It's 3 am. You and the rest of the anime club are sprawled on your basement
rec room floor, too glazed from a six-hour Kodomo no Omocha marathon to
register that the concrete has frozen everyone's butt. The chips gave
out long ago. The cookies went an hour later. The one packet of Pocky
that someone managed to scrounge died before the first eyecatch. The pizza
and Chinese places stopped delivering at 1 am. Your blood sugar is dangerously
low. Food must be had.
What to do?
Option one is to kill and eat Ken "Crusty Fanboy" Warren. He never brings chips, he bogarts the soda, and you suspect that he hasn't paid dues yet this year. Besides, you never liked him anyway.
Option two is to go to Denny's. Okay, so the only club member with wheels is Jill, who calls her '71 Jeep "Deathbucket." But Denny's is only six miles out of town, and they probably fixed that big pothole in the road sometime this weekend. And Jill swears she got gas last week.
Option three is to... cook.
Japanese food is much simpler than you think. The Japanese don't live on sushi and fugu alone. Japanese cuisine is full of recipes for easy dishes that don't require deep-frying or playing with fire; many of them can be whipped up with a hot plate and a rice steamer, or with nothing but a pot of boiling water. The dishes do require a few basic ingredients which aren't found in your grandma's kitchen, and a little skill in cooking helps, but that's nothing that a trip to Stop & Shop (or an email to an online store) and two hours of playing with knives can't fix. I'll tell you how to cook authentic Japanese main dishes, side dishes, rice in all its flavors, and, of course, miso soup. And since true appreciation of Japanese culture requires a thorough education in junk food, I'll review Japanese snacks and sweets.
A note to underaged otaku: If you live with your parents and cooking isn't part of your regular chores, get permission first! And don't assume that this site will tell you everything you need to know. I try, but I'm going to miss things. Until you have a little experience with cooking, get the family cook to help you to make these recipes.