One of the side effects of Lynda's stroke last February was her
UAE doctor requiring her to have business class or higher seats on our return
flight home from Dubai. Once Lynda's return to normal were confirmed Tim put
down his foot and declared that any further travels of over 10 hours would be
done in business class. Thus the 15 hour flight to Tokyo was done in relative
comfort. It is still an arduous trip but much better then in economy. Once we
arrived in Japan, the first thing we noticed that surprised us was that the
Japanese vehicles are right hand drive similiar to England. We boarded the ship
about 5:30 on Wednesday to discover that we were among the last passsengers to
board. Once we unpacked and had dinner we were two exhausted travelers. We awoke
Thursday morning much refreshed and energized. Our morning excursion was to
visit Mt.Fuji. Our first stop was the Hagoromo no Matsu, The Hororomo Pine. The
tree we saw was the 3rd iteration of this tree that grows in the Miho Shrine.
This particular tree is over 300 years old and serves as the landmark for The
Shinto Spirits desending to the Miho Shrine. It resides in a large, picturesque
grove of pine trees that overlook a black sand beach on the Pacific Ocean. We
walked from the tree to the Miho Shrine. We did not actually go into the shrine
but our Japanese guide showed us how she bows before the shire two times and
then claps her hands together two times and then offers a prayer of thanksgiving
to the Shinto deity. After her prayer she bows once more, no hand clapping this
time. Near the shrine was a fount where shintos use a dipper to pour water over
their hands and then drink water from the fount as an act of cleansing
themselves of evil spirits. There was also a box where one could have their
future told. You made a monetary offering and then reached into the box where
you pulled out a slip of paper that indicated your future was either "high",
"medium" or "low". Next to this box were two posts with ropes strung between
them where you hung this paper. Tim, being the smart-ass that he sometimes is,
asked if he could get a second slip of paper if you didn't like your first one.
Our tour guide, showing great patience, gently told Tim "no". From the Miho
Shrine we took a very scenic drive up a large hill where we were to get
spectacular views of Mr.Fuji. Unfortunately Mt. Fuji was shrouded in low hanging
clouds so our only views of Mr.Fuji were the large pictures of this famous site
that our tour guide showed us. We were very disappointed.
Thursday afternoon we
attended a cooking class. Our ship, the S.S. Explorer, was the first ship in
Regent Seven Sea's fleet to have a teaching kitchen built in it. Two other ships
have since also had this feature included. There were 20 of us in the class,
each having their own cooking station. We prepared three different dishes, each
recipe individually sized, during the two hour class. For each dish we would
gather around the chef's station as she demonstrated how to prepare the dish.
While she was doing this, two assistants would place all of the pre-measured
ingredients on our station in the order we were to use them. All of the dishes
were reasonably easy to prepare. The first was a duck confit and watermelon
salad served in a small martini style glass. We were shown how to cut the slice
of watermelon at our station into like size cubes and how to dice our fresh
herbs, mint, basil, and cilantro leasves. The duck confit was seasoned with
hoisin sauce. The salad also included cashews. Chili-infused honey was drizzled
over the top of the assembled salad. We were each served a small glass of wine
while we sampled our dish. It was an easy and tasty way to ease into the class.
Our next recipe was B'stilla Domes. B'stilla Domes are basically a moroccan
chicken pie done in puff pastry. The chicken had already been cooked but we had
to cook the grated onion and add the many spices as well as almonds and pine
nuts, raisins, and a bit of ginger juice. This was all added to the chicken.
Using puff pastry cut in a circle we put the pastry in a small glass bowl and
pushed the pastry in place as you would pastry in a pie pan. The chicken filling
was placed in the pastry filled bowl and then the edges of the pastry were
folded over to create a seal. While we watched a demonstration of our last dish,
the assistant put an egg wash on our domes and put them in the oven. The recipe
was for prosciutto-wrapped prunes. This was also an easy dish to prepare. We
took four halves of dried prunes and created a bit of a saucer effect in each. A
ball of gorganzola cheese mixed with diced walnuts and sherry infused dried
cheeries was placed in one of the prune halves and capped with another prune
half. This "oreo" like ball was then placed at the end of a thin slice of
prosciutto and rolled creating a wrap. A tooth pick was put through the wrap to
hold it together and then placed in a small saute pan with a bit of olive oil
and lightly seared on both sides. We then ate these with a small glass of
prosecco. Elegant and delicious. By this time our B'stilla Domes were done. We
dusted them with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. There were three different
dipping sauces we could try with each bit of the pie. One was a green sauce made
with parsley, cilantro and mint leaves, garlic, grilled serrano pepper and
grapeseed oil mixed in a food processor. The second was a sultana sauce made
with rehydrated raisons, butter and lime juice pureed together. The last was a
walnut mint labneh containing greek yogurt, chopped walnuts and chopped mint
leaves. It was a wonderful two hours, plus we have a small book of recipes
including the three that we made.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment