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| 餃子、Pot stickers |
うちは上の子を除きGW突入！
昨夜は息子の友達2人が泊まりにきた。
去年のうちに2人の子の家には泊まりにいっていたので、
今回家で一周した感じ。
夕飯は息子の希望で餃子に。
7〜8歳の男児がどれだけ食べるのか検討がつかず、豚挽肉800g、
餃子皮大判40枚を3袋買ったが、ニラは1袋入れたけど、
キャベツが1/2個しか入らなかったせいか、
70個くらいのところで餡が切れてしまったが、
大判だったせいか8個冷凍に回った。
(私の平日休みの日のお昼になる)
食後は2人の子のお土産のアイスを食べ、
餃子の後のホットプレートで、ホイルで焼きチョコバナナと
りんごのメープルシロップとシナモンホイル焼きを作り食べた。
そこから、ゲームやらドラゴンボールのDVDやら録画の
ドラゴンボール(再放送)、相撲とって喧嘩したりして、
朝3時ころまでがんばっていたが、旦那に寝なさいと言われて
寝た模様。
男の子って、子供って楽しそうだよな〜
今日午後、LA時代のコロンビアの友達とSkypeでつながり
10年以上ぶりに会話！Facebookやメールで何度も話したいねと
いってきて、やっと実現！
彼女のPasadenaの結婚パーティーへは旦那と揃って出席した
のだが、そこから数えると13年！！
彼女とはUCLAエクステンションのデザインコースで一緒だった
のだが、その時他にも2人割にクラスが一緒になる友達がいて、
その一人は私達が日本に戻った1年後くらいに南仏に戻り、
もう一人はもともとアメリカの人なのでそのままLAにいる。
彼女らもFacebookで繋がっているので、彼女らの子供も大きく
なったよね〜という話題に。
彼女は高齢になる自分の両親のためにコロンビアに5年前に
戻ったが、住みにくいし、旦那の家族も彼女のお姉さんもLAに
いるし、アメリカに近々また引っ越すと言っていた。
すごいよな、今の時代って、電話代かからずクリックで海外とも
気軽につながれる、すごく便利。
そして、ひさびさにものすごーくアメリカが恋しくなった、、、
ここ10年くらい、東京に戻ってから、仕事以外の親しい人間関係は
日本人ばかりでやってきたが、なんか、あの英語だからこそ成り立つ、
会話の中で神経質に言葉を選ばず、思ったことをそのまま相手に伝え
ても批判されない空気感、care free感がすごく懐かしかった。
でも、もう、みんなそれぞれの場所でそれぞれの生活を築いていて、
今思い返すと、それぞれの場所から出て、LAに偶然的にいあわせて
いたことがすごく尊く、
今同じ場所に戻っても、もう全てがそこにはないんだな、と
懐かしいカリフォルニアの夕日を思い出しながら、
ちょっと胸が熱くなった。
だから、やっぱり、
誰が何と言おうと、
岡本太郎よろしく、
その一瞬一瞬に賭けて、ひたすらやってみる。
それだけでいいし、それしかない。
せっかく人間に生まれたのだから、今は今しかないのだから。
センチメンタル・サンデー
GW started yesterday for us except for Koki who has school
tomorrow and Tuesday.
Around end of April to beginning of May every year, we have
a block of holidays where many people take paid holidays to
fill in the regular days sandwiched between national holidays
to create one week long (or mroe depending on a year)
holiday, and we call it Golden Week (GW).
This year, May 1st and 2nd are regular weekdays so Toru and I
took those 2 days holiday and starting from yesterday, we
have 9 days in a row holiday.
Since we plan to let Koki skip school a few days before the summer
holiday this year to go to Hawai'i,
we decided he should go to school
on May 1st and 2nd so he won't miss his school curriculum.
Yesterday, Koki's 2 best friends came to sleep over.
Koki requested his favorite dish, pork and vege pot stickers for dinner,
so I bought 800g ground pork (in Japan, pot sticker are
usually pork where in US you see many chicken ones), 1/2
cut cabbage, 1 bundle of Chinese chives, garlic, ginger
and 3 bags of dumpling skin (40 sheets per bag x 3 =120!),
but I tend to make the dumplings over stuffed,
so I ended up with about 70 pot sticker,
with 8 left overs which went in the freezer.
(I will enjoy them on my weekday off lunch).
Recipe is nothing special, but frying them requires some
experience.
Trick I use is,
-----------------
1. Boil water.
2. DO NOT heat the pan but spread one table spoon of
sesame oil (or any kind of oil) on a surface of a frying pan.
3. Place pot stickers on a frying pan. Make sure you place
pot stickers apart from each other by at least 0.5cm or so,
do not put them against each other like you see them at
Chinese restaurants (they have strong heat different from
home kitchen).
4. Pour in the boiled water so that it covers 1/4 of
pot stickers. Place a lid.
5. Turn on the heat and keep the heat at medium to high
and keep it on for 5 minutes (check to see they are not
burnt after 3 minutes).
6. When the water evaporates, pour some sesame oil on
top of pot stickers and let them fry for 2-3 minutes.
(Make sure you don't burn them)
Enjoy your pot stickers!
--------------------
The trick is that you do not turn the heat on until you place
the stickers, and you pour in boiling water not cold water.
This afternoon, I finally got to speak to Claudia on Skype,
with whom I have been discussing we should get on Skype
to chat for a while through Facebook and recently emails
because nowdays I rarely get on Facebook.
We were studying design together at UCLA Extension back
in early 2000s and now she's back in Bogota, Colombia and
I am here back in Tokyo, Japan.
It was 13 years ago (time flies!) when both Toru and I attended
her wedding party held at her sister's house in Pasadena.
Our Quark Express (my gosh, it is ancient!) teacher Pucky
was also there on a nice sunny afternoon.
We had 2 other friends taking the same design course at
UCLA, Charlotte who went back to South France with her
husband Alex little after we moved back to Tokyo, and
Marie who is originally from down southeast US is still
there in LA and we are connected through Facebook.
That part of my life in LA is one of the dearest memories I have.
Now fully absorbed in Japanese culture and its society,
I realize I have changed a bit in some ways but there is
a lot of me that has not changed and it felt so comfortble
and reminiscing to converse in English with my friend,
being care free and say what I think or feel.
As much as I am part of this society and have been
living in it for past 10 years, I realize this is why I cherish
my friendship with my friends outside Japan, as much as
I cherish my friends here.
Relationship fundamentally is the same , but because oc the difference in
culture background, how the society
is constructed, and
how the language is built and used,
anyhow the relationship and conversations we exchange
is a bit different,
making me sometimes feel more comfortable being in a
bicultural environment and relationship.
Of course, my Japanese part is as important as the other
part, but recently I realize it is just me.
Just because I was born to Japanese born parents and
having brought up half of my life in Japan does not make
me anyone but me, nationality free, border-less.
After saying goodbye to Claudia on Skype,
I felt like I just found something that I have been looking for
in my drawer past few years,
with a California sunset image in my mind,
I realized it was very precious that I got to be
at where I was back 10 some years ago with all these
friends that I met in LA back then.
Even if I went back to LA now, things won't be the same
and that makes it even more precious.
I am missing California once again this evening.
Good night.
