Summer Training Is Oishii (Yummy)!

Today we completed our final day of summer training. While there were many great presentations throughout its eight days, the cultural aspects of training were most enjoyable for me. This year we made pottery, learned how to write our addresses in kanji (Chinese characters), made potato stamps, learned about old ways of maintaining the home, and made desserts. (No, N.P. and I didn't plan to be matchy-matchy for our cooking lesson.) If you've been reading my blog for the past year, then you remember that last year's food lesson was making sushi rolls, something most of us had never done. This year we again learned how to make something new -- traditional Japanese sweets made with anko (red bean paste). While anko is unappealing to many foreigners, I actually like it. It's an indescribable flavor, since it's unlike anything I'd eaten prior to moving to Japan. But it's only slightly sweet, since Japanese sweets contain much less sugar than American and European sweets. And it's found in a variety of desserts.

The first sweet that we made was a flower blossom. While the pink of the flower was not supposed to be variegated as mine ended up, I was quite pleased with my first attempt.

Unfortunately, my second sweet was less successful than my flower. Don't you think it looks more like a turtle than a maple leaf?

Until next time...