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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Saturday, November 16, 2002 |
 After a quick nap (unplanned) to the strains of Badly Drawn Boy (planned), I decided that a Saturday evening (especially a Saturday evening when I had no intention of going to kagura practice) was too good to waste, so I phoned Takedomi-kun to see if he was on for cooking the nabe we'd talked about doing last weekend. He was at home, and he was free, so he came over about half past three, and we biked to Konan to get the ingredients for the nabe, and the beer (of course!) to sustain us while nabe-ing. It was a fine day, and it was a very pleasant, companionable sort of feeling to be doing something like this with a friend without going off the island for a change. Normally, if I meet friends here we just go out for a drink; non-drinking-related activities normally involve going over to the mainland.
Anyway, we bought loads and loads of vegetables, tofu, udon (thick buckwheat noodles) and pork, to make a kimchi nabe. We also bought hamachi (apparently, a young yellowtail fish, although quite what one of those is is anyone's guess) to cut into sashimi. When we got back, it was still only five-ish, so we prepared the vegetables (or, at least, Takedomi-kun did- he wouldn't let me near my own sink!), and ate the sashimi, accompanied by a can of Yebisu beer (expensive, but excellent). The sashimi was very good indeed, but the fact that my 'sharp' knife has trouble cutting through melted butter meant that each slice was about twice the normal thickness- a sort of sashimi doorstop...
The nabe, too, was very good, although we'd bought so much stuff to put in it that the kimchi sauce became too diluted to taste in the end. Undaunted, though, Takedomi-kun ploughed on and ate everything; I gave up half-way through. Normally you cook udon in the sauce left over after a nabe, but both of us decided to pass on this! Instead, we spent a very pleasant evening drinking, talking and joking. We opened the bottles of wine I'd been given by the students in the Naval Base (they were extremely good- the wines, rather than the students!), and then we started on the Hakubotan Shibori-tate sake that my next-door neighbour's father had given me. That, too, was very drinkable (almost dangerously drinkable, given its 16% strength), and in the end we drank about three-quarters of the bottle between us. Takedomi-kun had to run up Mount Misen (on Miyajima) twice the following day for training, so he'd said he was going to drink lightly and go home early, but in the end both of these resolutions fell by the wayside; we were drinking until about 11 o'clock. He, like me, doesn't seem able (or willing, perhaps) to say 'no'. In any case, by our normal standards, I suppose that 11 o'clock is actually not that late...
It's good, though, to be able to drink companionably like this- the drink wasn't the be-all and end-all, but simply a pleasant accompaniment to an enjoyable evening. As, indeed, was the ice-cream we both managed despite having eaten about six people's worth of nabe each...
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Saturday? Weekend? Ha! It's getting to the stage where these words no longer have any meaning. Today was yet another no-lie-in-weekend, because of the International Club's Indian Day.
Well, in the end the event was a great success, both in terms of numbers (with 19 children, this was the biggest children's event yet) and in terms of content. It started off not exactly auspiciously, though, when only Wendy, myself and Yagi-san turned up to prepare the ingredients, which meant that we weren't quite ready by nine o'clock. No- weren't anywhere near ready by nine o'clock...
Once we'd begun, though, things went relatively smoothly, although what we were attempting to do in just three hours meant that every minute was important. We started off by making the lassi while boiling milk for the naan, but then we had to kill time while waiting for the milk to cool enough to be able to add the yeast... After this, we had to wait again while the yeast did its stuff, and then, having made the dough, we had to wait again- for an hour- while it rose. While we were waiting, though, we were able to play kabaddi in the large room downstairs, which went well. We only had tears from one little boy, which, to be honest, was a far better result than I was anticipating. The problem is that the children get so enthusiastic that they forget when to let go of the person they've captured...
Back upstairs, we flattened the dough and started to fry the naan. I made the first one, and to my great surprise, it turned out (1) looking like a naan, and (2) tasting like a naan! I'm sure that nobody (other than Wendy, perhaps) quite realises how fine the line between success and failure is at these cooking events; the fact that we get most of the recipes off the internet, and use them without ever testing them properly, is one day soon going to get its revenge on us in a spectacular fashion, I'm sure...
Anyway, we made the mince curry while cooking mountains of naan, and then it was time to sit down and try everything (although the boys in my group hadn't actually been able to wait to taste everything; every time I looked, at least one of them was sneaking something into his mouth...). The curry could have done with being a bit more curry-ish (although, for elementary school children, it was probably just right), but the lassi and the naan were great- very authentic. We'd cooked rice as well, but almost all of it was left- we'll know better next time. All in all, I think the children enjoyed the food, and I'm sure they had a good time making it. As for the kabaddi... well, it goes without saying that that was a success. Perhaps there's some Murphy's Law-style law that states that the rougher the game, the more shogakusei will enjoy it...
In fact, I only have one problem with these cooking classes, really. Why do all the children seem to disappear the second they've eaten their fill? What about the clearing up, for goodness sake?
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Today marks a shift in the production methods for the Breakfast Show. So that I can write entries from anywhere (especially while keeping warm and snug in my futon!), I've started writing entries on my superb Psion Series 7 computer. It's small enough, and robust enough, to be used anywhere, and using the Series 7 means that I don't have to disconnect all the wires from my iBook. I can then transfer the file to the Mac by compact flash card, and from there 'broadcast' the entries as normal. It's a great setup!
Using the Series 7 for the first time in a while, I am struck by the ease of use, the capabilities of the software, the convenience of having everything in such a small case, and the sheer gorgeousness of the design. What a shame that Psion took the decision to pull out of the handheld computer business! You can still buy the Netbook, the 'big brother' of the Series 7, but even so, it's a crying shame that Psion computers aren't better known.
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:55:11 pm.
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