But! The point is, when they mentioned sukiyaki, my mom and my sister and I basically freaked out because sukiyaki is so delicious and happy and wonderful! Plus, we made sushi at my house yesterday (obviously that is the best way to celebrate the 4th of July), so I have been craving Japanese food.

I love sukiyaki because every year on Christmas, our family friends that we've known since I was three years old come over and we put two, giant, electric frying pans on the table (we always have one vegetarian pan) and eat sukiyaki! Every region of Japan makes it differently, but when we have it, we have really thinly sliced beef, spinach, bamboo shoots, tofu, mushrooms, shirataki (yam noodles), and scallions, and it all cooks in this soy-sauce-and-sake-and-something mixture, and everything absorbs the sauce. Everybody has their own bowl of rice (we don't do the raw-egg thing), and you just pick whatever you want from the pan with your chopsticks, and whenever you start to run out of something, you just put more in! Everyone drinks Japanese beer, and it is basically the best Christmas dinner ever.
We've tried making it in the summer before, but it's just not the same. Sukiyaki is pretty magical all the time, but it's insanely good when it's cold outside. When I have my own house full of thick-knit sweaters and cooking appliances and a J.Crew husband, I will make sukiyaki all the time in the winter when it is snowing and cold outside!
Love, Jillian
Oh my goodness, I love sukiyaki.
ReplyDeleteI took Ryan to meet my Japanese grandmom and she made some for us, and he kept calling it kawasaki.
But he also calls my grandmom Konichiwa.
ha.