Tradition is for our family to get together and make maki sushi.  After grandmother passed away back in the 90’s, my 2 Aunts and I took up rolling the sushi for the family.  Aunty Janet preps the ingredients for the inside of the sushi.  She cooks the carrots, kampyo,shiitake and rice, so when we get there we can start flavoring the rice and mixing it in a wooden box.  Other ingredients used are ground dried shrimp in red and green, Japanese style fried egg, and can unagi.  I’m told, we don’t use anything raw because then the sushi will spoil faster and won’t last as long.  We made about 16 rolls and ate 2 after we finished because by then we get really hungary.  We also get to eat what’s left, the extras, like carrots, kampyo, and luckily my aunt also makes the kuromame with lots of kuri and kazunoko which we can have tastes of.  She made the Nishime after we left to go home  to get ready for the party at night at my cousin’s house in Kaneohe.

My contribution was to make the Jello Mold.  The family only want me, to make the Jello because I use Hagen Daz Ice Cream in it and I mix it with fruit, sometimes Mandarin oranges, or Lychee, Frozen stawberries or blueberries, rasberries, this time I used can cranberries because my mom was baking a turkey.  The turkey had 2 kinds of stuffing, potato stuffing in the belly and bread stuffing with kuri in the chest front.  My cousin Sharon baked fresh bread in her bread maker, my cousin Katsumi made toss salad similar to somen salad, my son-in-law Matt made Pot Roast, Aunty Sue  made her famous Baked beans with bacon (secret recipe), we also had seki gohan. For dessert we had 2 pies, custard and pumpkin, Aunty Lily made her apple crisp and Cousin Sharon made her cherry cheese squares with crumbs on it. And of course we had the Morimono (which was hastily thrown together by 4 of us trying to finish quickly, slicing, arranging and  washing the grapes, since the turkey was a hour late coming out of the oven and there were all these hungry peaple watching and waiting on us).  We managed to put the hard boiled eggs, sliced balogne and kamabuko, orange, grapes, and Aunty Sue’s delicious home-made cinnomon and lime kanten, kuri yokan all on a large platter. Then we all joined hands said grace quickly,  so all the starving people could eat, especially the children who were already nibbling on the grapes.

We all agree, we could go to any restaurant, but it would not please our palat.  Something would be missing, for we look forward  to this—-all year long!  Including the Maki Sushi!