Tskuiji Fish MKT.

TIME MACHINE...

At this point it is Friday, and I've been in Tokyo since Tuesday evening. I did my research and knew that I wanted to visit this infamous fish market, but there's a catch - the best time to visit is before 8am, in fact, the best time to see the real action is around 5am, but that's not gonna happen.

I meet up with some friends and have dinner. A bottle of wine, some beers, and of course sake later and I switch gears and go dancing. After leaving the first location the crew decides to keep it classy and go to the corner store instead of buying drinks at the next club. I look at my friend Sophia, and ask, "OK, so we're gonna brown-bag-it?" She chuckles and replies, "Ya, but its Tokyo, you can drink on the street." As I chug my Cola-Shock, we role through to our next destination. The dance floor flashed in shades of pink and blue, and I think Tokyo is amazing right about now.


Next thing I know, the crew and I are chillin in the alley outside with everyone else, the club being closed. The mood ring that is the Tokyo sky is now morphing from a midnight black, to a navy blue. I decide I need some food - typical. Sophia and I grab some grub.





Freeze.

I realize it's about 6am, and I that I'm with someone who is fluent in both English and Japanese, it's now or never. This is how I end up going to the Tskuiji Fish Market. The only other time that I was this delirious I ended up at a walnut factory, literally. This time, I'm in Tokyo and at one of the most famous fish markets in the world.







and then around the bend from the actual market place of fish, came this:

Japan is one of the cleanest places I have been to. At all hours of the day there is an orchestra, or army, of people dressed in their respectable uniform cleaning the streets with their wands. Wrappers, cans, gum, receipts, hair pieces, everything is picked up usually within minutes of hitting the ground. After seeing the pile of Styrofoam at the fish market, I realized, that although the garbage is not on the ground or visible first hand, it is there, but strategically hidden - not so much at the market. I found out that Japan restricted public trash cans due to fear of bombs, not to instill new lifestyle values - although, those have followed suit.

At home, our lifestyle and habits are the breeding grounds for garbage, which begs the question: could this country 86 trash cans, and thus, trash?

Seasonal and Oraganic - Sometimes isn't enough.

The San Francisco Bay Area is known, worldwide, for its cuisine, but most notably, for its dedication and use of locally grown, organic produce. This could be looked at as unfair - California is hailed as being the vegetable/fruit basket of the nation, but LA doesn't have the reputation of the Yay, nor does Portland, Seattle, San Diego, et al.. So it should be of no surprise when organic, local, and seasonal isn't enough for one SF chef.

The executive chef and owner of North Beach restaurant Coi, David Patterson, has decided to take CORN off of his menu, indefinitely. He reasoning being that the crop has been manipulated so far from the native strain, that it is just too sweet and overpowering to incorporate into his dishes. Patterson stated,

"I’m tired of trying to create a balanced dish with an ingredient that tastes like it’s been impregnated with simple syrup. . .Full Belly Farm used to grow Silverado, a replacement for the now heirloom Silver Queen, until the seed was discontinued 12 years ago owing to lack of demand—it wasn’t sweet enough."

I visited Full Belly Farm this past spring. It is one of the most dedicated farms to the sustainable and bio-dynamic movements in California, and probably the nation. To elaborate, on its conservative plot of land, Full Belly grows a variety of fruits and vegetables - which change along with the seasons. This includes offbeat varietals including French Banana Potatoes and Canary Melon, items you won't find in your local un-Safeway. They also grow flowers, raise lamb, sheep, chickens, and pigs, all while harvesting their own compost. Did I mention they have a slew of tree's growing nuts and fruits?

If you are unfamiliar with farming, a vast majority of the farms in this country dedicate the thousands of acres of farmland to growing one crop, this is called mono-culutre. Here lies the problem, because the USA's favorite crops, CORN & SOY, are particularly hard on the soil, stripping it of its nutrients and then bruising it even further with the use of toxic Green Revolution additives, which becomes a crutch, since the land is too unhealthy to work on its own. On the flip side, used by poly-culture Full Belly and most other organic farms, is a farming technique used to maintain the balance and health of the soil, which in turn, helps to fight off the need of using chemical assistants like fertilizer, herbicide, and insect repellents. By growing so many different plants the worry of a deadly bug wiping out the entire harvest is virtually abolished - which tends to be the main concern when a farm is growing 200,000 acres of corn or soy beans.

In today's commercial climate and the public's new embrace for organics and health, I wonder if Full Belly would be able to find a market for the long lost strains of not-so-sweet corn? Most definitely.

This is the Full Belly Farms farmer that guided us through his farm. Here he explains how a sweet pea can appeal to different customers at different life stages. After his schpeal we were able to grab a few peas from the land and taste the difference. Epic.

The show about 'nothing.'

The show about the fat-bald one, the chick, the racist, and the rich comedian is reuniting! .... and I'm NOT referring to the Saved by the Bell get together. The cast of Seinfeld will be regrouping for the upcoming season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, starting in September.

Considering that Larry David helped to develop the Seinfeld plot, along with Jerry, it seems fitting that the reunion will be happening on David's other show. I'm sure this if the first time a reunion for one show has ever happened on another show, but in this situation it works.

The story line goes as follows: the actors will play themselves, and the plot recaps what they've been doing/where they've been for the past decade. It remains to be seen whether Michael Richards will have to address his episode of racist turrets, but the CYE episodes will revolve around getting the cast together to film a Seinfeld reunion special. Sounds soooooo Seinfeldy it makes me giddy/sick.

I remember when the series ended, I was living in Alaska and was in the seventh grade. The finale ended up landing right smack dab in the middle of a week when my English teacher decided to conduct an experiment: NO television. Well I failed that s**t, because I watched the Seinfeld finale... and it sucked. I hope the reunion will make up for lost time.