Oct 30, 2017
Celebrating Halloween in Japan
Halloween Haaalloween, let's go trick or treating! This song has been playing in my head since my girls came home on October first. They learn it in English class and each year I'm proud that they get better and better at singing it. Also each year I look around me and see more and more Halloween decorations, advertisements for events, and just a larger embrace of the holiday overall. There are so many Jack-o-lanterns everywhere and on everything, from the produce at the supermarket to my morning coffee at the convenience store. I still miss the massive amount of decorations in nearly every yard or on every door back home, but seeing so many hints of halloween on merchandise and advertisements for events in nearby areas really gets me in the halloween spirit. Even my “mothering circle” made a nod at the holiday with a pumpkin muffin recipe. But unfortunately, at least in this area, orange pumpkins for pumpkin carving can be hard to find. Pumpkins everywhere, but no real pumpkin in sight. My friend in Tokyo found hers at a flower shop. But checking the ones near me, I didn’t come across any nice real pumpkins. There was an assortment of decorations though. And as always, the dollar stores here never let me down when it comes to holiday planning. But everyone seems to have the Daiso one hundred yen decor. So I decided I wanted to be a bit more creative in my odes to the spooky season. I made yarn spider webs, garbage bag spiders, and covered the room in tape and yarn and bags and plastic pumpkins. I wasn’t Halloweened out yet. Still craving to carve a pumpkin, I picked up a kabocha squash for cheap. Only two hundred yen, this was a steal. Most of the time, even in season, kabocha run about 500 yen for a full squash. Roughly 5 bucks, it’s still not so bad. But the problem with kabocha as a Jack-o-lantern, they have much thicker sturdier walls than the orange variety. These are no good for child carving. But, an adult being careful, I successfully hacked out a face into my squash. I used bento flower cookie cutters and hammered in the eyes. Then I cut the mouth out with a thin bladed knife, being careful not to slip. I just stabbed the outline of a mouth until it connected, instead of trying to carve the tough kabocha. Silly me didn’t take a picture though. And because the kabocha was dinner, it went into my tiny oven whole, to be baked until delicious. And cracked. But, oh well. Jack-o-lantern curry is now going on the menu again for halloween night. Along with a bit easier for my children to prepare, Jack-o-lantern bell pepper soup. Very simple to cut a face into and it convinced my kids to eat their bell peppers, this was a win all around. You could leave the bell pepper raw or bake it, stuff it with meat, curry, soup. The options are endless.
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