Thursday, October 13, 2011

Doorstep gifts

When I first came to Japan my first stop when I arrived home from work each afternoon was my washing machine - which was just outside my front door. As well as being a brand new washing machine that was very capable of washing clothes, it also doubled as a mail box for any parcels that wouldn't slip into my tiny letter box. Care packages from New Zealand were always a huge highlight of my apartment life.
Now I tend to get a very different kind of care packages - usually vegetables from the in-laws or neighbours and very rarely with any kind of message attached to them to indicate who they are actually from - which makes it very difficult to do the very Japanese thing and return the favour with some eggs or excess veges that we have lying around here. Anyway, today we arrived home from piano to a little pile of shitake mushrooms. Actually there were only four of them, but they are HUGE! The last photo tries to show how big they are by comparing them to my son's hand - which is a pretty long hand.... He has just measured them and they are approximately 20cm in diameter! I'm presuming they are from the in-laws and I know I should be really grateful, but.... they are huge! I guess we will be having all kinds of mushroom things for the next few days. My son will not be happy!!!

4 comments:

  1. Holy Crap. That's some big shiitake there.

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  2. Anonymous7:17 pm

    WOW...huge is right! And I'll bet they are GOOD! I love mushrooms!

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  3. Anonymous10:24 pm

    Or you could spread the pain out for your son by slicing them up and drying or freezing them....
    Denise

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  4. Anonymous7:48 am

    Big but are they good to eat?

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