Dashi is a Soup Base Made from Bonito Flakes, Kombu, and Water

Last Thursday was my grandmother’s birthday, so a special happy birthday again to her here as I mention my gift for her: fresh, home-made sushi and miso soup! Granted, none of the sushi I made was raw, but it was still quite good. Here I must however pause to clarify: I am in no twist or vehement turn of the imagination culinary beyond my basic abilities of tea, sushi, variations on boiled water, and now the miso soup (which is basically just timing one’s tossing of things into boiled water, but it overcooks easily, so it gets an honourable mention out there on its own.) Despite my lack of kitchen know-how, I still can roll a decent piece of sushi, and my Oma loves it, thus her main gift from me this year was tasty in nature. Below I have included a few pictures of my sushi fun, which actually ensued on the evening before her birthday rather than the day of, but it stretched it out, and she enjoyed it nonetheless.
On Thursday itself I was put in charge of watching a five year old friend of the family that is, through all technicalities, my god sister. Allow me to pause once again and frantically explain that I am in no way, shape, or form adept at the care of wee ones, but this one is well behaved and thinks me the bee’s knees for some odd reason, so I became her personal sidekick for a few hours. We wandered about, played about the swing, painted, coloured, played soccer where the rules changed every two seconds, and even had time to build a fort that my cat easily destroyed when he pounced on it in search of a treat. Good times overall, and at the end of the day she was still alive and well enough to get excited about the toy in her Happy Meal when her mum arrived, so I consider it a mission accomplished.
I recently received a rather interesting challenge from a good friend of mine: to fill her voicemail box. In true knightly style I accepted and immediately began to fill it with tidbits of insanity. Now, these messages are no petite communications by any means; the average is probably around ten minutes in length, depending on when the machine cuts me off, but I did manage a twenty-five minute rant fest, but my coup de grace just may have been my fifty-nine minute, thirty second masterpiece that would make the best filibustering senators nod with approval while wiping away tears of pride. I’ve also done my share of filibustering in earnest, reading from the dictionary and The Song of Roland, but I did spice things up with a short little ‘noir’ piece where I played the part of the PI giving the standard in-head monologue as the next case walked in my door.

German Word: A Baum is a tree, and the OWU campus is covered in a variety of gorgeous trees, including the endangered ginko.

Pictures! And to finish things off, I offer a handful of pictures, most of which feature my sushi and the making thereof, but the last is Riley enjoying the fort we threw together.