Sunday, January 11, 2009

Of deLIGHTful procrastination and pounding mochi

Hm....let's see...it's Sunday....
*Sleep late? check...woke up at 10:00.
*Get dressed? check...but sometime around noon.
*Chat on Yahoo Messenger? check...with two friends, actually.
*Talk to Mom? check...for about an hour.
*Make dessert and potato salad to take to dinner at friend's house? check...both delicious.
Get Issei's desk clean and room vacuumed? check...he also is almost finished with homework.
Clean room?....damn.
Plan for classes on Tuesday?....oh...no.
Do some blog reading? ....well...double-damn.
And thanks to the K-man and this group on YouTube, I got very little else done.
As I was about to do some blog reading, he came in and told me about a group in Tokyo that he saw on TV last night. They are incredible. The name of their group is PikaPika...pikapika means bright. After you watch this clip, if you are interested, go to their site and check out some of the other amazing stuff they have done.


This isn't done with fancy computer graphics...just a group of people with cameras and pen lights. If you go to their site, they have a bunch of shorter clips they have done...the "Happy Birthday" one is really good and what they did to the Statue of Liberty is pretty amazing!! All of their clips are good!! I love to see people being creative!!

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Mochi pounding....another Japanese tradition that we really like!!

According to those great people over at Wikipedia:

Mochi (Japanese: is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki. While also eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time.

Mochitsuki is the traditional mochi-pounding ceremony in Japan.
Polished glutinous rice is soaked overnight and cooked.
The cooked rice is pounded with wooden mallets (kine) in a traditional mortar (
usu). Two people will alternate the work, one pounding and the other turning and wetting the mochi. They must keep a steady rhythm or they may accidentally injure one another with the heavy kine.
The sticky mass is then formed into various shapes (usually a sphere or cube). Kinako mochi is a mochi dish that is traditionally made on New Year's Day for luck. This style of mochi preparation includes roasting the mochi over a fire or stove, and then dipping it into a mixture of soy sauce, water and sugar, before finally briefly coating it in kinako (soy flour).

And that is what Koji and I did at his daycare yesterday....

**Oops...in one place I typed "moshi" when it should have been "mochi"! Sorry!! Cold fingers make typing a bit more challenging than usual!!**

For not really doing much, we were kind of busy!!

I hope you all had a chance to see the moon this weekend...holy moly, but it was be-yoo-ti-ful! The boys and I did our "moon dance" on Saturday night...we were lucky because it had snowed and rained all day long but, about 5:30 it was clear enough to see the moon long enough to do "our thing" in the garden...and then we came in and sat by the heater!!

Have a great Sunday everyone...may you feel good even if you don't get everything done today!!

9 comments:

The Girl Next Door said...

Great post - so glad to be back in the world of "leisurely Sundays" with you!

Gina said...

I didn't get anything done today! I spent far too much time watching Pikapika (and saying "pika pika, pikachu!")this afternoon and wishing for mochi. The good news is that I've been inspired enough to look for recipes. I may actually try it tomorrow.

shrink on the couch said...

There is no such thing as a Sunday where everything gets done, is there? In case there is, I'd prefer to remain in fantasy land, thanks.

And I think my son wanted one of those pen lights, or something like it, for Christmas, and I forgot all about looking for one. Thanks for the reminder.

Mary Alice said...

Oh how my kids loooooove mochi. They got hooked when we lived in Hawaii...now I get at Trader Joe's and there squeals of delight when I bring it home.

Lauren said...

In our neighborhood a frozen yogurt store just opened where you add your own toppings and they have MOCHI! Little cubes. It is DELICIOUS.

I will have to check out the videos later - internet not working right at work today ; }

Lauren said...

Oh I forgot! Thanks for the nice comments. Now that my friggen 365 project is over I will have more blogging time yay!

3rdEyeMuse said...

I love visiting on "local culture" day ... looks like a successful mochi making day at school - I imagine all will be blessed with much good luck!

Sojourner said...

Nice post! Love the pics! And that video is freakin' amazing when you know it is not done with computer graphics. Will have to see more of their videos later. Gotta feed the animals and go to bed. Long, very cold night at work :(

Mrs. G. said...

Oh how I love mochi. You live such an exciting, exotic life. Yeah, you!