Oideyasu! Please take off your shoes.
The Emperor's birthday (Dec. 23) is a national holiday in Japan, and close to
Christmas, so we cooked a traditional turkey (5kg, about 10 lbs.) dinner at my mother-in-law's house and invited the Shindomo family. This is Daiki Shindomo, an up-and-coming musical talent, posing with the victim. A traditional turkey dinner in my family consists of exactly roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce and peas. This year, everything turned out perfect, the best we've done yet, which is a real confidence builder. Christmas/Thanksgiving dinner also normally includes my mom's unbeatable apple pie, which Yoshiko has mastered, but this year Michiyo Shindomo made strawberry shortcake, and it was excellent.
Daiki being the only kid there, he got a pirate's haul of presents, and entertained us with songs played on various instruments.
Posted by nils at December 24, 2003 05:48 PMMerry Christmas! Your blog is like a Christmas gift to the world. Thanks.
Posted by: Dave on December 25, 2003 04:39 AMWow! Where did you find a 10 lb whole turkey in Japan? And, where did you find an oven large enough to cook it? (Just rhetorical questions actually, but I am amazed.)
Merry Christmas and best wishes for the New Year. I've really enjoyed seeing Japan through your eyes.
Posted by: M Sinclair Stevens on December 25, 2003 01:04 PMIn Kyoto, Meiji-ya always gets a supply for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They have little hens and small turkeys and bigger ones up to about 8 kg, which is huge for Japan but smaller than the ones we always had back home. 5 kg is about the maximum that will fit in my mother-in-law's oven, though.
She doesn't use the built-in oven, hadn't used it in many years ( not needed for Japanese cooking), so she had the gas co. guy come over and check it before we cooked last year.
Last weekend when we were dropping off food for the feast, she said sure enough she hadn't used it sinced I cooked the turkey last year.
