ONE POT, TWO Pot, THREE pot, HOT POT

This pic is of a traditional Japanese hot pot, a.k.a. *nabe* in Japanese. Yesterday night we had a nabe party at my place. From a small 3-member gathering, it turned into a 6-member event. My boyfriend said he'd cook for me one day - then he said he'd make nabe. I said, *NO FAIR - 'hot pot' is not cooking - it's just cutting!* It's true. The hardest, most tedious part is cutting everything up. Then you throw it into the claypot, add some water and wait until it boils over and everything is cooked through. VOILA - time to eat.

As for flavor, we like to pour in ponzu, a YUZU (Japanese citron) based soy sauce vinegar. My ponzu sauce cost 800yen (8USD) a bottle - pricey but trust me, it's worth it! A few weeks ago we made hotpot with a soymilk base. Yesterday we used a simple milk base. Sometimes we use kimchi and chili sauce as a flavour base.

Why don't you try nabe someday? It is a GREAT way to warm up/steam up your room without a humidifier and tastes great! And for you single men out there, it's a great source of vegetables. In Japan we say one should eat 30 different kinds of food/drink each day...that doesn't mean 1) honey lager 2) regular lager 3) bitters 4) light beer...nor does it mean 1) snickers bar 2) Mars bar 3) M&M's...