Monday, September 7, 2009

Kitchen curiosities


Two items, submitted for your approval:
1) Garlic. Not just any garlic, though; "Inspirational" garlic. Tasted like regular garlic to me, but maybe inspiration has a subtle flavor.

2) Morinaga Pancake Syrup. Helpfully classified as "Keki shirapu", and at the bottom, we're reassured that it's "Mepuru taipu." Ingredients are basically sugar, sugar, and sugar.
But wait, what's the deal with that cap?

If you open it up on top, it has a very fine spout. Can't get much syrup out of there quickly. But that looks like a second pull-tab underneath... it is! And you get a larger spout:


All of this on a cheap bottle of faux-maple-syrup I got at the grocery store downstairs. I think when I move away from Japan, I'll miss the banal ingenuity the most.

4 comments:

  1. The garlic made me laugh. Yesterday the local Oregon garlic inspired me to make some vegan pesto. Does the store downstairs sell veges?

    How are things otherwise?

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  2. They do sell veggies. A pretty decent variety, in fact, although the prices range from fairly cheap to crazy-expensive depending on what you're trying to get. The things we've noticed missing are avocados (which they sell at a grocery store in the train station) and fresh strawberries (which we haven't seen anywhere).

    Things are okay, if a little slow. We're planning a mini-vacation of sorts for the third week of September, when there are three national holidays in a row immediately after the weekend. I'm sure that will produce some interesting photos and stories!

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  3. Since they have faux syrup, do they have a substitute for Aunt Jemima? Pass the butter, please!

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  4. Considering its penchant for cutely anthropomorphizing everything in sight, there's definitely a weird lack of lady-shaped syrup bottles in this country.

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