First quarter wrap up…

It’s hard to believe April has swept in so quickly.  The first quarter of the year, over, and we embark on the climb to the mid-year point.

In the past few weeks, I’ve found myself in an interesting position.

Normally, I’m manuevering through all my obstacles on my own – but these days, I’m hobbling from place to place, the rhythmical “tap tap” of the cane giving away my presence.  I waddle, crab-like, through the house, whether it be carrying armloads of laundry (we are going through our night training stage) 0r trying to convince the girls it’s ABSOLUTELY bedtime.

Some days are overwhelming – the thought of visiting a client in New York City almost had me in tears when I thought of the distance and stairs I would have to climb at the local train station, as well as at my destination.  My weekend shopping routine is hampered with the thought of how and where I’m going to manage everything with a bum foot.  A co-worker left me a bunch of flowering branches and a note, telling me to hang in there.

Perhaps it’s the part where I have to ask for help – when I’m used to being able to do things on my own, at my own pace, with my own ability.

Either way, I can’t wait until I’m zipping about again!

A catch up session of last week’s bento…

Monday, I sent my daughter into school with Matzo ball soup in chicken stock and vegetables (carrots, celery, zucchini, onion and broccoli).  I picked up a love for this very comforting food during my early adulthood – I had a few years of close exposure to traditional Jewish comfort food.  I was introduced to matzo ball soup, kasha varnishkas, kugel,whitefish salad – and I especially loved when my roommate’s mother sent her back to college with these goodies after the holidays.

To this day, I reach out to my girlfriend to find out which brand of matzo meal I should use – she prefers Streit’s and Croyden House.  I know she chuckles, knowing I often “Japan-ize” the soup, adding soy sauce, ginger and scallions…

Needless to say, my daughter both love “ballie soup” and enjoy having it often.

The rest of the week included:

Tuesday, I cheated, and sent in left over take-out, which was katsudon, which is fried chicken cutlet, cooked with dashi and egg, atop steamed rice. 

Wednesday included:

Whole wheat penne pasta with marinara sauce

Baked chicken leg

Roasted beets in star shapes

Turnip and celery, marinated in soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil

Thursday included:

Baked chicken wing and drumette

Blanched broccoli and sugar snap peas

Roasted beet heart

Multi-grain onigiri with okaka filling, wrapped with nori

Friday – was pizza day!

Good bye dear friends of ichi-kumi

This past Saturday was my older daughter’s last day in her current class, ichi-kumi or class 1.

It was a proud moment to know she… no, we all survived a year of Saturdays that were committed to exposing, maintaining, and furthering her knowledge and experiences to Japanese culture. 

Thank you Papa for watching the little one all those weekends!  And thank you Jiji and Baba for your daily skype sessions, which continue to enhance both girls’ language skills.

I puffed up proudly as my teacher, in parting, told me she was proud to say that my daughter’s growth and improvement was truly impressive. 

Oh, the sweat, tears and lack of sleep paid off!!

I had both girls with me – Papa was busy gallivanting in The Big Easy, so I somehow managed to hobble and cobble together bentos for both girls, snag a parking spot close to the entrance, and corral the girls into the gymnasium to wait for the morning greeting from the head master of the school.

Bento for both included (little one’s onigiri not shown, it traveled in a smaller tupperware):

Boiled egg – heart shape

Turkey meat-ballie – I have a stash of these in the refrigerator and freezer that are pre-cooked.  I’ll often defrost one overnight, and include in a bento box

Boiled cocktail hotdog – the surface is scored, and when these boil up, the cuts spread open, showing the pattern

Multi-grain onigiri with okaka or katsuobushi (shaved, dried, bonito flakes) lightly moistened with soy sauce center

Blanched sugar snap peas and broccoli

Blueberries for my older daughter

The little one was very pleased to have her own bento box.  She pulled up a stool in the kitchen to peek over the counter to see what was included.  When she couldn’t see over the edge of the bento box, she decided to take matters into her own hands – and stood up in her booster seat (anchored securely to a kitchen chair), and declared, “Mama. do NOT want booberries.”

I chuckled. 

The little one’s palate seems to take after mine – at the age of 3, she shares the same love of spicy and salty things, and comes with her mouth open when I’m eating kimchi, or doesn’t balk when I add a tiny orange dot of sriracha sauce in her lentil soup.  Not to mention, I myself am very picky with my fruit selections, and unless I am in the mood, I would rather eat my body weight in vegetables than fruit. 

Meanwhile, my older one declares everything TOO spicy, but will scarf down HER body weight in fruit.  Oh.  Except she has an aversion to anything white – cheese, yogurt, butter, cream cheese… except for vanilla ice cream.

To my oldest daughter – Hurray for graduating from the first pre-K class in Japanese school!  Good bye, ichi-kumi friends, thank you for the memories!

First week of March 2012 – bento wrap up

Works kept me busy, humming along, with various projects and tasks taking up time and energy.

I was starting to get into the swing of things again, and I was trying to step out of the “routine” bento.

 

Thursday bento included:

Baked chicken thighs, seasoned with white pepper, salt, soy sauce and slivered ginger, pulled off of the bone

Blanched broccoli florets

Blanched sugar snap peas – I make extra and serve as a vegetable side at dinner, which both girls love… They both sit at the kitchen table peeling the two sides of the pods apart, and slo-w-ly, pick each pea out, chew carefully, and nibble down the pods. 

Boiled egg in star shape

Blueberries

Japanese school lunch included:

Baked chicken drumstick – marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar and baked in the oven at 325 degrees until the meat is melting-ly tender, and is falling off the bone.

Half a boiled egg – heart shape (the other half was packed in a mini-bento for the little one)

Marinated quartered, and sliced raw turnip, and celery ribs (about 1/8 inch thick) marinated overnight in soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and grated ginger.  The turnip slices – sweet, and delicate on their own, are a perfect match for the refreshing flavor of this marinade.  The celery adds a subtle herby, grassiness, as well as an additional crunch – I fill a glass, Marinara sauce jar full to the top with the sliced vegetables, and add the marinade in a ratio of 1:1 for soy sauce and vinegar, 1/4 the amount for sesame oil, and a healthy size of ginger, grated in a little ceramic grater carried over from my childhood.  I add the lid, and shake everything together, gently, and leave in the refrigerator, turning it upside down on occasion.  The girls love this “pickle” and snack on it as they wait for dinner in the evenings.

Blueberries

I’m still getting the hang of the new bento box – trying to gauge the appropriate amount of food can be challenging sometimes.

Not to mention, with my newly injured foot, it has been a challenging trying to coordinate everything while hobbling around the house trying to keep the flow of things consistent.

I laugh as I just re-read above sentence – and a scene from a recent film comes to mind. 

As you may know, I am an avid fan of Hayao Miyazaki.  He directed Howl’s Moving Castle, and in this film, there actually is a scene where a newly “aged” character is hobbling about, trying to figure out what had just happened to her.  (I’m withholding details in case you are planning on seeing the film)

Dear reader, if you ARE familiar with the scene – my recent weeks remind me of the scene where Sophie is creeping past the mirror in her hat shop, and jumping upon seeing her reflection – and creeping past, muttering to herself that this is just a bad dream.

Now that I think about it, perhaps my daughters’ obsession with turnips came from this recent film viewing?  ** There is a character in the film named “Turnip Head.”

Turnip head or not, I hope my foot heals quickly so I can return to my normal self again… soon.