Scribbler's Cafe

The longest lunch

Lunch at Megumi's parents house in the country took about five hours. We sat in their shaded carport, around hot little grills covered in juice dripping meats and vegetables. Yakiniku. My favorite way to eat in Japan. As soon as the meat stops showing red, or as soon as the vegetables threaten to burn, you pluck them off the grill with your chopsticks, dip them in your bowl of sweet seaseme sauce and pop it in your mouth. Megumi's father also presented us with giant grapes the size of golf balls, which we peeled and ate like plums.

We ate so much. As soon as the food on the grills was getting low and I'd think we'd eaten all that we could, Megumi's mother would come outside with more platters of raw meat and chopped vegetables and cover the grills again. Our kids gave up on stuffing themselves and instead spent the rest of the afternoon using the garden hose to turn the dirt drive into a mud pen. The water rushed to the street and filled the deep gutters, which Kio and Masaki deemed their "pool" and jumped right in.

We sat in the shade eating and drinking tea and sipping beers and watching the kids run circles around us. Eventually, we roused ourselves for a short walk to the kiwi vines to pluck some fruit, but returned quickly to the shady carport. By then the kids had discovered a new use for the rubber boots we gave them to keep their feet dry. They would fill them to the brim with hose water, then slide their feet and legs into the cold water. They chased each other around in those water-filled boots - squish squish squish!

Megumi's English is still at a very beginner level, and her parents don't speak any at all. Kiomye had no problem, but I had to strain my brain to use Japanese to communicate. I managed fairly well, but there were definitely moments when I had no clue what we were talking about.

Late in the afternoon, the flow of food finally stopped. We dried off our kids, took a couple group pictures, then stuffed ourselves into Megumi's little car. We drove back in the papercuts between the mountains listening to the kids sing nursery rhymes in their native tongue. Dreamy and beautiful.

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, September 03, 2006