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.
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Since the morning, so many people showed up to the festival all day long.
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My demonstration and tasting started at 11.30am. I made two rice dishes with double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san.
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Jason was my volunteer assistant...he did a fabulous job!
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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!
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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.
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After the demonstration, I was also invited as one of the judges for Japanese rice ball, "Onigiri" making contest.
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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!
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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
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At the end of the contest, winners were announced.
It was a real fun event!
Happy donabe life.