Zarusoba

Above photo: This type of lychee was very easy to peel and was delicious: refreshing and sweet.

Yesterday, Jeff and I visited our friends John and Kristen for dinner. I returned John's German language books and brought Kristen her bag of Casablanca tea (mint and bergamot), thanking her for telling us about Mariage Frères in Paris. Someday I hope to go back to browse that wonderful tea shop at leisure as well as visit the tearoom and the tea museum.

I hadn't seen John and Kristen in a while, not since Kristen got pregnant (!). She kindly agreed to let me take a profile shot:



Pregnancy definitely suits her; I thought she looked radiant. She's due at the end of August. Their 2 1/2 year old son is darned cute, and is learning to speak Japanese as well as English. My next language project, by the way, is learning Japanese. John and Kristen have given me permission to practice on them. :-)

John prepared zarusoba, and we dined outside in their backyard. Zarusoba basically consists of soba (buckwheat noodles) which you can dip into a sauce made from mirin, soy sauce and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes). From John's online recipe: "This is a basic recipe that can be enhanced based on your tastes and the contents of your fridge. Finely chopped green onions, wasabi and raw quail eggs are commonly offered for addition to each serving of taré. Nori is often cut into slivers and sprinkled on the soba. Tempura is often served so that you can dip it in the taré too; we use up any leftovers from the previous night's barbecue (salmon, grilled vegetables) straight from the fridge."





What a wonderful idea for a summer meal! I'm definitely going to try this.

John also gave me some of their shiso plants, which I've added to my herb garden to use in my Japanese cooking. I've already used a number of my herbs in my cooking this year including parsley, basil, chives, thyme and oregano. Lately I've been making mint tea from fresh peppermint sprigs, also from our herb garden.

Thanks, John and Kristen!

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. My column topic this week: "Writing inspiration follow-up." I've also posted a survey question about online writing communities.

Still catching up on the e-mails that queued up during the past week (see yesterday's Blathering), thanks for your patience.

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[Mcclure25Bethany]

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