New and Old--Food, Friends, and Names

I had my first taste last night of kinilaw, a Philipino dish made from small cubes of raw tuna, diced onion, hot pepper, and lime juice, with perhaps a few ingredients I didn't detect.  It was delicious, made by Tanya Martin-Nisly, who lived and worked in the Philippines for one year when she was 19.

The occasion was a Japanese-food-making gathering at Jonathan and Tanya Wenger's house.  Jonathan spent some of his growing up years in Japan, and he has the interest and cooking skills to keep alive some of the food traditions he acquired there.  Also present, besides his wife and children were Ruth, another American who lived in Japan with her family and now resides in Canton, KS, Jonathan's parents (His mom is the daughter of John Landis, former pastor at Yoder Mennonite.), Kevin and Tanya Martin-Nisly and their children (neighbors to us when we lived on the farm), and Dennis, a cousin of the Wengers.  When we arrived, I spied Caroline, daughter of my cousin Arlyn, and niece to Wesley, our school's principal.  She was there to play with the Wenger girls.  The familiar faces among the eclectic mix of people were a surprise.  I had never met our hosts before, although Hiromi had--at Wal-Mart.

Six or so of us gathered in the kitchen to cook, each taking charge of a certain piece of the food preparation process.  Hiromi soon established his credentials as a skilled wielder of a chef's knife on the cutting board, and all sorts of food items passed through his work station-- wakame (seaweed), carrots, shiitake (mushrooms), sashimi (raw fish), tamago (very thin egg omelet), kuri (cucumber), etc.  I mixed the eggs and fried the omelets and later, cut up the chinese cabbage pickles Jonathan had made ahead of time.   Ruth, Jonathan's mom, and I rolled the maki sushi and Hiromi cut the rolls into sections, like a jelly roll.  Ruth made the miso soup.

Several of the dishes were new to me.  One of them was cucumber pickles seasoned partly with red shiso ( also called oriental basil, perilla, or beefsteak plant).  They were a beautiful magenta color, perhaps with the aid of some additional food coloring.  I could see why it is the Wenger children's favorite pickle.   Another new dish was a salad made from seaweed and cucumbers.  So good.

Jonathan told us just where in KC to buy the best, freshest fish for sushi.  He had bought tuna, yellowtail, and mackerel.  I'm not sure if we had any of the mackerel or not.  Hiromi told me on the way home that he once broke out in hives after eating mackerel, so he would probably have declined the mackerel if he had been offered it.

Hiromi noted that, because the Wengers  had lived in Hokkaido, much closer to the ocean than where Hiromi grew up in inland southern Japan, they were apparently used to eating a lot of seafood.  The maki sushi Hiromi was used to, for example, had no raw fish in it, but the Wengers were used to raw fish in the center of their sushi rolls.

On the way home, Hiromi said, "It was a full day, but it was fun."  Exactly.

*********************

Tanya Wenger is a Mennonite pastor, and Jonathan apparently is Mr. Mom in the family, although baby Joanna, who is three months old, was in her mother's care most of the time we were there.  There are two or three older children also.  I didn't get everyone sorted out, because of all the friends and cousins who were present.

********************

One of the things we talked about around the table was the housing situation in Hutchinson,  (Not sure how we landed on that subject.)  and I got an interesting perspective on why the housing stock seems to be declining.  Jonathan thinks the fundamental problem is a lack of high-paying jobs in the area.  Without sufficient funds, people are simply forced to put up with lower quality housing than is ideal.  The history of this situation is what caught my interest.

Apparently, when Interstate Highway 35 was being planned, the route was originally slated to pass through Hutchinson.  Only after a meeting with some of the movers and shakers in Hutchinson was the route diverted east to pass through Wichita instead.  Jonathan had heard rumors that those who didn't want 35 in Hutchinson were members of a prominent family in the grocery store business, because they were fearful that the economic boost the highway would bring would force wages upward.  This would, of course, make hiring workers more expensive.

Jonathan heard from naysayers who didn't think the "guilty parties" really did that.  Eventually, however, he heard from his neighbor that another neighbor told him personally that he was present at the meeting when the "diversion" was promoted, and the initial report Jonathan heard was apparently accurate.

I'm still shaking my head, and feeling a little angry.

From many angles, I see the havoc created when people in responsible positions operate with selfish personal agendas.  No one who witnesses such behavior does anyone a favor by not challenging the behavior.  A protest is not guaranteed to bring about change, but it at least opens the door to a new perspective.  Speaking up is part of what I see as the Christian duty to be a faithful witness.

********************

Has anyone besides my brother Lowell noted that if the first names of two individuals in the news recently had been John or Jacob instead of Trayvon and George, the names could just as easily have come out of a horse and buggy Mennonite community as a suburb of Sanford, FL?  Martin and Zimmerman--both good Mennonite names in some places, but the Florida men definitely not entirely acting like good Mennonites in the situation that made them famous.

********************

BTW, I had been reading about some of the outrage from people who thought the president irresponsibly inserted race into the above scenario.  I read what he said and thought,  What's unreasonable about what he said?  The thing I remember him saying is "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon." Could it have been more innocuous than that? Last week one of the syndicated columnists whose column appears in the Hutch News articulated exactly my thoughts, far more compellingly than I could have.

Later the president also referenced some of  his own experiences in being held in suspicion because of his race--being followed by clerks or security people while he was shopping, hearing the locks of car doors clicking into place as he approached.  I noted that he did not, however, mention something that he wrote about in his autobiographical story Dreams From my Father.  His grandmother, whom he loved dearly, and who raised him through a sizable portion of his childhood, once told her husband, when young Barry overheard her, that she doesn't feel safe anymore in taking the usual route to her workplace, because a group of  young men had begun to frequent one spot along the route.  He heard her say that they were black.  In the ears of a young adolescent, it was a sudden revelation of how others perceived people of his race--even his grandmother, who had shown him nothing but kindness.  He was devastated, and for a time hated who he was.  He did not willingly identify with blacks till much later.

The columnist I read lamented the fact that the president has made so little of racial matters.  He believes that much remains to be done, and valuable opportunities  are being lost.   The entire column can be read here.  As Gerson points out, it's perfectly reasonable for a person with a position of responsibility to reference his own life experiences in carrying out a role he has chosen or been thrust into.  This can be done unselfishly.  After all, if one does not reference his own experiences, how would it be better to only reference other people's experiences, or to avoid the issues altogether?  We all want to see some redeeming value in the the hard things we've encountered in life, and when a president demonstrates commonality with the rest of us for wanting that also, I have no criticism of that impulse.

*********************

North central Kansas is getting many inches of rain, and flooding is occurring.  The driveway has bigger puddles here than at any time in the past three years, but much of the rain has bypassed us, and it looks like it might be over for tonight, unlike the situation elsewhere in Kansas.  Overnight, more rain is expected southeast of us also, in areas that previously had heavy rain.  Flooding is anticipated in those areas too.