My Japanese Soul Mate

So, one aspect of living in a different country is that there are certain foods and ingredients that aren't available. Strangely, this inevitably makes us crave those foods and ingredients, and we go to great lengths to create, find, import, or substitute. Although I'm happy to wing, say a roast, casserole, or soup, I'm less willing to gamble on my powers of invention when it comes to sushi rice, DongPo Rou, enchilada sauce, Chinese BBQ Pork, and Pork Buns.

Of course, I didn't bring an Asian cookbook to Peru with me, so I must Google all recipes. And what I discovered quickly was that many of these recipes required ingredients that can't be found in Arequipa: rice wine, rice vinegar, peanut oil, cooking sherry, white pepper, and a million others. Aaron went to Lima this week and brought back a bunch of stuff, but some things are unattainable. Again, the internet came to my rescue, as I am able to Google ingredient substitutes. Here I learned two amazing things. The first is that there is a thriving community of hip, urban vegans/observant Jews/observant Muslims out there who want to be able to make the most authentic tasting vegan/kosher/halal oyster sauce, marinades, and steamed dim sum around. My hat is off to them and their wordly tastebuds, without which I would never have been able to concoct oyster-free oyster sauce, sherry-free Dong Po Pork, sake-free Japanese marinades, and fish-flake-free miso soup base.

The second thing I learned is that there is a thriving food blog community out there. This, frankly, should come as no surprise to me, but I was a bit taken aback to discover that there are people more obsessed with food than I am. My new favorite is I Was Just Really Very Hungry. She pops up time and again when I search for good recipes for Chinese and Japanese food, and I feel I've found a kindred spirit.

Oh, big acknowledgements are also due to the vibrant online homesteaders, as I think of them - the people who post recipes for the homemade everything they make. Without them, I would never have learned to make my own sour cream, buttermilk (we'll see how it turns out) or toothpaste. Actually, I think I'll skip making that last one. There's plenty of Colgate in Peru. But it's interesting to know that if I really needed to, I'd be able to find an online recipe.