I was invited to give a donabe rice-making demonstration and tasting at annual New Year Festival at Japan American National Museum in Downtown LA today. It was part of Japanese government-sponsored project to promote Japanese rice in the US in collaboration with Japanese Rice Export Association and Common Grains.
Since the morning, so many people showed up to the festival all day long.
My demonstration and tasting started at 11.30am. I made two rice dishes with double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san.
Jason was my volunteer assistant...he did a fabulous job!
We made two kinds of rice dishes, by using Koshihikari rice from Niigata, Japan. Rice with seasoned ground chicken topping ("torisoboro gohan") was the first kind we served. I made a huge batch of "torisoboro" in classic-style donabe, and 10-rice cup amount of rice with Kamado-san. Both were gone so quickly!
Orange butter rice was made in 2 jumbo-size Kamado-san. I was so glad people loved this, too. Both Kamado-san went empty in a matter of short time.
After the demonstration, I was also invited as one of the judges for Japanese rice ball, "Onigiri" making contest.
So many families participated in the contest. I think they did 6 rounds of it to accommodate all the people who made entry. It was so nice to see all the kids really having fun making their own unique onigiri!
It was time to do the judge. Other judges were the following cool people in the gourmet world. I judged kids (under 13 years old) category.
Evan Kleiman - KCRW Good Food - radio hostBetty Hallock - Los Angeles Times – food reporterJosh Lurie - Food GPS - bloggerRoxana Jullapat - Cooks County - chefDaniel Mattern - Cooks County - chef
At the end of the contest, winners were announced.
It was a real fun event!
Happy donabe life.
