Chigiri-e & Maki rolls

This week Barbara joined her second chigiri-e class. The picture she made shows a warrior’s helmet, but something got lost in translation (again), so this warrior’s helmet is pink… Anyone thinks it looks frightening? The helmet is one of the symbols of the Boys Day, the 5th of May.
The class also opened the door to the Japanese kitchen. Together with the chigiri-e group, Barbara prepared lunch. It is invaluable to get some local insider information about how to use ingredients like tororo (a kind of sticky yam), kampyo (a kind of gourd) and konnyaku (a kind of potato), - and Barbara can finally say that she knows how to make maki rolls. Now that also the cookbooks arrived with our ship freight last week, there is hope we will stop dining out, stop bringing precooked food home from the supermarkets, and start to face the challenges of the Japanese kitchen.

The best thing about the Chigiri-e class is that the handicraft aspect is added many other things. This day it was the cooking class. Next month we will drink the Japanese tea as made in tea ceremonies where you whisk the tea powder in the hot water, and in May it is the plan to go hiking in the mountains, to see if we can find some wild bamboo shoots for eating. The people are all very nice, friendly, open and happy to put up with Barbara’s curious questions and to share their culture with her. Also, they all carry a hearty laugh with them. The greatest laugh, Barbara discovered, are brought in front, when she acts like a parrot and repeats something one says in Japanese. They laugh and laugh and laugh. Probably not meant as a compliment. A little payback it is to make them say ‘rødgrød med fløde’ and ‘Henrik’ :-D. It always works.
At the end of the day, the whole group decided to make a bento (Japanese lunchbox) for Henrik, for him to try the yield of the day’s hard work.