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12/16/23 Sayuri’s note
In November, our family went to Yamanashi, Japan where my Mom and sister’s family live. We hadn’t been able to visit for four-and-a-half years, so we were very happy to see everyone. Before we left, we were lucky to be able to help the whole family pick persimmons from the eight trees in their yard. Three of the trees are the sweet variety, Fuyu, and the other five are an astringent type called Shibu. Shibu persimmons need to be peeled and dried to make them sweet and edible. They become amazingly sweet after drying. My mom and sister peeled and hung 660 Shibu persimmons to dry this year. They shared many persimmons with their neighbors and friends for them to peel and hang, or eat fresh if they were the Fuyu variety. We picked our persimmons in Georgia before we left for Japan and peeled and hung them to dry as soon as we got back. We were lucky they didn’t get too soft while we were gone. In all, we peeled and hung 220 persimmons to dry this year. Hopefully we’ll be able to share some of them with you soon!
Dec 21st is the winter solstice. Tonight’s soup is inspired by the tradition of my home state of eating miso based soup with flat thick noodles called Hoto with Kabocha and other vegetables on the winter solstice. It’s our comfort food. Kabocha is supposed to keep you healthy in the winter and it is always in our warm Hoto noodles in Yamanashi.
At Revival Gardens, we try to keep some vegetables like lettuce, spinach, arugula, daikon, napa cabbage, etc under the row covers so that we can extend their growing season into the winter. Some greens and some wild plants like wild onions are okay without row covers.
We had a bumper crop of potatoes and winter squashes this year. We are grateful to be able to share these vegetables with you tonight in the garden cottage pie (sometimes called shepherd’s pie), and fresh salad. Hopefully everyone will keep in good health and get some good news soon!
On the last day of the year, we have a custom of eating buckwheat noodles to help us pray for a thin and long life, rather than a thick and short life. On the desert crepes we put mint on it in the hope of giving you its strong life power. Next year will be the year of the dragon, so we hope your next year will be strong, healthy, more abundant, and flying up in a good direction like a dragon!
menu
soup
soup
kabocha squash soup with flat noodle and wild onions (onion, celery, garlic, milk, miso)
main
main
garden cottage pie (red potatoes, French lentils, peas, onion, carrots, mushroom, garlic, parmesan cheese, sour cream)
Fresh garden salad (Bergam’s green lettuce, arugula, kale, daikon radish, spinach) with ginger miso dressing
dessert
dessert
buckwheat banana crepes with black walnuts ice cream, chocolate mint leaf garnish, and chocolate sauce
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