kindly gave me a hand-made vegetarian
menu. It said, "white asparagus salad with truffe sauce,"
"green peace soup," "sauteed variety of French mushrooms,"
"lime sherbet," "vegetable resott." The cousin called me in
advance the chef was worrying if I could satisfy with those
light meals but no problem! How wonderful that I don't need
to compromise on non-vegetarian things.
|
| 04/09/2001 - 04/19/2001 |
A business trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. There
was no information about vegetarian in Cambodia, but I was somehow
optimistic after the experience Laos.
It was a business trip to cover colonial hotels for a magazine
and I visited Siem Reap, the town of Angkor Heritage, and Phnom
Penh, with a photographer. In conclusion, I could survive there.
Since we should try the food in the hotels, I rarely had a chance
to try real local eating places but people generally don't eat
out in Cambodia anyway. And you know, hotel's buffet always
has vegan items such as cereals, raw vegetables, and rice. In
Phnom Penh, I also found soy milk at the breakfast buffet. The
bad thing was there were too many restaurants in the hotels
we should try and too little local places we could go. I finally
got fed up with sticking to boring vegan items. Then what about
Cambodian cuisine? Yes, I had some of them (at the hotels).
It's less spicy than Thai foods, using a lot of herbs. The horrible
era the country went through in past 20 years almost ruined
the tradition of exquisite Khmer cuisine but the renaissance
has started here and there. But the chefs seemed not to have
time to think about vegetarian arrangements yet. Most dishes
contain some meat or fish (sometimes fish sauce) and it is just
the natural way of eating not only in Cambodia but in many other
countries all over the world.
As a vegetarian, you can ask rice noodles with boiled vetables
and a dip of soy sauce instead of chiken broth. Garlic, shallots,
and other herbs are essencial condiments in Cambodian cuisine
so you can add these things to your plate as well. Variety of
salad can be ordered without meat/seafoods including fishsauce.
Banana blossom salad was one of my favorites for its fresh,
flavorful taste. The delights were Khmer dessert. They are made
of rice, coconut milk, sugar, and some fruits...in a word, are
vegan. I enjoyed them along with fresh southern fruits.
I had nothing to worry in Vietnam. I stayed in Hanoi this time
and had to try hotel's restaurants there too. But being different
from Cambodia, Vietnamese people have a custom of eating out
and there were a plenty of places I could go. In addition to
that, I've even found a vegetarian cafe. The owner was a French
woman who once stayed in Tokyo as well. Now she's selling smoothies,
fruits juice, and vegetarian food (including vegan pho!) using
organic ingredients as much as possible. The name is Tamarind
Cafe. You should go there!
The biggest shame during my travel was that I forgot to request
my vegan meal for the flight from Hanoi to Bangkok. The airline
was AirFrance! Leaving most of the regular flight meal, I couldn't
stop wondering why they didn't hesitate to use prochute while
the food and mouth disease was threating around Europe.
|
| 04/21/2001 |
Prepared for the busy days. I've got assignments
of two magazines and the deadline is in the end of this month.
By May 10, I also should work on proofreading an English textbook,
write my monthly regular column for a magazine, do some interviews,
and plan my business trip to the U.S.
First thing I did was cooking beans. I may need enough protein
since Japanese tofu is all fresh and hard to keep long time.
Now I can have whole-wheat cracker with hummus or green soybean
paste anytime.
Then I went shopping to buy some frozen green veggies as well
as Vietnamese rice papers, organic carrots, and bananas. It's
a shame the store didn't have tortilla chips anymore. After
seven months of living in U.S., I became chips/caffeine addicted.
Bad for health, but just I can't stop leaning on those kind
of things.
|
| 04/24/2001 |
| You should be careful to order something "vegetable"
menu. I was supposed to know that but made a mistake again.
For late lunch, I went to a curry restaurant since I knew that
they had vegetarian curry. On the menu, I found "vegetable curry"
besides the item I used to be familiar with, so I decided to
try new thing. The plate served to me contained shrimp with
vegetables. Then I noticed that there were shredded beef in
it. I hardly escape from them and finally gave up eating. Too
bad to waste foods. Only good thing was I was full thanks to
two boiled potatoes served with the curry. |
|
|
|
