Cheesu

I am well aware of the fact that feta cheese is not Japanese. In fact, the little package I bought it in was kind enough to proclaim in capital bold letters that this cheese came from Greece. But oh man. Oh man oh man. Feta cheese, I can say with confidence, belongs in the privileged circle of "my favorite foods." Good feta, anyways, with that nice salty sharpness. Mmm. It immediately makes the day a thousand times better.

Feta cheese, in fact, has already made its debut in my Japan life several times. Once, I bought it from the store and it was a sad sad feta. They only sell them in blocks here; I thought that was super weird. I guess I was spoiled from living in California where most of the feta I bought was already crumbled, ready to go on salads in pieces that made you want to mop the plate up with your finger.

The second time was at our fantastic cheese party. Everyone brought either an article of cheese, or something to go with cheese. It was grand. One dude brought feta cheese, and I ate them with raw tomato. Raw tomato! I used to hate that stuff. Now tonight, I just sliced up the tomato and ate it with a thin slice of feta and a little bit of salt to take away the tomato-y flavor. I've come a long way since high school, I suppose.

The third time, was an exclusive trip into the import store at the station, just to pick up a block of feta. Expensive feta. I had no idea how much it cost until I bought it yesterday. It's definitely one of those more... special things, clocking in around 950 yen (which I count as practically ten dollars). Ten bucks for a block of cheese! Damn tasty cheese, granted. But ten! Holy crap! It's probably for the better, otherwise I'd be eating this stuff every single day. I used it in my pasta salad, which has become something of a comfort food to me. It's super easy to make since they sell italian dressing, cucumbers, red onions, and pasta here, which is basically what I use for mine. Maybe some garlic. Oh, and jalepenos! They make it FANTASTIC. And feta cheese when I have it.

I also discovered in my grocery store that they in fact, have a somewhat small selection of cheeses. Most of them are that kind of gross cheese that reminds me a lot of American, or the white Japanese baking/cooking cheese that they use in dishes like gratin or doria (which is wow, amazing). But they also had parmesan. And, strangely, gouda. That was weird. And they had Philadelphia cream cheese! It made me miss home a little. And even though the Giants are playing the Phillies, I gotta hand it to Philadelphia for making kick ass cream cheese. That's about it though haha.

I also discovered that my big grocery store, Polka, stocks hershey's kisses. HELL YES BABY. They also stock an amazing amount of other foods that I thought would have been impossible to get. Like Jelly Belly jellybeans. Now THAT made me feel nostalgic. It's funny how little things like that can make your day just a little bit brighter. Finally buying chinese soupspoons also made my day much more awesome. So awesome I might even sleep in my cockroach infested room. Maybe. The more I look, the less Takahashi feels like a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. They even had things like... oreos and nice chocolate like Lindt's. I'm saving those for emergencies.

But back to cheese. However unhealthy cheese is though... it's still one of the only ways I'm still getting dairy here in Japan. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to find non-fat or skim milk. I can't drink the regular milk here since it's like... super whole. I get a little sick and nauseous, despite how it's probably all in my head. Cheese, ice cream, and yogurt. Hooray.

It's kind of amazing how many different types of cheese we've managed to develop. I think it's interesting though, that cheese isn't that popular over here in Japan, but dishes like gratin and doria are. I mean, they might not be as popular as something like omurice, but I've been seeing it all over. And that thing is practically covered in cheese. Gratin, the ones I've had here, are made with pasta. Kind of like a macaroni and cheese, pretty much. I still think of potatoes when I hear Gratin.

But doria. How to explain this. It's like someone took mac and cheese and went "hm, how can we make this better?"

Their solution?


This, my friends, is doria. Take mac and cheese made with kinda crappy Japanese white cooking cheese. Add super tasty flavored rice. Layer mac and cheese on top of it. Sprinkle more cheese on top. Bake until the cheese is all brown and tasty looking. Not only do you have a kickass awesome (super unhealthy) dish, it stays warm the entire time you eat it! The only downside to this is that it stays hot for the first like... fifteen minutes you're eating. It's like eating Korean hot pot. You go to take a bite and then realize OH SHIT IT'S HELLA HOT. OW OW OW. Worse, doria has cheese. Cheese sticks to the roof of your mouth. Hot cheese burns. I do not want to think about how many times I've burned the skin off the roof of my mouth. Too many to count.

But man, doria is pretty tasty stuff. It would be even tastier if one were to use Kraft's mac and cheese. Or home baked. Mmm... I'm going to stop thinking about that now and focus on cooking.