料理！

This week I took a cooking class, and it was great! The food was awesome and I learned about different Japanese cutting techniques and common ways to flavor Japanese food. The class was held at the community center and we were taught by two local Japanese women. The students were myself and two other ALT's, as well as a Canadian women (a missionary), and a Japanese lady here that I am acquainted with. 

Our main dish was 肉豆腐, which is a stew with beef, tofu, carrots, konyaku, onions, and green onions in it. Konyaku is a type of noodle made from a special variety of potato, and results in a noodle with next to no calories; so I am always hearing how healthy it is. We were taught how to cut the vegetables the correct way for their position in the dishes. For example, the sweet potatoes are diamond cut, and the vegetables in the stew are cut into very small pieces that can be eaten easily with chopsticks. But the carrots are julienned, while the green onions are cut on a narrow slant. Japanese cooking is so precise that they even have names for the different ways to cut food!

Our side dishes were daigaku imo (fried and glazed sweet potatoes), shiitake mushrooms, miso soup, and rice cooked with chestnuts. The rice was actually brand new rice that was just harvested from one of the teacher's fields! It is the first time I have eaten new rice, and in Japanese there is even a special name for it- ginkome. For dessert we had lemon pie that the Canadian lady had made that morning. It was a great meal and I cannot wait for the next class!

 A branch from a chestnut tree, fresh chestnuts for the rice!

Our huge pot of chestnut rice!

Our delicious meal!

Lemon pie for dessert