Bananas

We started Emma on solids this week with bananas, and she loves them. She reaches for the spoon and open her mouth wide and makes an excited hmmming noise when eating. When she discovered that the bananas actually came from a bowl instead of a spoon, she dove for the bowl.

She was a little cranky at dinner tonight because she didn't get a good afternoon nap, so whenever I took the spoon away to refill it, she would cry. So the evenings sounds went something like this: humm, mmmm, mmm, AAAAAHHHH!!!, AAAHH - hummmm, mmm, AAHHH, mmmmmm.

Eventually the crying won out, and not even bananas could console her. Laughing at my child is probably not the best thing a parent can do, but it was just so funny. Here she is with banana mush all over her face, arms out wide searching for the spoon, and alternating frown-y face with pure joy. And if you've ever seen her frown-y face, then you know how hilarious this was. If Mark were home, I would have had him take a picture.

Adventures in Cooking

What can one do with just a hot plate and a rice cooker? This is a question that been I've been faced with since we've moved to Japan. (Not that I've been doing a lot in the kitchen - Mark loves to cook and I'm not one to tell him he can't; I'm more for baking anyway.) Apparently you can do a lot.

Saturday night was game night with some friends, and game night means goodies. We made a quick stove-top fudge. Marshmallows work just as well as marshmallow cream.

Sunday we had a potluck and we brought BLT pasta salad, which was fabulous.

Monday we made onigiri, which at its most basic, is a rice ball. You can put other things in it, bits of fish or chicken, or veggies, or whatever else you can think of, and wrap it seaweed to make it more exciting.


Yesterday we tried a special regional dish called okonomiyaki. Its sort of like a pancake with cabbage and meat or noodles in it, topped with a BBQ-like sauce and mayonnaise. People put mayonnaise on a lot of things here. Its a very popular condiment. I forgot to take a picture of this, but here's what its suppose to look like. Ours were not that nice looking.


And because Mexican food is extremely hard to come by here, I made tortillas.
Not bad for my first time, eh? I'm sure I'll be making this again, and possibly turning them into chips.