Tonjiru and Basketball

Today Kie's basketball team hosted three other teams for a day of short tournaments and hearty soup. The moms directly related to the elementary school that hosts Kie's team were in charge of the soup.

We met at the school at 8am to begin preparing. We borrowed a large pot (feeds 400!!) and a propane fueled burner from a local neighborhood association. The vegetable shop delivered the veggies at 8:30 and we started chopping.

We chopped up daikon (Japanese radish), carrots, onions, gobo (a long root), tofu, konyaku (devil's tongue), Japanese green onions, shimeji mushrooms, potatoes, and thinly sliced pork.


(Takeshi helped out for about two hours until he had to go to his baseball tournament which they unfortunately lost. He returned to watch the games around 3pm.) Once it was all chopped we dumped it into the boiling water, sat down, drank coffee and talked while we waited.

After about an hour we added the miso. Before we added the miso we realized that we needed more, so I was elected to go to the vegetable shop and get some. (I had my bike.) I stopped by the house to get some serving trays, dropped them off at the school and picked up the miso at the shop. We depleted their miso and were still short.




The shop owner's wife told me to wait and she went in and gave me the rest of her own miso from their kitchen. (Probably the reason it tasted so good was that we ended up putting it really good miso!!)
When it was done, we called the vegetable shop to come and take us and the soup to the school. Three of the ladies rode in back and I followed on bike.



We ended up serving soup for the next two hours and it stayed warm in the pot. It was really good, if I do say so!!!







Kei came and played on the Junior/Senior High team. The coach likes to use the older kids to give the top teams some good competition. Kei was the only Junior Higher. (#7 in the photo.)






Kie played well and we got to see her make some baskets as well as a free throw. She is blocking a player in this photo.


All in all a great day. Good basketball, good friends, good food, a good time and the family together for most of the day. We are very thankful.