Ken Tachibana

“He thought it would be funny if he went into the store stark naked, that it would surprise people.”

Well, I’d say people were surprised, but that probably wasn’t quite the reaction he was after…

I, uh… I think we found the Argentinian Gnome.

That… wow, that’s fairly horrifying.

Because it’s windy and cool out, I am making katsudon for lunch. Which is basically a sliced-up fried pork chop on top of egg and onions simmered in delicious broth on top of rice.

It’s not hard to make, though it’s kind of a pain in the butt and my kitchen always smells like frying pork for two days afterwards. It’s delicious and hot and filling.

Recipe follows, with fuzzy measurements because really, it’s home cooking and whatever tastes good to you is fine, so it’s just about impossible to screw up provided you don’t burn the pork chops.

For each serving you need:

• One thin-cut boneless pork chop, marinated in mirin, soy sauce, and garlic for a few hours
• Some flour, salt, and pepper
• One beaten egg
• Panko (wonderful crispy Japanese style bread crumbs)
• Oil for frying
• About a cup of dashi stock (but I use miso or vegetable broth if I can’t be bothered to go to Central Market or the Asian grocery store)
• Soy sauce to taste
• A few tablespoons of mirin
• A tablespoon or so of sugar
• Minced garlic to taste
• About a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
• About two tablespoons of ketchup
• A handful of onion, sliced as thin as you possibly can
• tonkatsu sauce (basically, ketchup + Worcestershire sauce, if I’m feeling punchy I add a drop or two of Sriracha)
• A hot bowl of steamed rice

First order of business: fry your pork chop. Take it out of the marinade and pat it dry with a paper towel. Give it a drag through some flour, then through the beaten egg, then cover it in panko. SAVE THAT EGG. You’ll use it again later.

Heat up some oil in a pan or wok. Gently drop the chop into the hot oil. Fry it till it’s golden brown on both sides, then take it out of the pan and set it on a couple of paper towels to drain.

Throw the onions into the bit of porky oil left in the pan and saute them until they start to go translucent. Then add your stock, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup. Bring it to a boil, then simmer until the onions are nice and soft.

While the onions are cooking, slice up the pork chop into strips. No, you will not put the pork chop in the pan with the broth. Yes, I know that’s how it’s normally done in Japan and I can’t stand it. I like my tonkatsu crispy. Why the hell would I go through the trouble of frying a pork chop all nice and crispy if I’m just going to simmer it until the nice crispy outside turns to mush? It goes on top at the end.

Remember that egg? Once the onions are nice and soft, pour that egg right into the broth. Don’t stir. Just let it go where it will. It will turn into a very soft omelette with onions all tangled up in it. Mmm.

When the egg is set to your liking, get your bowl of rice, scoop out the egg and onion goop and plop it on top, ladle as much or as little broth as you want over that, then top it with your sliced-up pork chop and tonkatsu sauce. Eat it while it’s nice and hot.

WARNING: this is a cholesterol bomb. You may die. But you will die warm, full, and happy.

Can’t sleep. Clown will eat me.

Can’t sleep. Clown will eat me.

Can’t sleep. Clown will eat me.

(If you need some anti-Nightmare Fuel, may I recommend this series of pictures of pets in costumes?)

I like Texas. I do. It’s just… some of the people here, I could really do without.

Example:

I am sitting in a booth at a diner that’s a little outside of my normal stomping grounds, drinking my coffee and waiting to order my breakfast and poking on my laptop, when I hear some guys talking behind me, about them immigrants. You see those words, you probably have some idea what kind of stuff they were talking about. And they weren’t just talking about the illegal kind. No, at some point they straight-up said legal or not, citizen or not, didn’t matter, this land belongs to God’s white Christian people and everyone else needs to go home.

I’m not even going to bother making a list of all the reasons why saying that makes a person stupid.

Being one of them legal immigrants myself, these conversations tend to make me think words that aren’t fit to post to a PG-rated professional blog. According to these fine specimens of humanity, I should not be allowed to vote, drive, work, buy property, or really do much of anything besides breathe. And they probably think I should have to get a special permit from INS to do that.

I turned around and gave them a couple of dirty looks. They didn’t seem to care. But it’s funny how quiet they suddenly got when the waitress reappeared and I ordered my breakfast in perfect English.

Also: “Japanese” and “Chinese” are not synonyms, you [multiple expletives deleted] Neanderthals. Good God.

Remember the Argentinian gnome? Well… he’s back.

Someone finally came and hauled off the pile of fallen tree limbs and other crap Ike blew off my house. Thanks, guys!

Best Beloved’s stepdad came and picked up the pecan tree chunks previously; those, he’s going to whack into tiny pieces and use in the barbecue pit. But there was still a huge pile of crap out there.

I got so used to looking at that stuff, my yard looks naked now.

Why doesn’t anything like this ever happen when I’m there?

Also, your important safety tip of the day: if you are presented with a YouTube video with the words “Centipede Horror” anywhere in the title or description, RUN AWAY. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PLAY IT. Don’t Google it. Don’t search for it on YouTube yourself. Especially if you are currently eating or have just eaten. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. And most importantly, DON’T SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

Centipedes just crawling around doing their thing don’t bother me. I’d rather not pet them or anything, but sure, I know they’re mostly harmless. But this… yeah, um, no thank you.

Yeah, I’ve been unspeakably busy lately. Curse you, real life!

Actually, not so much with the cursing of real life; good things happened too. Suffice it to say that the universe does occasionally forgive its children their trespasses. Also their monumental stupidity. And that’s all I got to say about that.

Halloween costumes or high fashion? For the sake of my sanity, I’m going to say the former even though I know better. I do like the Domokun sweater, though.

An IM transcript of the conversation that followed discovery of those images:

[Best Beloved]: oh god it looks like Mad Max on bad acid
[Me]: with random scenes from Japanese childrens’ TV shows spliced in
[Best Beloved]: What’s with all the life vests and survival gear, anyway?
[Me]: Survival gear and ridiculous shorts, yeah
[Best Beloved]: LOL look at the third one from the end, WTF /is/ that
[Me]: ……..I, uh, I got nothing
[Best Beloved]: you can totally tell the model’s all “man, this is not what I went to modeling school for, [F] this [crap]”
[Me]: gahahahaha

Almost certainly fake and probably viral marketing for something, but have a dead cryptid washed up in Montauk. Nice.

Among the more amusing theories as to what the hell this is:

• Turtle without its shell (…how!?)
• baby Cloverfield monster (kind of looks like Clover in the face, but wasn’t Clover a baby himself?)
• Sand turkey (what)
• Chupacabra (uh, well, no)
• TURTLEPIGRAT (insert sound of coffee going up and out nose here)
• Gatekeeper, or possibly Keymaster (and more coffee)