ChanomiTalk

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!

（１）お水がわりに ハトムギ茶 をたくさん飲んでいます。

　　　作り方：ハトムギ茶のティーバッグをピッチャーに入れて冷やすだけ。

（２） 寝る前に熱い 甘酒 を作って飲みます。

　　　作り方： お鍋のお湯に酒粕と砂糖を入れて溶かすだけ。

（３）足の甲と足の裏と足の指とかかとを マッサージ します。

　　　やり方：両手を使って強く押したりねじったりハンマーで 叩くだけ。

Growing up, I spent most of my childhood living overseas because my mom worked for the Navy. I was born and raised in Japan and lived there for  the first ten years of my life. But after Japan, my mom got stationed in Washington State. Ironically, even though I had been an American citizen up to that point, I had yet to experience living in America. As I soon found out, America was a completely different place than Japan. Besides getting use to the new environment, the thing I had to get use to the most when I moved to the states was the culture. I was in complete culture shock when I arrived in Washington. For one, in the US, it seemed like everybody was expected to be able to speak your mind or express your opinion. In school, the teachers were always calling on students to say what they know or what they think. In Japan, the students were expected to just sit and listen to what the teachers say and not say anything.  Also, in the US, it seemed like everybody was expected to stand up for themselves.  If you don’t like something or someone is bothering you, then you say something. It wasn’t a big deal to say something or make a scene if you were standing up for yourself. But in Japan, it seemed that you always choose harmony instead of confrontation. It is looked down upon to create waves or say that you don’t like something . It is better to just keep it to yourself and remain quiet. These are just some of the major cultural differences that I noticed when I moved to US. But the thing that I got from all of this is that neither culture was better than the other. They are simply just different. No better, No worse.