I was contemplating what foods to bring back from Japan for all y'all to feast on. I'm for sure bringing some mochi, the gooey rice cakes. I am also planning on bringing home a Tako-yaki maker. Tako-yaki are the "japanese fastfood" from Osaka consisting of a fish flavored pancake batter ball filled with some rice crispies, ginger, green onions and a fat chunk of octopus. You can make them with shrimp or weiners, but the official ones are only octopus.

Can you buy octopus in Iowa? If you can that's pretty wicked. Within my parents lifetime, the mighty octopus has made his return to Iowa after a several million year hiatus. The last ones there before dead frozen ones came in on trucks were swimming around in the shallow sea with things like brachiopods and gigantic ammonites. Trippy.