お茶漬け (Ochazuke)

Have you ever thought about something random and then noticed it everywhere you look? It's much like buying a new car. Suddenly, you see that make & model everywhere you go. About a week ago, I thought I should make ochazuke, but I never got around to it. In the past few days, though, I've seen at least half a dozen Twitter and blog entries about it, so guess what I ate for lunch today?!

Sorry, I didn't take a picture, but I was really hungry at the time and my camera was upstairs. Mine looked much like the bowl pictured above (photo unabashedly swiped from the OC Register's Food Frenzy). It's difficult to find Japanese ingredients other than shoyu in this little middle Georgia town, so I had to improvise. I had leftover rice in the refrigerator and "sencha-style" green tea in the cupboard, so that covered the basics. Added some furikake that I picked up in Hokkaido, some strips of nori, some chopped Italian parsley, and a dab of wasabi. I really wanted some arare, but that's just not an available item around here, so I crumbled the edges from a plain rice cake for a little crunch (not recommended for "crunch" as they get soggy pretty fast). Tossed in some bits of a nice salmon steak and chowed down with glee.

It was tasty. If I had some umeboshi, I would have been in heaven.