Cooking with Audi

You may already know that I am not a cook. I hate to cook and will eat cereal for supper rather than cook when Ted is gone.  Ted is a very good cook who isn’t fond of cleaning up, so we work well together.

The International Exchange Society hosted a cooking class at a local community center this weekend.  I attended and participated, and I didn’t have to eat cereal.  The cooking teacher was Audi San, with the help of his lovely wife Yasuko San.

 

As with other International Exchange Society events, there was an international group of all ages.

 

There were five cooking stations set out with ingredients and recipes in English and Japanese.  The featured menu was Eggplant Curry, Cucumber Yogurt Salad, and Apple Cake.

 

In my group were three sisters and their mother, Kyoko San.

Notice the proper onion chopping technique – fingers curled under to prevent any cutting mishaps.

 

The chopped onions were cooked with a little oil, then the cubed eggplant added, followed by ground meat and curry. Spaghetti sauce was added slowly, then the mixture simmered.

 

I peeled and chopped the apples and cut up the cucumber, trying to use the proper technique.  I didn’t cut any fingers off, so I think I did okay.

 

There was time to chat while the food was cooking and I wandered around taking pictures when I wasn’t chopping.

 

The yogurt cucumber salad was delicious – yogurt, cucumbers, garlic, and chopped fresh mint.

 

This big kitchen had real ovens, but I think this flat cake might fit in my little fish oven.

 

These two little cooks look like they’ve had some experience in the kitchen.

 

There was a huge community sized rice cooker in the back of the kitchen where everyone could serve themselves.

 

When the food was ready, we all sat down together and the meal was great. (I didn’t try the curry with meat, but everyone said it was very good).

 

At the end of every meal is the cleanup, which went remarkably fast after this meal with so many people helping.

 

Ted’s sorry he missed the cooking class, he was on a field trip this weekend.  I’m hoping he will try out the recipes I brought home.

Great job, Audi!

Hula Progress Report

I’ve been going to hula for four weeks now and let me repeat, it’s harder than it looks. The ladies have been dancing together for a long time and are very good.  They are all helpful and nice, but I can’t help thinking they will soon be tired of this beginner.  The teacher frequently motions for me to get lower when I feel like my knees are as bent as they can be.  Maybe she can’t tell how tall I am in my hula skirt?

There are some basic steps, and a lot of variations on those steps. All of the arm motions have meaning – and there are about a million different motions. Besides the legs and the arms and moving the hips and not moving the shoulders and staying low, you are supposed to be looking a certain way.  I think that’s a long way off for me.  I have to be either looking at the teacher in the mirror or at the feet of the person in front of me.

I can’t figure out if the names of things are Japanese words or maybe Hawaiian words, with Japanese pronunciation?  When I hear “hula” it sounds like “fura”.  One arm motion looks like rain falling and it is called ame – rain in Japanese. Other motions sound like all vowels, so I don’t know what the words are.  The skirts we wear in class are big and poofy, with several rows of elastic in the waist.  I thought they were called “puff” skirts, but when I was looking up hula steps on the internet, I saw the skirt word  is “pa’u”.  Their skirts all stay at hip level.  Mine starts there, but the elastic makes it migrate up to my waist. With six or eight inches of elastic rows, it comes to rest much higher than it should.  I can’t be yanking it down all the time because my hands are making rain or waves or some other motions.  You can just imagine how unlike a hula dancer I look.

The polite way to address someone is by name followed by “san”.  These ladies are all good friends and call each other by a short form of the first name followed by “chan”, like they are little girls. They shyly practice their English with me and say “sugoi” (amazing) when I say any little thing in Japanese. One woman told me I will be good at hula because I am maru! (Maru means round). I am having a good time with this and hope that their patience with me will continue.

The first snow may have been late this year, but it’s been snowing like crazy to catch up.

The car on the far right is ours

The Clothes Dryer

I’ve written before about there not being clothes drying machines here and how we hang our clothes to dry.  It’s been nice to hang things out on our balcony all summer. Clothes dried fast with the dry breezy warm weather.  I held out as long as I could, but this week I’ve had to admit, the outside clothes drying season is over.  It’s been cool and rainy and now snowy. Even clothes left out two days won’t dry. It’s inconvenient to dry things inside because the apartment is so small, but this clothes dryer we purchased at the Big American Store (Cosco) keeps it all somewhat contained. The drying rack folds flat when not in use. 

 

Seeing clothes hung to dry inside is more evidence that winter will soon be here.

Kinro Kansha no Hi

November 23^rd is the National Holiday Kinro Kansha no Hi or Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan.  The purpose of the holiday is to commemorate labor and production and to give one another thanks. Grade school students make drawings and give them as gifts to the local police stations.  The modern holiday was established after World War II in 1948 as a day to mark some of the changes of the postwar constitution of Japan, including fundamental human rights and the expansion of workers’ rights.

 Even though it is a national holiday, Ted is off on a field trip with students today. I’m planning to spend some time stitching today – is that a surprise?  I know, I spend time every day stitching.  I am very grateful to have the opportunity to spend so much time doing what I love.  Here’s what I’ve gotten done on the quilted cat. It's coming along.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

The American Thanksgiving holiday is not celebrated in Japan. This week, Tuesday was Friday at the University.  I did a class on American culture and Thanksgiving. Previously we had talked about food that commonly go together in America: Peanut butter and Jelly, Bacon and Eggs, Turkey and Stuffing, etc.  No one had ever eaten stuffing and thought it strange when I described it, so  I made some in the crock pot before class for them to taste.

They all liked it.

In class, I explained about people traveling to be with family and the holiday events – watching the Macy’s parade and football on television, and the big meal.  I gave them a typical menu for the big dinner from my family and a few recipes, including the stuffing I made.

We had a mini history lesson about the first Thanksgiving and I gave them a Thanksgiving crossword puzzle that wasn’t too difficult.

The vocabulary lesson was a bingo activity.  We had already gone over the words, all having to do with Thanksgiving.  The first time I called out the words, as written on the cards.  After that I gave a description of the word (such as the month of Thanksving – November; the popular bird meat served – Turkey).  I brought buttons to use as markers and gave sticker strips as prizes. The bingo cards came from a website where you can design your own cards. I had some extra cards so they could change for a card that might be luckier if they wanted. I think they liked the vocabulary lesson.

More snow has fallen.  These pictures were taken out the back window.

This is a cross stitch turkey I made in 1989.  It has glass, so getting a picture was a little tricky.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

More Beads on Paper

I finished the beads on the JOY ornament and just have to cut it out.  I’ve also worked a bit more on the quilted cat Mill Hill project. I’d like to finish this and cross it off the unfinished project list, but I don’t know if it will hold my attention long enough to finish it before I work on something else.