Do-it-yourself Sushi Night

For those of you that don't know it, I' am a Japanese food fanatic, especially SUSHI & SASHIMI. Here in my City not may places know how to make it (plus it's expensive), and there are no Japanese restaurants, soooooo I taught myself how to cook Japanese food and make Sushi (courtesy of amazon.com).

Enrico & I thought that it would be fun to have some of his work buddies of to have a do-it-yourself night and bond with them. We all took part in buying ingredients and making it.

Table all ready to start!

Mikki thinks she's Japanese! Shushi 101

Sushi 101!

And this is how we roll!

Yummy Yakitory marinating in teryaki sauce

(Chicken Skewers)

Yakitory 焼き鳥/やきとり/ヤキトリ

Enrico filleting tuna

Table ready!

Say Sushi!
Sashimi and Nigiri creations

Nigirizushi 握り寿司 & Sashimi 刺身

Sushi Rolls

Makizushi 巻寿司

Sashimi 刺身

Nigirizushi 握り寿司

Nigiri

Nigirizushi 握り寿司

We had a fun night!

"Scarpetta"

A "scarpetta" is when you take your bread and clean your plate from the yummy juice or sauce that's left on it! Etiquette says that it's bad manners to do it at a restaurant buuuuuut, you may do it at home! And when you have guests over, and they ask you if they can do "scarpetta" well, to the cook (me), it's a great honor meaning that what you cooked was sooo good, that they need to get the last bit in! And so scarpetta it was at our house!

They literally put pieces of bread into the pot to soak up the yummy juice from the mussel sauce!

After dinner we played UNO and had a "self inflatable camping mat" contest. The guys were showing off their gear and were all: "oh oh! mine's the best".

(yes they had their gear in the car, "be prepared" right"?)

The judges Mary, Luana, Me and Giulia

The Guys: Bebe, Diego and Enrico.

We were laughing soo hard!

Bebe & Luana brought their new born Carlo along,

so I took advantage to get a few pix!

He is just the calmest and happiest new born!!

Carlotta's FIRST day of School!

Today my niece Carlotta started 1st grade! I couldn't miss taking her to school and getting some pictures of her!

Here in Italy we start school late, and each Region can choose which day to start between the dates of September 13th and 20th. In the south we start later because of the heat, while in the north they start earlier so that they can have "snow days"

The school sign

Cristiana, Raffaele & Carlotta

Carlotta & I

Throughout elementary school, children are asked to wear these blue uniforms over their clothes or "bibs"as they call them here and depending on what grade they are in, they will receive a different color bow to wear around the collar.

The "bibs" have 2 functions:

1. so that they don't mess up their clothes

2. so that the kids are all the same and no jealousy about clothing can come up.

Gabri tagged along with us too!

Happy 1st day of school Carlotta!

Busy Busy Busy!

Just been really busy babysitting in the morning, teaching in the afternoons, trying to get the last days of summer soaked in and keeping our social life a float ;-) !!

So blogging has just been put on my "to do" list! ;-)