Childhood Memories ...

Lunchbox that makes me feel nostalgic... I went for a sketching excursion yesterday, and this was the lunch I brought with me. This time I didn't want to spend too much time on it, so I went for something quick & easy and also very popular when I was a kid. See the artificially-colored, bright-red fish meat sausages? Don't they look really bad for your health? I never buy this kind of sausages any more, but in my childhood, kids (including myself) were crazy about them, especially when they were shaped like these: Tulips, crab and octopus Gee, I still remembered how to do this! In my elementary school days, I practiced this quite a lot when I packed lunch for my younger sister's school excursion. We also loved to have the crab- and octopus-shaped ones in our yakisoba (stir-fried noodles). About other things in the lunchbox: Tamagoyaki (fried eggs or rolled omelet): Usually kids like it sweet, but my mom's mother sometimes made savory one for me. The eggs are seasoned with salt, soy sauce and MSG but no sugar, and chopped scallions (often with dried baby fish) are added. It's important to fry thoroughly until it looks slightly brown in order to bring out the natural, subtle sweetness of the soy sauce and eggs. I made the savory kind today. The cucumber stick in chikuwa (steamed and grilled fish cake ): This always comes in handy. No seasoning necessary, and looks kind of nice in a lunchbox. And for making this kind of rice balls, I never use plastic wrap. These are the typical ones my mom always made in my childhood, and at that time, plastic wrap was probably already invented but not yet popular in my hometown. So, the image of this kind of rice balls was imprinted in me without the plastic wrap, and now I just can't relate them in my mind.