Kyoko was a lovely lady who opened her home and arms to people wanting to learn Japanese cooking. We were asked to take our shoes off and don a pair of Japanese slippers before she took us on a tour of her home. First stop was a traditional room with bamboo mats on the floor. This room was used for worship and contained two shrines - a Buddhist shrine for their ancestors and above this was a Shinto Shrine. She explained the significance of each and then also explained that her family were not actually religious but this was more about tradition. Off of this room was a beautiful traditional tiny Japanese garden with two blossoming trees - one red, one white.
She explained some more about how the room could be used for large meals and also as a sleeping room and we got a tour of the linen press to show us the futons (too funny!). We were then asked to wash our hands and meet her upstairs.
We met her mother who was the loveliest, tiniest woman I had seen. She was amazing paper artist and had created some beautiful pictures that Kyoko had around her house. They were all done by tearing paper by hand - it was quite amazing.
We settled into the small kitchen where Kyoko served us tea to start. She had prepared recipes and a shopping list for us which we passed around before she started the class. She had done most of the preparation like chopping etc which would have taken a lot of time.
We started with the tempura which we had as an appetiser. Kyoko was very health conscious and used a lot of lot fat techniques in her recipes which was great. She had varied the usual tempura recipe and rather than depp frying she shallow fried small fritters of three types - ham and broccoli, mixed vegetable, and prawn. They were delicious and she served them with a dipping sauce which she made as well as wasabi salt, normal salt and curry powder - so good! We were all salavating by this stage.
Next we marinated the salmon for the main meal and got busy preparing the gyoza. This was quite and adventure. Although we had prepared gyoza wraps, the technique was not as easy as it looked. It involved pleating one side of the wrap and sealing it well. We all managed to finish although they weren't the best looking gyoza in town. Kyoko got busy boiling and frying the gyoza while we moved onto the salmon and mushroom dish. We also made a beef salad and an apple and cabbage salad so we had plenty of food.
Kyoko had set her dining table with cherry blossom placemats and tiny twigs of actual cherry blossom which accompanied her beautiful blue and white traditional Japanese china. We transferred all the food to the table and sat down to a feast. All the food was delicious - particularly the beef salad, the gyoza and the salmon. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and we sat chatting for ages over the food and wine.
Kyoko shared with us a lot about her family. Her mother had been living in Nagasaka when the bomb was dropped and somehow she remained unaffected. Kyoko herself had symptoms of the radiation which only showed up after she had her son. She also told a story of her inlaws who lived with her and her husband for over 40 years until they passed away two years ago. Unfortunately the father-in-law used to physically abuse Kyoko for many years until one day her husband came home in time to witness it. The inlaws had to live with Kyoko and her husband as her husband was the oldest boy in the family and this was the tradition. Kyoko nursed both the mother and father until they passed away and had said it was very hard especially since the father-in-law was such a horrible man.
She also told us that she has had many people come and stay with her and invited us all to stay if we were ever back in Japan. She was a lovely woman and it was a lovely afternoon. We were sad to leave. Just before we left the table, Sue maaged to stick her elbow in the soy sauce - a perfect way to end the day! We also learnt from Kyoko that the name for a fat eggplant was kamunasu - and so Dee was renamed Kamunasu-san in honour of her trying on the eggplant costume the other day - very funny. We made our way downstairs where Kyoko's mother had neatly lined up all our shoes which we had dumped in a pile by the door - she was too cute.
We made our way back to Roppongi station and then went up a lookout tower in time for sunset. We lingered over a cocktail as we watched the lights come on over the city. We left Dee and Lyndell to explore Roppongi for the night while Sue, Julie and I headed back to Julie's place to meet up with the boys. We walked up the road for Italian and I was impressed by Warrens cheese risotto which was actually made in a huge cheese round - very cool.
Warren dropped us off at their friend's house and we made plans with Mark to meet him early in the morning for a trip to the fish market. Ross and I hit the sack and I was out like a light after a busy day.
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