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okamotorhome
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Name: Shawna
Country: United States
State: Washington
Birthday: 12/19/1985
Interests: laughing, cooking, singing, having fun, laughing, dancing, laughing, and being very very ridiculously serious.
Message: message me
AIM:  okamotorhome
Member Since:
9/16/2004
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| oshogatsu! Yum yum.We've made it family tradition to visit my mom's side in the Bay Area
for New Year celebration. My baachan (grandma) is from Osaka and always
prepares a huge Japanese feast. ALL I CAN SAY IS "YUM"!!!! Since she's
getting older and us granddaughters (there are 6 of us on that side and
only one very lucky boy) don't know how to cook anything, we've been
trying to document and learn how to make everything. But there's
seriously too much to learn. Here's what a typical oshogatsu prep
period looks like:
3 days till the new year: go shopping. this
year, we tried out a new store, but they didn't have everything we
needed! so really, oshogatsu ingredients shopping consisted of going to
two stores. Below we're looking for the "youngest" and "freshest"
(okay, I don't think that's a word) gobo. Yum yum. I can't even
remember all the ingredients we had to get, but here's a short list:
the gobo, renkon, kuri, radish, mizuna, kazunoko, natto (EW!), inari
age, konnyaku, white beans, black beans, red beans...kooyadofu, little
dried fish, mushrooms, satoimo, pickled things, raw things, etc. (okay,
really I just got tired of trying to remember what everything is
called.)
that
night: things that are too salty need to be put in water to make it
less salty. things that aren't salty enough need to be put in salt to
make it more salty.
2 days till the new year: this day we
usually work on peeling the satoimos (my baachan describes them as
slimy mountain potatoes). this is difficult because your skin can't
come in contact with the outside of the satoimo because it makes your
hands itchy! so this year we used gloves to peel off the skin. but the
satoimo were so slimy that they kept on slipping around. this day we
also cut the gobo into thin slices and also made the kanten w/ an.
1
day till the new year: nishime prep. this includes cutting the carrots
into flowers, and doing the kooyadofu. also, the konnyaku needed to be
cut and flipped....does that make sense? we also fried the little
fishies in a pan. i love the fishies cuz they're so delishie! okay...
new
year day: still not done! we rolled the sushi, cut the fruit, made the
ozoni, cut the sushi (ate sushi), cut more sushi, put things on plates,
arranged the table, had baachan come to rearrange the table,
and...other things. really i act like we did a lot of work, but really
my baachan did everything.
eating on new year's day takes up about 10 hours of the day. it's really quite sick. but not because it's so delicious.
mmm....california rolls.
to
get a visual: the nishime with the carrots, kooyadofu, and satoimo are
on the left. shiitake on the right. they all have similar taste. below
is the renkon, with more of a vinegar/salt taste.
day after new years....still eating....and still eating.
YUM I LOVE FOOD! | | |
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So! This is my bible study! I am so excited to be in it. I had been attending InterVarsity's Asian American bible study, which was also good, but I felt like something was just not quite right for me. So, this past weekend I went to Portland to an InterVarsity conference called Shalom. It was very...intense? and thought provoking? It was a lot about race reconciliation and segregation in the church. Quite interesting stuff. But it really got me thinking about how I interact with different races. I realized that I'm pretty lucky that I went to a very diverse high school, and I think because of that I have an easier time getting along with different races. It just didn't feel right to be in an all asian bible study, when I feel like I can get along with other races, and then at the same time trying to apply integration into my life. BUT I don't think anything is wrong with having an asian american bible study, ya know? it's a really good idea to be able to have support from people who understand you really well. but i was feeling like I have plenty of that from my wonderful friends :) I am loving my new bible study too! it was awesome coming away from our bible study a couple weeks ago and just feeling so energized and thinking "I LOVE STUDYING THE BIBLE WITH OTHER PEOPLE!!" and now i have an awesome picture of my bible study too!! SO! that was pretty much the longest story of my life. i just wanted to share with y'all. | | |
| happy thanksgiving everyone! i know i haven't updated in here for a while, but i felt like i didn't really have anything worth saying. but now i do! you know, even though school has been tough lately, and that's almost all i think about, i have so much to be thankful for. i had a wonderful thanksgiving feast at my aunt and uncle's house. although the food was wonderful, the best part about it was talking to my grandpa. he told me his story of WWII, from when he found out about japan bombing pearl harbor, to seeing many other japanese getting bussed off to internment camps, to being incarcerated himself, to being "realsed" to work in a non-west coast state, all the way to actually being in italy in the army. i realized how any yonsei has so much to be thankful for. because of our grandparents, we can live the way we do now. although we may think we are discriminated because we are japanese, it is nothing compared to our grandparents. and thanks to their courageous acts, the japanese are viewed as actual citizens of america. maybe i'm going into too much of an essay, but i realized that i have SO much to be thankful for! | | |
| so, anyone want to buy me two things? #1 a parking space at UW (preferably right next to mercer W) and #2 a 1977 Datsun 280 Z. that is all for now | | |
| i guess it's time to update THE xanga. the reason why i haven't updated in a while is because college is boring. or more, my life is boring. you know, everyone said that college was so great and i'm going to enjoy it so much. but honestly, it's just been so-so so far (wow a lot of "so"s in a row). supposedly it's going to get better, but i can't really see that happening. give me encouragement! | | |
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