Power ups

Now, I am and Aussie girl, married with kids to a Japanese man.
It always amazes me, when I cook dinner, that I will go to the knife block, ready to chop something into little pieces for the fried rice, om-rice, or Okonomiaki, only to find all the bloody knives blunt.  Drives me nuts.

This is because my Mr. is a QUALIFIED SUSHI CHEF, and his livelihood and quality of his work depend on how sharp his knives are.

Not so at home. 

Last week, I was just getting ready to make dinner.  The Boys (two that are mine, and several who frequent my house) were in the living room, squabbling like angry monkeys over who's turn it was on "Densha De GO!"  (It's a game where YOU get to be the train driver. Sounds as exciting as watcing paint dry, I know, but my house is completely full to the goog with train fanatics, including all the little kids that come over every day, and The Daddy.  We have EVERY version, as well as a conductors hat to wear and authentic Japanese train controls)

So, I am in the kitchen, planning to skillfully hide several types of vegetables in the rissoles, by chopping them finely, and whacking them into the minced meat.  All the boys hate veges in our house, so I have to find more cunning ways to slip vegetables into the food every day.  I can even make vegetable ice cream, and have made orange, carrot and tomato jellies that were eaten before they even set properly.  I am the Vegetable Cloaking Master of this tiny little island.  No one rivals my skill at making other people eat their greens without them being aware.
I fight this battle every day, as I have a husband who thinks Vitamins are for women and salad should only really consist of lettuce, some ham, and enough Kewpie Mayonnaise to sink a Japanese whaling ship.  He actually told me once, when I added tomato and cucumber to his salad, that I had "wrecked the taste" 

Just a side note to all the single ladies, don't marry a chef.  They are fussy beyond belief, and mine won't let me near the AUTOMATIC rice cooker, because he says "You just won't get the rice right",  Seriously.

Anyway, so I am in the kitchen, and I select a knife, and go to town on some red capsicum.  But it won't cut.  No matter how I hack at it, it just kind of smushes and bruises, because the bloody knives are all blunt AGAIN.  Gah!!
Really, what does my husband do with them when I am at work?  Chop wood?  Practice his Samurai moves on the walls?  Go next door and prune trees with them?  I just dunno, because I have to sharpen them all the time.

So I have to bend down so low to even see in our cupboards, that I actually have to put my head between my knees,( Japan is a hard core earthquake zone, and cupboards that are more than a few centimeters off the ground are very rare in old houses.  Most furniture is only about waist height, and that is the waist of a Japanese persons , so if you are over about 150 cm tall, then you will spend your life stooping and kneeling and bending down here.  Don't get me started about the tiny chairs and tables....)

I finally retrieve the knife sharpener, after rummaging around in the dark cupboard, and I decide, well, if I have to sharpen one, I may as well sharpen them all (fat lot of good it will do if The Daddy goes out wood chopping with them, but one may survive, un-blunted, eh?)
So with much muttering and swearing under my breath, I start using the wet stone to sharpen our blades.  Screeeeeeeeeaaaach, schreeeeeeaaaaach, schcrrreeeeaaaacccccccccccccccccccch, Mutter, mutter mutter.

I turn around, scowling from my bad mood, to the sound of complete silence, and the sight of seven little faces, staring at me open mouthed.

A little voice from the back row asks Number One Son, in Japanese  "What's that terrible sound!?  What is she saying?  Is it a spell!?" and Number One Son  says very casually  "Oh she always makes that face and says bad things when she has to power up the knives"