first post!

I have a lot of ideas about posts and it's been kind of paralyzing me, so I'm just going to jump in with one thing.  This is something I attempted to get into the News and Review, but I blew the deadline.  The Japanese celebrate their New Year the same time we do, and they celebrate it with mochi.  Komochi is a special sweet rice mochi that is made for the New Year.  Osaka Ya makes it.

They use the mochi to put into a savory soup called ozoni.  You traditionally eat it on New Year's day, but I wasn't sure how I'd be feeling (answer:fine), so I made it on the 30th.  I used dashi and some vegetables, and they all ended up being white.  Well, except the mizuna and turnip tops.  These turnips were so lovely.  And so tender and sweet you could eat them raw.

Here' s how the soup looked.  It was pretty good but the mochi was absolutely bland.  And I really like mochi.  It swelled and got soft and it was hard not to choke on it.  That's the deal with ozoni.   Every year a few people choke on it on New Year's day.
This is sushi I made from fish I got at Oto's.  Unfortunately, and I don't blame Oto's, especially since I ate four kinds of raw seafood that same day from three different sources, I got some mild food poisoning and I think this was the culprit.  There I go, talking about my diarrhea again.