Fun from the Coop

And by Coop I mean "Cooperative grocery store" not the chicken variety.

I don't know if Coops in Japan are really cooperative grocery stores or not. They feel about on par with the good quality convenience stores that can be found. They are small, have a little of everything, but basically just the basics in the local brand. There does tend to be a bit healthier meat choices and we can get brown rice in decent quantities there, but there isn't much that would be off the beaten path at a normal grocery.

The one thing that seems semi-conscientious about the coop is that you aren't given grocery bags. You can get them, but you have to ask for them specifically and pay for them. Its nice. I use my chico bag (a bag that folts up into a tiny purse-friendly bundle) to shop there. I have forgotten it on occasion and had to make due stuffing my purse full and carrying the rest in my arms like a dork. I'm too proud (or silly, probably) to pay for a plastic bag.

That said, I have found some interesting things at the coop of late.

1st interesting thing: I wanted to get some personal size ice creams there (we have been craving ice cream in spite of the frigid cold outside) and I suspected that in Japan there would be a good selection of individual serving sizes. I was right! I passed over the toffee, vanilla, chocolate and mattcha ice cream and landed on the sweet potato pie ice cream. Awesome!

Later in the evening, when we were in the mood for dessert, we each took out our single serving and opened it up. It was pretty interesting. There was sweet potato flavored ice cream on the bottom with a sweet potato "pie" mash on the top. Japan doesn't do sweet potato pie - or any pie, really, but they do have a lot of sweet potato desserts. I guess it is similar in taste to sweet potato pie but without all the spices. There were even little chunks of crust in the ice cream and pecan chunks sprinkled on top.

The combination of the slightly gritty pie topping with the creamy ice cream was so-so, but the taste was awesome. I would definitely choose this again. The novelty alone gets a thumbs up.

My next favorite find was in the children's toy vending machine outside the store. One of the machines had cat tail cell phone decorations. The idea is that by putting one of these on your cell phone, it will look like there is a cat in your pocket. The tails are stuffed and a bit short for a real cat (though the local wild variety rarely seems to have a full length tail, truth be told). I was hoping for the fluffy tail, so I gave it a shot. No dice. I got the boring, not so fluffy white tail. I gave it to Russell.

Here is a picture of Russell with a fluffy white cat tail. I don't think he was amused.