Food isn’t really an option in the “Five Love Languages.” However, I think that is how I show love and receive love the best. Lesbehonest.
But in truth, my top language is gifts, so if I give or receive a gift of food, that’s basically the ultimate punch in the gut, or my heart or whatever… In a good way. It also usually plays a wonderful part in raising my cholesterol and widening my waistline if you know what I’m saying. No shame.
This past month in Japan was amazing. There is such a thing as a ‘sushi-go-round.’ Yep. A magical river that comes from a magical cave in the wall and gives you a never-ending train of any sushi you could ever ask for. If you are feeling really special, you can order any sushi from the iPad at your table and the magical river will float it out to you. God bless you little sushi elves.
There is some weird food in Japan. I managed to stay away from it for the most part. Except I did learn that seaweed ice cream is a thing. At least, it was ice cream and it tasted like seaweed. I didn’t think I could ever hate ice cream but Japan proved me wrong. When everything is in Japanese sometimes you just don’t know what you’re signing up for.
My team got to cook our meals this month. So our Japanese dishes were restricted to our off days when we ventured out of our house on the mountain. I was apart of the grocery shopping which was an adventure on it’s own. Thankfully we had our host with us who could tell us what everything was. Since we lived 30 minutes up Mt. Rokko we would buy food for a full week for all seven of us. The photo on the bottom left shows one weeks worth of food for seven people, three full meals, all for under $245.
We had a three-day rotation of three teams that would be in charge of a day. Justin and I were a team. We often made banana pancakes with homemade syrup for breakfast and things like brown sugar glazed salmon or chicken curry over rice:
Some other meals we had were black bean burgers with rice and cabbage salad, orange chicken (by far my favorite meal), french toast, chocolate chip pancakes, chicken strips with mashed potatoes and corn, chicken and veggie stir fry over noodles, spaghetti with garlic bread, chili, chicken salad sandwiches, sweet n sour chicken, BBQ chicken sandwiches, and potato n egg scramble.
I really enjoyed getting to cook and I discovered how much I enjoy blessing people with a delicious meal, and also blessing my belly too.
This November we also had a huge Thanksgiving with 30 people at the house. Our team provided a lot of the dishes. We certainly had the works, we found an international food store that had all the goods. My plate:
Butterball turkey that Sam smoked, garlic mashed potatoes with turkey gravy, veggies, my aunt’s homemade cranberry applesauce (it was a crowd favorite), cranberries, rolls, veggies, cream corn, made-from-scratch stuffing, deviled eggs, baked man n cheese, and sweet potato casserole.
For dessert we had apple pie from scratch (I did it!!), oreo balls, puppy chow, pumpkin-cream cheese bars, Oreo cheesecake, and no bake cookies.
It was all so delicious and great to have most of the squad all together. I also got to Facetime most of my family. My heart and my belly were full.
I’m thankful for Thanksgiving in Japan. I discovered that I really enjoy cooking and hosting people. I am excited for the day when I return home and can offer my hospitality and work more on my cooking skills. 😉
Yours truly,
Leesh
PS. Check out the status bar on the top of my page! I need about $4000 more by the end of 2014 to stay on the race! Yikes! But God is big. Would you consider helping me out? Thanks for your support and prayers!
