A Weekend With Mushrooms

Friday night after work I had a chance to go to an izakaya in Kobe with some of my former students. They invited me to come along, and I had a great time talking with everyone. They are shifting their focus from getting used to working at the company to starting to think about looking for a wife and starting a family. After the izakaya we stopped at a place I hadn’t been to in a long, long time – a small bar called Like Like. I have lots of good memories of drinking there with Antoine and Nell. The place hasn’t changed much, except for the staff, who probably have turned over many many times since I was there last.

Saturday I had the morning to myself, and then Kuniko made it back home relatively early so we could spend some time together at home before her party with Kori. Kori and her husband (who was acting as chauffeur) showed up around 5:30 and then Kori and Kuniko went out to eat at a local Korean restaurant. I haven’t been there, but it closes pretty early, even on a Saturday. The website says they are open until 8 pm, but Kuniko said the owner asked them if they wouldn’t mind leaving around 7:30, since they had finished their dinner and were just talking and drinking.

Meanwhile I was at home grilling some pork and eggplants, and playing video games.

Finally, we finished off the weekend with a trip over to Kakogawa to help Kuniko’s dad with the shiitake mushrooms. He introduced us to the process, and it was pretty simple.

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First he had a pile of logs that were of various lengths. We used a special drill bit to drill small holes in a special pattern all around the log. Next we reached into a bag of moldy pieces of wood. The mold was shiitake mold, and it was formed all over the pieces of wood – it looked like a big hunk of Camembert cheese. Then we inserted the wood into the previously drilled holes, and gave it a shot with the hammer to push it all the way in. We did a lot of logs, and the next stage is to place the logs upright around the farm and wait for the shiitakes to show up. I had a great time doing the work, but I’m a little sore this morning from all the bending and lifting.

We had some bento lunches that Kuniko’s mom had made for us, and enjoyed a cold beer too. It was perfect weather to sit out and enjoy.

As usual, we were sent home with a ton of vegetables freshly picked from the farm – several daikon radishes, and giant Sakurajima radish (about the size of a basketball), lots of lettuce, broccoli, koimo potatoes, spinach, three heads of Chinese cabbage, carrots, and more. This week will be a vegetarian week for us.

Tonight Kuniko has a work party to attend, so I’ll get started processing and eating all those veggies. I’m thinking I’ll skip the exercise bike until my muscles recover from all the soreness. I think I’d make a pretty lousy farmer…


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