soba

I was recently able to visit an Okinawan lady named Nobuko's home to be taught how to make soba by her and her friends Noriko (our translator) and Mieko.   

From Japanese Soba class

Mieko is preparing the pork to be cooked in this soy sauce, awamori, sugar and sweet rice wine.  This white stuff is fish sausage.  It comes ready to eat, just needs to be cut up.



After it was all done cooking they served it up for us to have a try.

From Japanese Soba class

From Japanese Soba class

Oooh, they made it look so nice and yummy!

From Japanese Soba class

Even the way they set the table all up for us looked so nice.

From Japanese Soba class

Then after oohing and aaawing over the way they prepared the food and how great everything looked, I notice Ella standing on the kitchen chair, mesmerized by all the food in front of her.   

From Japanese Soba class

I knew she was thinking, MMM  when do I get to eat?!  

From Japanese Soba class

It looked so good, she was having a hard time keeping her hands off the soba.  Reasoning with a 1 1/2 year old just doesn't work.  They haven't learned patience yet!!

From Japanese Soba class

Thankfully Mieko, Nobuko and Noriko did have patients for Ella and were very kind to all of us. 

From Japanese Soba class

Finely...time to eat!!  We all had to use chopsticks, which was totally fine with me, to eat because they had no forks in the house.  After using my chopsticks to feed Ella, she had to have a pair for herself to try.  This was very cute...she held the chopsticks in one hand and wrapped the noodles around them.  I think that's how Grandma used them when she was here too, right mom? ;0)

From Japanese Soba class

Then they pulled these out.  More oohing and aaawing going on.  These are called sata andagi- translation, sugar doughnuts.  

From Japanese Soba class

They were different from any doughnuts I have tasted and were delicious, just ask Ella, she had 3!!

From Japanese Soba class