In which I learn several important lessons

What a day!
I went downtown at around 11, and went to a few stores--didn't get anything, though. I then met my husband at 2:30--we did some things at his work, and then we went grocery shopping. We went to four different stores, and it started snowing again as we were running around. The end result was we were stuck in traffic for three hours and my dog was home alone without a potty break for almost nine hours. I felt horrible.
I'm quite tired right now, but I wanted to share last night's meal, as well as tonight.
Last night I attempted "Nanban chicken," which literally means "Southern Barbarian Chicken." "Southern Barbarian" is a no-longer-very-politically correct way to refer to Westerners, specifically the Dutch. This recipe, therefore, was an adaptation of Dutch cooking to suit Japanese tastes.
You'd think, being a Barbarian myself, I would be particularly good at making this dish. Not so. It was not quite so good as I expected--I knew it would be spicy, but I didn't realize it was so horribly spicy. Also, I had to improvise a bit, because I didn't read the recipe through to the end, so I missed the part that said "Marinate for 24 hours before cooking" until 15 minutes before I threw everything in the pan. A certain amount of compromise was involved in my Barbarian chicken, therefore, and I carry away from it lessons about reading more carefully and perhaps reducing the amount of spice if I suspect the recipe veers into the sadistic.
It looks nice, though, doesn't it?
The nanban chicken, the leftover kenchin-jiru and hakusai-ume pickles, the last of the leftover kuri-kinton, some hijiki salad, our rice, and some pickled gobo. Oh, and some tororo. Mmm, tororo never gets old.
The pickled gobo. We bought them, I didn't make them.
And the nanban chicken. It looks benign, doesn't it? Pretty, even. And yet, it nearly choked me.
Tonight, after our adventures in Chicago traffic, we had sushi and sashimi. We were home so late, I simply heated up the last of the leftover kenchin-jiru and put the hijiki on the table in its tupperware container.
The sushi. It was delicious.
And our sashimi! We were late getting to the store, but we still got a nice piece of yellowtail, some salmon, and some chutoro. It was heavenly, just what we needed after such a rough afternoon.