Tough times? Try WWOOFing!

In two weeks here at the farm, I've spent less than $20--$13 in luxury groceries (chocolate, raisins, extra rice crackers, fruit, etc...) and $4 for "dinner" at AMPM (yes, they have AMPM here! and 7-11, which sortof rhymes in Japanese, too: hachi-ju ichi (almost as cool as jet sip-et in Thai! though they just called it seven eleven, which disapointed me)). It was about $10 for the train to get here and maybe $2-3 to call from the lame public phones to coordinate a ride from the train station.

If the global shit hits the fan, so to speak, I think working here on this organic farm is a pretty sweet place to be! We eat so well...fresh organic veggies, eggs picked the day before, bread from an organic bakery across town we trade veggies with, rice from the farm owner's friend...lunch today was home-made udon noodles and tempura. It was amazing.

Japanese traditional Udon noodles:
1) mix the desired amount of flour with 40% more water (ie 500 grams flour and 200 grams water) and a pinch of salt.
2) kneed until dough is supple and fairly dry.
3) let dough ball rest for about 30 minutes in one bowl covered by another, then both covered by a damp cloth.
4) roll out the dough gently on a floured surface, like a pie crust
5) dust with starch powder (we used potato starch) and fold like a z-rest ground pad to the length of your knife
6) let rest again under a newspaper (or maybe a dry cloth?) for maybe 30 minutes? (it was unclear if this step was necessary, or just for convenience while we rolled out the other dough ball for the second batch)
7) slice to desired thickness (traditional Udon is about 1/4" maybe?)
8) unfold noodles and dust with more starch, set aside.
9) boil a big pot of water.
10) shake excess starch off the noodles and drop them into the pot.
11) stir with extra-long cooking chopsticks and boil about 6-10 minutes.
12) take them out of the water and serve hot or cold, in soup or plain.
13) enjoy! (we dipped ours in a bowl of diluted soy sauce (at least I think that's what it was))

Yum.