I’m blessed that food is an integral part of the Japanese’s lives. This means that they put in some effort into ensuring their meals are varied and nutritious and yummy. I took my parents-in-law to an eatery called Pepper Lunch in Singapore, where they enjoyed garlic rice with corn and beef. To my utter surprise and delight, they tried to cook this dish for themselves (and for me)! They cooked steak the other night. I previously wrote about how my wife is perpetually annoyed that she can’t find thick slices of bread in Singapore. This is what she and my mother-in-law habitually eat for breakfast. But I’m not a bread person in the morning, so my mother-in-law makes the extra effort to cook noodles or vermicelli for me. My father-in-law cooks too. He made this fried rice with egg and takana (Japanese mustard greens) for me for lunch yesterday. Yup, life could have been worse.