return of the tofu

We may specify that commercially-packed, shelf-stable tofu is an abomination. It tastes terrible and I won't eat it.

If I want tofu, it has to be hand-packaged freshly-made tofu from a local tofu maker, with a shelf life of only a few days. Buy it and make it for dinner no later than the next day, and that's pushing it. Chop up some vegetables and stir-fry them, add the sliced tofu and a packet of mild mapo sauce I bought at the same time, heat them up, and that's dinner. Delicious, and vegetarian too. (Mapo tofu is supposed to have meat, but I just don't put any in. Making it non-vegetarian seems to me to cancel the point of having tofu in the first place.)

I went through three local Japanese markets - the first two closed - buying tofu by the same little old tofu maker from San Jose's Japantown before the maker decided to retire. Fortunately the third market eventually found another local tofu maker which is also good, so I started buying that. But when the pandemic came, the fresh tofu disappeared from the shelves. After a couple times of this, I stopped looking.

Finally last week I returned to the market and found that the tofu had also returned to the shelves. Thus the tofu has also returned to our cuisine rotation, and we are content.