Temaki-Zushi (Make-Your-Own-Hand-Rolls), Strawberry Cold Soup and Yukata Lesson
Details
Dear members,
Great news is that Mrs. Hattori is generously opening her beautiful house again to us. I've asked many chefs/instructors to teach cooking lesson, but it's a vacation time and I couldn't secure anyone.
Then I came up with the idea of having another temaki zushi party. Temaki-zushi is an easy way to entertain your guests. "Te" means hand(s), "maki" is to roll, and "zushi" is the rendaku (sequential voicing ) form of "sushi."
https://en.wikipedia.o... (https://en.wikipedia.o..).
All you have to do is to make sushi rice (will be prepared by Mrs. Hattori and me) and cut and arrange ingredients for sushi rolls (sashimi grade fish, vegetables, etc) and small sheets of nori (seaweed) on the table. Everybody takes a sheet on the palm of the hand and put small amount of rice, and top with ingredients they like. Roll up in a hand-roll fashion and eat.
https://www.sapporobee... (https://www.sapporobee..).
https://www.temakizush... (https://www.temakizush..).
https://ichii445.blog4... (https://ichii445.blog4..).
Traditionally, here's the list of ingredients:
Sashimi like tuna, salmon, amaebi, ika, ikura and tamagomaki, unagi, cucumber, avocado, kaiware, shiso, neriume, yamagobouno tsukemono.... sounds too foreign?! lol
Also, our member, Sarah, a former chef, is going to bring her homemade cold strawberry soup. Thank you, Sarah! (And yes, we'd like to learn how to make various cold soups -vegetable soup like gazpacho and cold fruit soups in the near future too.)
If you have Yukata, please bring it. If not, just bring yourself and let's have fun eating sushi and learning how to put on yukata (Japanese summer kimono).
I'll send the address of the venue to the attendees only.
When you sign up, please let me know if you like to come a little early to help prepare.. cutting ingredients like fish or vegetables, seaweed, etc.
And since this group has many members from the world, we can be adventurous to include rather different neta (ingredients) like kimchi, taco meat, cheese, etc, if you like. Let me know!
Thank you and see you there soon,
Sally
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I am really impressed with the owner of the restaurant who let us use his kitchen for the pasta making meetup yesterday.
He was car-jacked a day before, and his car's almost wrecked and he's injured.
But he didn't tell me anything about it until I went to the kitchen yesterday. Upon hearing the terrible news, I said to him that I could have canceled it had I known the incident, but he told me that he didn't want to disappoint the attendees who had already paid and were really looking forward to learning how to make pasta in the kitchen from Roberta.
Without telling me beforehand, he arranged and managed to come to the restaurant: he borrowed a car from his friend, came just to open it for my group, made sure we knew where the things were including gas, electricity, etc, and then left to go see the doctor.....
He didn't need to do it, but did out of concern to my group and members.
Being an organizer is a very interesting thing. Many times you encounter people who are flaky. Canceling or changing plans happen all the time and you have to deal with the consequence usually paying out of your pocket to cover. I have a tendency to be flaky myself, too, which has put me into a lot of trouble and I am not proud of it at all.
But occasionally, you encounter people like him who has an extraordinary sense of responsibility. I was proud of him as a fellow Japanese. He's like a real samurai. And it even became more apparent today. Since he was in such a hurry yesterday I didn't have time to hand him money for the rental fee we agreed upon to use the kitchen, which is very reasonable.
When I told him I'd cancel today's meetup he was thanking for that last night. But when I asked him how I could pay him - sending a check or bring cash to the restaurant, he replied: "That's OK. You don't have to pay."
I couldn't believe his generosity, and I asked him if it's really OK... But without asking I could tell he felt bad about causing the cancellation of today's meetup. He must have guessed how much I usually hate to cancel a meetup. He didn't tell me the incident in the first place out of concern to my members and now he waives the fee out of concern for my position.... He puts other people's need before his...What a real, true man he is and it really touched me. This is another reason I enjoy being an organizer, given many opportunities to meet people who are very nice, thoughtful and supportive.
I thought of paying anyway for a second, but changed mind and decided to accept this to do something else. I have scheduled the yukata event already and had been looking for chefs so that the meeup will be also a cooking lesson.... and to be honest, $17 per person wa not really enough. I was prepared to pay out of my pocket anyway, but the money I didn't need to him, I will use it to buy ingredients for this event.
Thank you so much, Kawabata-san, I am so glad you were not killed in the incident. I'll make a good use of the money you didn't receive and I pray for your quick recovery.
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Dear members,
How are you doing? I've been residing in Sacramento, CA, on a temporary job assignment since last year, and that's why I haven't been able to set up meetups. But the assignment is going to end soon, and I'll come back to LA shortly. yeah!
Summer's just around the corner and if you like Japan, you know there's this special summer kimono called Yukata. To put on yukata requires some technique ("kitsuke" is the word for that) if you want to be truly authentic, and I have an instructor for that!
Mrs. Noriko Hattori, a traditional Japanese music player/instructor in Torrance is going to show us how to put on Yukata and obi (belt). If you have your own yukata, please bring it. If not, we can take turns to put on. I bet it's going to be fun! She's been very helpful and supportive for my groups and here's one example:
And this is her new blog:
Temaki-Zushi (Make-Your-Own-Hand-Rolls), Strawberry Cold Soup and Yukata Lesson