The McMinnville Moorheads: Fantastically Food-filled Saturday!

Today was the Verbort Sausage festival that McKenzie has been looking forward to since last year when we left it! He, a friend and Emma made their way out there today and met up with Grandma Valerie and had a great time eating sausages and all the sides!

Meanwhile, I had the pleasure of returning to Uwajimaya with my mom, Sydney and two Japanese exchange students from Linfield Akari and Ayaka! We had an amazing time. I had a list
of items that I have been wanting for my bento

creations plus I was very excited to learn more about the items in the store since the majority are written in Japanese and we had friends with us who not only speak the language but also were able to guide us to the best products and share their favorite items with us!

Akari and Ayaka had a great time visiting the store as well. They have been in the States since the beginning of the school term and they were very excited to pick up some familiar snack foods and condiments. Here you can see us browsing the snack aisle. The girls had also brought a
shopping list so that we could purchase items for

cooking an authentic meal for dinner. We had a lot of fun finding the items on their list and also asking questions about other items.

Sydney however, after people watching for awhile decided to take a snooze as we finished our trip. She really did such a good job! She loves being out and about as long as we are constantly on the move and keeping her moving around!

Once we finished our shopping we headed out into the dreary, but not rainy Oregon weather and headed back to my house to begin our evening full of cooking.

We had a fantastic meal! Emma and McKenzie arrived home shortly after us and joined in the fun. Our guests put together a feast. We started off with green tea and salty/sweet rice crackers before the cooking commenced. Then Akari and Ayaka worked together making Oyako-Don an egg and chicken dish served over white sticky rice. They also created a delicious Miso soup with a special fish seasoning, seaweed strips and tofu. In addition we steamed some pork buns and some purple yam buns. We also had a salad with ginger soy dressing and some sushi and onigiri rice balls that I put together as the girls worked in the kitchen.

We all really enjoyed the feast, Emma even tried to use chopsticks...and then pretended the table was a drum for the rest of the meal! I'm looking forward to when the join us for Thanksgiving, Akari says she will teach me the correct way to roll my sushi! I can't wait! See below for more pictures!