The homeschool art class got together this evening to show off their projects they had worked on during the last several months and to sample foods from different cultures and/or eras. There were foods from Germany, the 1920’s USA, the Civil War, Spain, etc. Amy selected Japanese for our family.
I started some of the work yesterday, preparing sweet red bean paste (粒アン) and a salad in sweet vinegar (酢の物). For the salad I went out to the beach and foraged some sea lettuce. Although it comes from a different family of algae, it seemed close enough in texture to wakame (わかめ), a type of kelp.
This morning I started preparing sweet black beans (黒豆) at 5 a.m. I went out to fish at 6 a.m. and caught the two Dollies as reported earlier. After spending some time with the ministers in town, I returned home and resumed work on dinner.
I continued with making daifuku (大福) – mochi (though I used sweet rice flour) wrapped around the sweet red bean paste. I marinated some tofu for frying later in the afternoon. I cooked some carrots, eggs, and shiitake mushrooms to use in sushi. I cooked the rice (or rather, I washed the rice and the rice cooker cooked the rice). I prepared a spicy miso sauce to go over the tofu, and also chopped some green onions to go on top of that. I fried the tofu and set it aside for the assembly to be completed right before dinner.
While starting to take a brief breather, Shelley called and said she needed her costume for a play right now. So I tried to start the car, and it wouldn’t. I called Elise, she came over, picked up Amy and the costume, and left. Elise brought home some daikon and romaine lettuce. I shredded the daikon for use as a bed for a grilled fish, then shredded some carrots to use as accents. I went out and picked some dandelion blossoms, also to be used as decoration.
I got the sushi seasonings mixed into the rice and Elise went to work stuffing inari sushi. I put together futo-maki sushi after she finished her part.
I got the outdoor grill fired up and the fish salted and oiled. Then it went onto the grill and cooked nicely. When done it was placed on a platter with a bed of romaine lettuce and the shredded daikon on top of that. The carrots and dandelion blossoms would be arranged at location.
While this was going on, Amy was getting her kimono on and Shelley trying to get the obi tied properly. In the end, it probably didn’t get done quite right (Shelley wasn’t happy with it) but I don’t think anyone noticed that it wasn’t right.
We went to the Bible Church and set everything up, putting in the finishing touches. There was quite a crowd present. The children (and a few adults) were dressed up in cultural and period clothing. The food and company was good and a pleasant evening was had by all.
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