Today I went back to the gym. Didn't in the least feel like doing so – the temperature hasn't dipped below 30 in our house for several days except when we dare to use our air con. One of the trainers commented that I'd been away for a couple of weeks and I told her of our visitors. Her first comment was, "Whoa, all that cooking, that's tough!" Or something equivalent to that in Japanese!
It was a bit of an exercise, cooking for nine in a Japanese kitchen. But I'm happy to say that it all went well and I had heaps of help. At times I had too many helpers for jobs. The thing that amazed me the most was that we still managed to have leftovers! It is in the back of my mind that we're close to entering more than a decade of teenage boys, so cooking for larger numbers was an interesting exercise.
In order to prepare for this event I drew up a schedule. There were so many ideas of what to do that it made sense to see how it fitted in the time available. Then I just added meals to the schedule. The meals were a little tricky. Not only did I need to look for meals that weren't hard and that kids who've never been in Japan might like, but I needed to keep in mind (as usual) that some things are expensive or hard to get. Like cheese and meat.
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| We had to extend our dining room table. |
Here is what I ended up with:
They arrived Friday late.
Saturday:
Lunch sandwhiches
Dinner nachos and salad
Sunday:
L: Noodles
D: Out with Japanese friends at a Japanese restaurant
Monday:
L: Convenience store picnic in the park (rice balls etc.)
D: Macaroni cheese (from scratch)
Tuesday:
Travel day to the mountains.
L: Buy on the run.
D: Hot dogs
Wednesday:
L: BYO Sandwich picnic at Volcano museum
D: Spaghetti Bolognaise (by our friends)
Thursday:
L: Buy lunch at roadside stall near famous waterfall
D: Yakisoba (Fried pork and noodles)
Friday:
L: Sandwiches for guys and kids and eat out for ladies who were shopping
D: Chicken wraps (by our friends)
Saturday:
L: Sandwich picnic at another waterfall after a walk
D: Left overs
Sunday:
L: Sandwiches
D: Japanese curry rice
Monday: (Tiny bit of shopping at outlet mall plus visiting the German Toy Museum and Children's Literature Museum)
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| Yakiniku restaurant |
L: Yakiniku (restaurant – cooking our own meat at our tables before eating it with rice)
D: Pizza on tortillas using up leftovers
Tuesday:
Travel day and day at large park, Shinrin Park
L: Sandwiches
D: Udon restaurant (noodles)
Wednesday: (Tall building in the city plus the Imperial Palace)
L: Convenience store picnic in the city
D: Slow cooker meatballs on spaghetti plus left over macaroni cheese. This was a life saver because we came home late, exhausted and starving.
Thursday:
L: Sandwich picnic at Disney
D: Pizza and popcorn at Disney
Friday:
L: Sandwiches at home
D: Slow cooker Satay Chicken
Saturday:
L: Sandwiches
Our visitors left after lunch
I thought it was a pretty reasonable menu before we started. At least my kids would like it, so I figured others would probably too.
However I didn't reason on such things as a dislike of sauce on pasta, on them never having had beans in mince (to help it go further) and a huge liking of cheese. We were shocked when their children piled on the grated cheese to their nachos. They were shocked when we vetoed that. Nice cheese is hard to get here (we usually buy it from Costco every few months or so), so we strictly ration it. That was something new to our friends – the rationing of cheese, but they put up with our limitations very well.
I'm glad that I did a run of baking before they arrived because the children didn't really take to standard Japanese snacks well either. The brownies and other home baked goodies fared much better.
The other thing I didn't anticipate is that our children's appetites would be so dissimilar. My boys ate heaps more than their children did at main meals. That did help with producing left-overs, but I did tend to give them too large portions which caused problems sometimes at meals. It also meant I felt somewhat anxious that I couldn't give them food that they'd like and that they'd be hungry soon after the meal like my kids would be if they'd eaten that little.
Thankfully they brought quite a lot of cereal with them so that their children had food they liked for breakfast. And white bread with strawberry jam is readily available, so even if the offerings were unliked, there were alternatives.
Children and food! How it causes stress. Travelling with children has its own special difficulties, especially when you travel overseas. I remember when we first left for Japan and spent several weeks in Singapore when our eldest was only 18 months old. We spread Vegemite on almost everything in order to get him to eat something!
All in all, though, it went fairly well. Even the washing up, spread between four adults, wasn't a problem. We washed up about four or five times a day because of our sheer numbers and lack of space. But I do have to admit that I'm happy to be back to my five people to feed.
3 comments:
We had the reverse happen at Easter - missionary friends from PNG coming to stay at our house. We are a family of five and they are a family of six. I have a bigger kitchen and access to all of the usual Western foods, but I was still daunted! It's a logistical challenge to think ahead, especially if you are out and about doing things and need to come home and eat. And with children that usually means, "eat right NOW" before the really cranky behaviour sets in. I take my hat off to you!
Wendy and David were brilliant - the best Japanese Tour Guides ever!!!
Evelyn is too kind. There were definitely things we could have done better, like be more patient!
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