Cooking with my host family

     2 months have passed since I came here. The fun thing I did with my host family was making Japanese traditional foods; carry and rice, Inari-zushi, and Onigiri (rice ball). I have wanted to make Japanese traditional food because I wanted my host family to know about Japan more. Also, cooking is one of the most favorite hobbies for me. I repeatedly tried that many times when I stayed in Japan. I brought two packs of curry cubes for carry and rice, rice made in Japan, seasoned vinegar, which is called Sushi Noko, Inari for Inari sushi, also seaweed for Onigiri.

     I will write about Carry and Rice, which became the first time for me to cook. At first, I went to a market to get a pack of chicken. It was the first time for me to buy something at the market, so I was a little bit nervous if I could do it myself. After that, I taught my host sister, who is 13 years old, how to cut some of ingredients. I did not know how to explain the way of cutting them. I tried to show her how to cut. By doing so, she could understand correctly. She tried to eat carry and rice soon after cooking. Also, my grandmother was happy to eat it.

     Besides, I made Inari-zushi and rice ball approximately a week ago with my kids. I tried to cook steam rice with a rice steamer, however, it became a little bit sticky. I thought I added wrong amount of water. I did not need worry about it. Surprisingly, my host sisters who are 3 and 4 and 5 and 7 years-old enjoy cooking with me. What they did for me was to put rice into Inari. It was tough job for them because inari was too easy to tear. We needed to pay attention not to break it.

     In addition, I made rice ball whose shape was triangle with my host sisters. I brought a tool to make rice ball easily from Japan. So, I tried to use for making it. By using this tool, we could make nicely shaped rice ball. After that, we wrapped rice ball in seaweed. I was surprised that they like seaweed because I taught it was loved by only Japanese people because rice is staple food for Japanese. That is why, I gave them only seaweed before we started making rice ball.

      Finally, they had been practicing using chopsticks for a long time. I didn’t bring chopsticks for the number of people, so they used bamboo skewer instead of chopsticks. I was pleased they are interested in Japan more than I thought. I should’ve brought chopsticks from Japan.

     This is how I could cook three kinds of Japanese traditional dishes since I came here. It was a meaningful, and precious time for me, also I was glad to cook something with my host family. Next time, I want to cook Yakitori and Tamagoyaki for them. In fact, I want to see their glad face again.