In January, all students enjoyed cooking the setsubun recipes. Setsubun is the last day of the winter season in old Japanese calendar dated February 3rd.
Miso making classes also started in January.
In my garden, there were a lot of daffodils and yellow plum flowers, so I displayed them as table flowers

The welcome drink was plum, sesame, and barley tea. The color was red, so it looked like happy tea.
Everybody loved it.
Menu of the regular Japanese class:
Rolled cabbage Japanese style, Mix tofu, apple, and walnuts, Taro and sardine, dried soy beans rice,
Chinese cabbage soup, dried persimmon yogurt.

They say we have to eat dried sardine and dried soy beans on the day of “Setsubun(the last day of winter)”
But a lot of people don’t like eating whole dried sardines.
Then I decided to make minced dried sardines, and mix with grilled taro.
We enjoyed Grilled taro which were soft inside and crispy outside.
We used olive oil but taste was Japanese.
　
We made dried soybean rice using the left over beans from the beans throwing event, “Get away evils and invite happiness.”
Rolled cabbages cooked in Japanese broth and cut into bite- size pieces, then poured sauce on it.

We made dried persimmons made from bitter persimmons in my garden.
The dessert was mixed soybean yogurt, thin sliced persimmon, and soybean powder.

There is a lot of vegetable lactic acid in it. It was really good for health.
I gave some of the lactic acid to students as a New Year’s present.
They will become more and more beautiful.
I gave some special lesson to students who were so busy in November and December so they couldn’t have enough time to learn.
We made New Year’s dishes and Miso.

New Year’s dishes can be kept longer than usual dishes so you can make them anytime.
They looked really happy so I was happy, too. I hope they will make them at the end of this year.
They also enjoyed making Miso. They did it for the first time. We hope it will become good Miso after one year.

The schedule for February and March
“Let’s make Japanese cooking”
2/12(Tue)・15(Fri)・17(Sun)・21(Thu)・23(Sat)・27(Wed))・3/12(Tue)・15(Fri)・18(Mon)・21(Thu)・27(Wed)

“Let’s enjoy afternoon tea”
2/25(Mon)・2/28(Thu)・3/28（Thu）

Private lesson is available.　Please don’t hesitate to contact u