December – Part 1
Friendly Fungi!
Ok, so it’s fall (winter to some) and the mushrooms are in season…not just plain mushrooms with the white caps or shitake, but all different kinds--some I have seen before some I have not. Some of them look like the parts of the others I am supposed to cut off and throw away and others are ready to be eaten right away. The good thing is that there are so many and they really don’t last long, they go on discount pretty quickly. Man, I have always loved mushrooms, but this is making it a passion…the last three nights I have had mushrooms in large quantities as a part of my dinners. I just can’t help myself. Usually I boil some broth (water and bouillon cubes) drop in some soba or udon noodles, pull those out and toss in the mushrooms. Once the mushrooms are kinda blanched I pull those out and toss in some cabbage to blanch. Finally, I have it all tossed together with a bit of a couple of sauces I like. Then I save the broth for the next night. What a meal!
Kindergarten & Mochi-tsuki! (also known as the hammering of rice into paste)
Saturday I was invited to join a colleague to go with his family to visit their youngest son’s kindergarten. The kindergarten was making mochi-tsuki and then making the rice paste into mochi which are rice paste balls. It looked like it might rain all morning, but luckily the rain held off. When we got there, we went inside of this great kindergarten compound and went to the child’s class to put his things in his little cubicle, just like on a school day. We looked at the room and walked around the compound a bit. They started to call everyone to line up with their class, parents & kids alike. All of the kids were so very cute. This kindergarten is quite large with about 230 students and ages 3-6. Each of the classes has a different color hat and the teachers also wear the same color hat as their classes. (The hats are mostly worn while playing outside and protect from the sun on the face and neck.)
Once we got all lined up, they did a demonstration of mochi-tsuki. Once that was done, we all waited patiently until it was our turn to go in and make mochi or rice paste balls. We went in and the kids lined up on one side of the table with the adults, siblings, and me on the other. (This is maybe the only time I have felt noticeably the “other” compared to when I was in Tanzania and it was the “norm.”) After we made the little balls, we put them in a baggie and went back to the classroom. In the classroom, the teacher talked about how mochi-tsuki is a tradition and this was part of many fall festivals (like Sake Matsuri, if you recall). As we were getting things together after story time, the teacher approached the mom of the family I was with and told her that I could try my hand at the mochi-tsuki too, if I wanted. I asked if it would really be ok and she said it would be. So they took me over to the tents where the action was and introduced me to the director of the school who was kind of a ringmaster of the event. He was more than happy to oblige and after gathering some info from my hosts and me, he announced who I was, etc. and let me have at it. It was quite fun and not as heavy a hammer as I thought. The thing is, the head of the hammer is not even since you are beating it like a pestle into a large stone bowl, so to speak. That makes it a bit uneven in wielding it. Still I got the hang of it after one or two blows. The trick is that you have to be careful of is not to hit the person’s hands turning the dough in between the two people hammering in tandem. We didn’t hurt anyone, so by my accounts it was a success—and a lot of fun! We took the mochi we made back to my colleague’s house and after seeing two original PowerRangers shows, we had the mochi warmed with some soy and wrapped in nori or dried seaweed. We also had it with soy flour and azuki or sweet red beans. The latter was my favorite—the older son and I also just love simply the soy flour and azuki mixed together as a treat. I was told a couple of times that it’s not how the Japanese would normally eat it, but I figured eating it like that since it was already in my bowl is the best thing to do. Of course, after a nice morning festival and a good lunch, then the rain just pouring, what was there to do other than go do karaoke with the kids and other colleagues from my department!?!?! We had a good time and half of the fun is watching the youngest get excited about singing the theme from his favorite cartoons then part way into the song get so engrossed in the visuals on the TV, he stops singing and just kind of watches TV—then there’s my colleague from Ehime and he sings & dances his way through some Ehime-locale songs like a Backstreet Boy when they were still revered. What a riot, I haven’t laughed so hard in a long, long time! In case you care, it turns out that the most favored of my songs seems to be “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” I have no idea why—NOT! (FYI: I’ve seen the movie “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell more times that you will breathe in and out today!)