Live and Learn -- Tempura --

My tempra ... This was my first time that I made tempra for lunch. It is a national holiday in Japan today, and the weather is gorgeous. I only have to work at night, so I decided to go for one of my secret projects before I go to work. Have you seen Japanese cookbooks which have some photos of tempura served not on a plate but in a basket-like thing? Ever since I saw a picture like that somewhere, that has been my dream. Yes. Serving tempra in a basket-like container with beautiful autumn leaves. So I just did it! (Unfortunately maple leaves haven't turned red yet around here....) These are supposed to represent chestnuts, not sea urchins. They have boiled ginkgo nuts inside, surrounded by mashed potatoes. The needle-like thing coating the mashed potato balls are dry soba noodles broken into pieces. They are not regular soba, though… they are called cha-soba, which are colored green by adding ground green tea to buckwheat flour. (I got this cha-soba as a souvenir from one of my relatives last summer, and completely forgot about it until recently.) Yes, I made those sea ur....NO, chestnuts-looking tempura myself, and it was part of the challenge required in this project. The cha-soba coating is very crunchy and tasty with green-tea flavor while still hot. After these cha-soba coated balls cooled down ---- they were a weapon rather than food. Well, live and learn.....