I terribly miss Japanese New Year

Posted on Dec 15, 2011 in Hiroko's Blog

Next year will be my 14th year of living in America. “Kooin Ya no Gotoshi” This is the Japanese version of “Time Flies”. In the past thirteen years I did not celebrate the New years in the way in which I was raised and cherished – visiting a local temple before midnight of December 31st and listening to a temple bell tolling one hundred eight times; savoring a special New Year’s Feast, Osechi ryori, and ozoni (rice cake soup) with family members in the morning of New Year; visiting a local shrine and welcoming the year of the god and play for family’s health, happiness, peace and prosperous for the New Year. Today I very much miss the way how we celebrate New year in Japan. There is no temple and shrine near me in New York City, so I decided to prepare the proper Osechi ryori and enjoy it with family and friends at the New Year 2012 open house.

Osechi ryori are specially prepared New Year’s food items (served and consumed cold) which are packed in stack-upable jubako obento boxes, which are only used for New Year’s occasion. Every prepared food item goes into these boxes has its own reason to be there. As I prepare some of these items I will post the recipes, so you can join me the preparations. Let me start with Tazukuri – next post.