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Author: theMan
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Way Off Topic – a Long Way from Here
Having grown up in Japan and having hitchhiked, biked, and ridden trains all over the country as a boy, literally, at eleven years old I took to the roads hitchhiking for days at a time, traveling over a thousand miles, giving my parents much to worry about, I’ve always had an interest in the trains and roads of Japan. At fourteen I went on an expedition from the far south where we lived to the northern tip of Japan, traveling alone for three weeks, incommunicado, riding trains, hitchhiking, sleeping in telephone booths, having the time of my life. I think fourteen year old boys need to do that. Explore the world on their own. My parents had no idea where I was. This was in the day before mobile phones and even long distance telephoning wasn’t easy. And when you are having fun, what fourteen year old boy is going to call home?
Deciding what trains and roads to try out on future trips is easier now. Train buffs and highway aficionados film their journeys and post them on YouTube. You can search any train line or highway and find videos of them to help decide which new route to take. Which led me to discovering some eye-opening facts about the Tokai-Hokuriki Motorway 東海北陸自動車道. It runs south to north from the Pacific side of Japan to the Sea of Japan side, connecting Nagoya and Toyama. It is 115 miles (185 kilometers) long and has 55 tunnels. 44 miles (70 kilometers) of the highway are tunnels, with the longest one 6.6 miles long. Eleven of the tunnels are more than a mile long.
I patched together a map of the highway. It is the purple line going from the top to the bottom of the image below. Where the purple highway is white indicates a tunnel. There are long stretches where the highway pops out of a tunnel only to pop into one a short time later.
I don’t think a road like this would ever be built in the US. The toll to drive the distance of this highway is a little over $40. If you plan on driving in Japan, take into mind that the average toll on motorways is about 25¢ per mile, which comes to $25 for every hundred miles.
Below is a recent two hour video posted on YouTube which starts at the northern end of the highway and goes all the way to the southern end.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SeI2oYsOGU&w=560&h=315] -
Fall is for Pastels, Spicy Greens, and Pie
Leaves aren’t the only things that change color in the fall. Flowers, like hydrangeas, change too. Their vibrant blues age into subdued, leathery hues.
Maples are past their peak, but they are still beautiful, and in a way even more so.
It’s the season of spicy greens. Arugula and ruby streaks have a bite. When you sink your teeth into them, you know you’re still alive.
Fall is made for making pies. This is homegrown pumpkin and squash pie, made with cream and tofu. Puree roasted pumpkin and squash with tofu, milk, and cream, and you get a satiny filling. The good thing about making your own pie is that you get to decide everything that goes into it.
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Geese Fall as Thick as Snow
The snow geese are back in full. From a distance their flocks look like snow banks. With flocks this large, streams of geese fly in and fly off nonstop. You can watch them for hours and never see them crash into each other.
How do they do that? Fly so close their wingtips practically touch but never collide? Imagine riding in a jet and coming into a landing with hundreds of other jets just feet away and all landing without bumping into each other. That would be a plane ride that would take your breath away.
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A Sliver in Time … Pfft And It’s Gone?
Biking to the post office today, the sky was filled with so many snow geese it was hard to stay on the road. Honk! Honk! Honk! It’s hard to pedal straight when you’re eyes are looking up at all the snow geese. Flocks of swan were flying too.
Which brings to mind what an amazing planet we live on. What makes it so amazing is the length of time it has taken for us to get to this point. Today on Skunk Bear, Adam Cole, using the length of a football field, illustrated just how long it has taken for much of the life we take for granted to evolve. If we take a hundred yard football field to represent the 4.5 billion years the earth has been around, and start walking at one end, many of the creatures we know and love don’t appear until the last yard at the other end, and we humans don’t appear until the last eighth of an inch before the end. Civilization, farming, industry, society as we know it doesn’t appear until two hair widths from the end.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8V_glRW1hA&w=898&h=505]Which shows how precious life is. If we destroy it all, and we seem hell bent on doing that, how many millions and millions of years is it going to take for it to come back again? Next time you see snow geese flying overhead, or the smile of someone you love, consider that it took over four billion years of trial and error for those wonderful things to appear.
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Tofu Crouton Puffs
When you want to make croutons, reaching for a block of tofu may be the last thing that comes to mind, but firm tofu makes a nice, crunchy crouton with a light, airy inside. Take an eight to ten ounce block of firm tofu and slice into half inch thick layers. Using paper or cloth towels, thoroughly dry the layers.
Cut the layers into half inch cubes.
Peel some garlic and crush/mince it. You decide how many cloves to use.
In a bowl mix the crushed garlic with 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon or so of salt, and it you like add pepper. Add other spices if you’d like. Nothing is stopping you. You only live once, live it to the fullest.
Pour the olive oil-garlic mixture over the tofu cubed, and gently toss the tofu cubes until they are coated. Set aside for thirty minutes or so to marinate. While the tofu cubes are marinating, preheat the oven to 450ºF or 230ºC. After the oven has preheated, and about five minutes before the tofu cubes are ready for the oven, grease a 12 by 9 inch, 30 by 23 centimeter, baking pan with olive oil and heat in the oven. You want the oil in the baking pan to be hot when you put the tofu cubes on, otherwise they might stick.
Once the baking pan is hot, arrange the tofu cubes on the hot baking sheet. Be careful not to burn yourself.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. While baking, every five to seven minutes, turn the tofu cubes using a spatula, tongs, or chopsticks, so that all sides can brown. Remove the tofu cubes from the oven when golden brown. Place on paper towel on cooling rack. You can snack on them while hot, or cool, and use them in salads or wherever you would use croutons.
You’ll find the freshest firm tofu at Belfast Feed Store. It is never more than three days old, and delivered fresh every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, usually around 3pm. The date it is made is clearly on the label, and you’ll find a recipe under each label. How do I know this? I make and deliver it.
