Have you ever tried to debone a fish with chopsticks?

Just a quick post about the school lunches. Apparently the menu is planned very carefully here, so that the kids have a healthy, balanced lunch that is high in calories. Every day the lunch has some sort of carb (either bread or rice), a bowl of soup, a salad, a protein, and a bottle of milk. Sounds good, right? Some things I should elaborate on: the salad is sometimes rather slimy. There have been several days where the vegetables have not been recognizable. Next, the milk is whole milk and has more saturated fat then you should have in one day. As it turns out, the milk in Japan does not bother my stomach, but I still give my milk away because I just cannot fit it into my stomach after everything else. The soup is usually good, but I should mention that it, too, often has unrecognizable meats or vegetables in it. Carbs are carbs. I actually really like rice, even plain rice, so its always fine. Sometimes we get naan or just two slices of bread, and one time we got a huge cheese roll! Fantastic!

And finally, earning its own paragraph in the blog post, is the protein. Where to even begin?!? When they say protein, they just mean some sort of random meat incorporated somehow into the meal. One time we had spaghetti with hot dog slices in it, and that counted as protein. (Oddly enough, this was the same day as the huge cheese roll, so it was actually carb-y day) Another day we had like curry ground beef and that was pretty good (that was the day we got the naan) (PS I am eating all sorts of meats here that I would not have been eating in the US. It is easier to eat them than to explain that I don't like them...) ONE day we got pregnant tempura fish! (read the fire drills in Japan post for more details of this escapade) Earlier this week I picked up my lunch tray to find a whole piece of fish, skin still on, and everything. So, it actually tasted pretty good but it had bones in it still! And, hence the title of this post, have you ever tried to debone a fish with chopsticks?! We are talking small bones, here. It is REALLY difficult to get them out of the fish. I ended up eating quite a few fish bones that day, and that was not fun. I did not have anything to drink except soup broth, so I ended up going to the teachers' room after and chugging my bottle of water to try to get the bones out of my throat. AND the piece de resistance! A delicious WHOLE GRILLED SQUID. That was yesterday's lunch. In all honesty, I was warned that it would happen, but I was still not prepared for the sight of a whole squid on my tray, just hanging out, still resembling its former state. UGH. I ended up giving it away to one of my students, and that was a funny conversation. (In Japanglish)

Me: Does anyone want my squid? Anyone? I will not eat it...
Student: I will eat it
Me: THANK YOU!
Students sitting near me: "ahahahahahahahaha, Elissa can't eat the squid! Elissa can't eat the squid!"


Whatever, they can laugh.