Birthdays

We have the most student birthdays in January and February, and the least in April and May. I wonder why?

Let me see the menu...

Many students make this mistake, so I thought I should write about it on the OC blog.

In Japanese, 「メニュー」 means one dish or one food item, or the sheet of paper where they are written.

In English, "menu" is just the sheet of paper with the foods written on it, or sometimes the variety of foods you can order.

Therefore, "I made a new menu" means you have many new items written on a new sheet of paper.

"I learned a new recipe" is pretty close to 「新しいメニューを習いました。」

Hummus, again

This is a Middle Eastern dip I like very much. Try it!

You need:

2 cans garbanzo beans OR white beans (you can buy these at the Seria across the street!)

4 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons of sesame paste (練り胡麻 works fine)

2 to 4 tablepoons of olive oil

1 or 2 teaspoon of cumin

1 or 2 tablespoons of lemon juice


To make hummus:

1. Fry the garlic in the olive oil until it's soft and a little bit brown.

2. Put the beans (without the liquid in the can), the sesame paste, the cumin, the lemon juice, and the garlic with the oil into a blender. Blend it until it's smooth.

3. Add salt until it tastes good.

4. Serve it cold, with paprika on top. I usually eat it with naan or in a sandwich, but many people like to eat it with chips!

Valentine's Day

It was Valentine's Day yesterday. We got some candy from our students, which makes us very happy. I believe we might gain weight this month.

I read somewhere that Valentine's Day in the US was started by a card company. Who started Valentine's Day in Japan? I assume it was a chocolate company, since Japanese women always give chocolate. I also wonder about White Day. There's no White Day in the US, since men and women all give each other presents on Valentine's Day. I guess we don't need White Day. Maybe someday Japanese people will stop celebrating White Day too... but I bet the candy companies won't like that!

TV Shows

American TV shows are popular here. People often ask me which TV shows I watch. In fact, this is one of the most common questions I get. I only watch a little bit of TV, but here are my favorite shows:

1. The Simpsons - it's incredibly funny and memorable.
2. The Sopranos - the characters are very interesting.
3. Lost - the characters have interesting personal stories.
4. House - I watched this in California this winter. It's addictive!
5. Futurama - The humor is quite strange but I love it.