Hello Monday

What a weekend!

Friday night we had some friends around for supper. Sadly, the vegetarian and partner couldn't make it as they were both feeling sick, but everyone else seemed to enjoy the roast veggie lasagne and warm chocolate pudding.

On Saturday morning, we went for our sushi-making adventure. My folks gave me a voucher for two for my birthday, and this is the first chance I've had to use it.

Can I just say that if you live in Joburg, like sushi and ever get the chance, you should do a course at Miya's. It is awesome! Chef Miyamoto is a fully qualified sushi chef (that means five years of training). After he'd explained how year one is spent just training in hygiene and cleaning, and year two is solely about how to cook the rice, I felt a bit bad that here was this group of South Africans all expecting to learn how to make sushi in just a few hours.

But he was really patient with us and his wicked sense of humour made it very entertaining. He was full of fascinating info about the differences between Japanese and South African sushi, how using a different type of rice affects the way you cook it, where the names of the sushi types come from and where to buy the best fish in Joburg. I was astounded to learn that there are only a handful of properly qualified sushi chefs in the country and that in Japan, you don't get wasabi to mix with your soy sauce - the chef just grates the horseradish into the sushi as he makes it.

It was a long morning (9.30am until just after 2pm), but we both had such a great time and really enjoyed eating the sushi we'd made (even though it didn't look as professional as Chef Miya's). Maybe I'll post some pics tomorrow.

After that, we rushed home, did a quick clean-up of the previous night's dishes and then our Zimbabwean mates Sarah and Phil arrived for a visit. I met Phil through my best friend, Nic, at varsity and then TSC became friends with him when he too moved to Cape Town. He was the MC at our wedding and is one of the most lively and entertaining people I know.

Phil introduced us to his sister Sarah and she became a friend too. When we moved to Johannesburg, we got in touch with their parents and now we are friendly with the whole family, bar one sibling (who lives in Australia. We may meet her for the first time in Dec).

We had a good catch-up with the two while we watched rugby as Phil told us some of his bush adventures (he's a professional hunter and photographer) and Sarah told us where she'd been placed for her physiotherapy community service year. It was great fun.

Yesterday we went to the Rosebank craft market again to pick up some stuff my mom wants and then I spent the afternoon making a Christmas wreath and bottles of mint jelly before church.

Tonight we have our church's annual Christmas carols concert at the Barnyard, which is more like a dinner theatre production, actually. I'm lookinf forward to it, although our neighbours who were supposed to be coming with us knocked on the door to tell us they're sick this morning and can't make it tonight, so we now have four empty seats at our table of 12. Anyone keen to come?

Have a good week.