Kukking Paatii
I didn't have a seizure with that title. It's how you would pronounce cooking party in Japanese. Which was the event of the day. After some confusion on which line to transfer to at Shinjuku station, I arrived at Kanda station to meet the Hi-C (Hosei International Club) for a cooking party. You may remember these people from that party they threw for us. They came off as quite wierd. But today I guess they either kicked those people out or calmed down or something. Because they were all really nice. It ended up being about 12 Hi-C students and Daniel and I being the only exchange students.
Anyway the first thing we did after everyone finally showed up, (japanese university students are pretty much never on time for anything.) was shopping together at a "wholesale market". It was like the japanese equvilent of a sam's or aldi's. Without the low prices. Nothing was really that large of quantity but it was quite reduced from the normal Tokyo prices. After finally figuring out what we needed we went to Kanda community centre where the Hi-C had rented a room for us to cook in. It looked exactly like a home ec classroom. Complete with chalkboard. I really hoped they would use it to explain how to cook but they didn't. Basically we were going to cook two things, 焼き鳥 (yakitori) and お好きみ焼き (osukimiyaki). I think that was the name of the second one, not sure. Yakitori is basically shishkabobs with pieces of chicken and green onion marinated in a "toriyaki" sauce. That was the name of the sauce honestly, it was sort of like a teriyaki sort of sauce. The osukimiyaki was made two ways. Hiroshima style and Osaka style. Osaka style was to first semi-fry soba (buckwheat noodles), then place the pancake batter with cabbage into the frying pan. After it makes a sort of pancake looking thing, put the noodles back on and put an egg on top and let it all bake for a little. Hiroshima style was just without the noodles. It actually tastes a lot better than it sounds. It also looks better than what it sounds. Mainly because in America we think of pancake of the things you put syrup on, whereas the rest of the world's pancakes are a bit thinner and can be used in a variety of ways.
The cooking was pretty funny. We had to put on aprons. One girl even put on a surgical mask. I kept on trying to help but they wouldn't really let me a lot of the time. I think the whole sexism thing here makes the thought of a man cooking unappetizing. All for the better though, I had no idea what was going on most of the time. I did of course cut the onions which made my eyes water like crazy. And cooked some of the toriniku.
When we ate we drew chopsticks to see where we would so to mix things up. Of course I was put with the table that didn't want to talk. So it was an awkward 20 minutes or so. The food was all really good, but the osukimiyaki was a bit much all together. It was like a huge layered dish. A good one, but quite a lot of stuff for one dish.
After eating, we cleaned up and did the mandatory end of the party pseudo-jewish clap. (at the end of parties Japanese people do a big clap to end the event) We walked to the station and went our seperate ways. One girl, Andrea, lives farther down the Keio line and went back our way. She was really nice and wanted our phone numbers and emails because she wanted to hang out with "germans and americans". She has classes at a different Hosei campus about 2 hours away from Ichugaya campus, which doesn't have any western exchange students.
All in all a good time. I guess it just shows you first impressions aren't always true. Oh, and dad pointed out I didn't tell the score of the baseball game. Hosei won 3-2. We were playing Rikkio University, a catholic university in Chiba prefecture. I guess even with the pope and mel gibson on your side you still can't escape loss.
Anyway the first thing we did after everyone finally showed up, (japanese university students are pretty much never on time for anything.) was shopping together at a "wholesale market". It was like the japanese equvilent of a sam's or aldi's. Without the low prices. Nothing was really that large of quantity but it was quite reduced from the normal Tokyo prices. After finally figuring out what we needed we went to Kanda community centre where the Hi-C had rented a room for us to cook in. It looked exactly like a home ec classroom. Complete with chalkboard. I really hoped they would use it to explain how to cook but they didn't. Basically we were going to cook two things, 焼き鳥 (yakitori) and お好きみ焼き (osukimiyaki). I think that was the name of the second one, not sure. Yakitori is basically shishkabobs with pieces of chicken and green onion marinated in a "toriyaki" sauce. That was the name of the sauce honestly, it was sort of like a teriyaki sort of sauce. The osukimiyaki was made two ways. Hiroshima style and Osaka style. Osaka style was to first semi-fry soba (buckwheat noodles), then place the pancake batter with cabbage into the frying pan. After it makes a sort of pancake looking thing, put the noodles back on and put an egg on top and let it all bake for a little. Hiroshima style was just without the noodles. It actually tastes a lot better than it sounds. It also looks better than what it sounds. Mainly because in America we think of pancake of the things you put syrup on, whereas the rest of the world's pancakes are a bit thinner and can be used in a variety of ways.
The cooking was pretty funny. We had to put on aprons. One girl even put on a surgical mask. I kept on trying to help but they wouldn't really let me a lot of the time. I think the whole sexism thing here makes the thought of a man cooking unappetizing. All for the better though, I had no idea what was going on most of the time. I did of course cut the onions which made my eyes water like crazy. And cooked some of the toriniku.
When we ate we drew chopsticks to see where we would so to mix things up. Of course I was put with the table that didn't want to talk. So it was an awkward 20 minutes or so. The food was all really good, but the osukimiyaki was a bit much all together. It was like a huge layered dish. A good one, but quite a lot of stuff for one dish.
After eating, we cleaned up and did the mandatory end of the party pseudo-jewish clap. (at the end of parties Japanese people do a big clap to end the event) We walked to the station and went our seperate ways. One girl, Andrea, lives farther down the Keio line and went back our way. She was really nice and wanted our phone numbers and emails because she wanted to hang out with "germans and americans". She has classes at a different Hosei campus about 2 hours away from Ichugaya campus, which doesn't have any western exchange students.
All in all a good time. I guess it just shows you first impressions aren't always true. Oh, and dad pointed out I didn't tell the score of the baseball game. Hosei won 3-2. We were playing Rikkio University, a catholic university in Chiba prefecture. I guess even with the pope and mel gibson on your side you still can't escape loss.
posted by Scot @ 22:59
1 Comments:
At 25/10/05 12:14,
Anonymous said…
Your posts are entirely too long to read, Scotty Dixon. But let's just say Kate and I miss you. Andrew moved in with his cousin like two weeks into the semester- did you know that? lol... anyways... Have fun in Japan.
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