What do umi-bozu, macha pound cake and shodo have in common?

They were all part of my busy last week, which was so packed with visits and adventure that today I have a head cold and am staying home to do chores instead of anything remotely exotic

But here is my week in three parts:

1) A thankyou letter and umi-bozu art!

This week at Dongara District High School, I also recieved a thankyou letter and some art…COOL!

I was also lucky enough to get several thankyou speeches from students, and that’s always a thrill.

(BTW, I think you’re very brave to speak in front of all your friends and classmates) (I find it’s much harder to speak in front of people I know than total strangers).

So thank you for your thank yous! I loved them!!

2) A chance to try shodo!

Over the weekend I did a ‘meet the author’ session for a fundraiser for the International Board on Books for Young People at the Hyogo Centre as part of an afternoon of fabulous presentations, one of which was made by the ‘Kobe Girls’, Miki and Maiko.

It was great! I was able to try:

– shodo calligraphy (harder than it looks!),

– sumi-e ink painting (impossible!), AND

– the girls had cooked up a storm of modan-yaki (like okonomiyaki but with more ingredients), gopan (rice bread) and macha pound cake (green tea flavoured cake) for everyone to enjoy. YUM!

3) A recipe for macha pound cake!

Here is Miki and Maiko’s recipe for macha pound cake:
おいしい！

Macha pound cake

90g sugar
90g butter
1 egg
90g flour
10g macha powder (check out your local Japanese food store for this)
1g baking power
30g azuki beans

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Melt the butter, mix in the the sugar, then the egg, then the flour, macha and baking powder.

Add the azuki and bake for 30 minutes. YUM!

For more on the fundraiser…

For more on IBBY’s fundraising efforts for Japan, check out the IBBY website.

Read more about the project (in Japanese) at: http://www.ehonproject.org/iwate/

To read an article by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper go to: Picture books bring smiles to young earthquake victims

To donate funds to the IBBY-Japan 2011 project go to: IBBY Children in Crisis Fund

Please mark your donations IBBY-Japan Appeal