Photos of the food!

A pretty typical dinner. Everyone gets their own rice bowl and soup bowl and a little plate. We eat family style, which means you just dip your chop sticks into the big serving plates in the middle and pile a bite or two onto your little plate or into your rice bowl. There is a distinct flow to this way of eating. It feels like being on a freight train...no one eats until everyone is on board, in the beginning, it's polite to hold back a bit, a few bites here, a few bites there, contemplating the taste and texture. I tend to go mmmmmmm, oishi! a lot, but I think it's more polite to just enjoy in silence. How much you take of a given dish shows whether you like it or not. After the initial tasting, there's kindof a shoveling momentum that builds up as the meal-train gets going. As the food dwindles, there's an energetic shift and everyone begins to take bites more slowly, eventually devolving into occassional listless picking. The last few bites are offered around (whether you want something or not, it's polite to offer it to another (it's rude to just take the last few bites...possibly worse to take the secondto last bite, cuz that forces someone else to take the last if they are still hungry. This is a bummer) and wait hopefully for someone to offer to you). Then the tea is poured (we drink tea 5 times a day! so weird...) as the last stragglers finish their food and no one gets up until everyone is finished with their tea. All the together time took some getting used to. A few days ago, I didn't feel like drinking anymore black tea or eating anymore sweets and I wanted to meditate for a while, so I asked to take afternoon tea in my room. Keiko said ok (well, she said "er, er, er" emphatically while nodding her head), so I did. When I came out, 3 people approached me and asked if I was ok with sincere concern. The other American WWOOFer and I decided we need to put up some hammocks so we can rest at tea time where they can still see us. The collective energy is so tangible here...

I digress, here's the food:

A feast for 11 farmers:

Solstice celebration! Challa and stuffed zucchini a la Mare :)

Our happy farming family: