mochi mochi
sorry for the quietness... it's been madness as usual, but remarkably tame in the "interesting things to say category".
last weekend, t and s and i took a mochi making class last weekend... technically speaking, it was a "fruit daifuku" class... an important distinction to make when you're actually in the country of japan (ehem, hehehe).

i had been looking for cool wedding spots for miss mcclellan, and happened upon the event calendar for the garden. shama and i were pretty stoked to learn how to make this in the hope that perhaps we would be able to replicate my absolute favortist treat in japan: train-station mochi. i don't really know what the j-name is for it, but it's made up of cake and fruit and cream, conveniently wrapped like a little pillow of heavenly goodness. mmm, mouth is watering just thinking of it.

the cool thing about the class, other than being in the middle of the beautiful japanese friendship garden, was that it was totally hands-on... ironically, this happened to be the bad thing about the class as well, as mochi dough is exTREMEly sticky. you could trap bears with the stuff. i was surprised we didn't bend any spoons or leave a man behind. there wasn't enough starch in the world for me to feel like i wasn't going to be smacky-tacked to everything i touched.

by the time we were done, we each had about 10 balls of mochi-wrapped sweet red bean paste and fruit. i eventually ended up either giving away the rest of mine away, or extracting the fruit and munching on the dough (too much red bean makes me a sick girl). i do know, however, that the others' didn't quite fare the same fate, as they took a tumble or 2 (perhaps even straight into the trashcan). and now that we have the recipe, we may venture into crafting our own little pillows of heaven... as long as we don't become tragically ensnared in mochi.