節分の日(setsubun no hi)

Today is 節分の日(setsubun no hi) which literally means the parting of seasons.

So, officially winter ends today and tommorrow is the first day of Spring!

On this day, the 3rd of FEB, every year, we face the direction of 恵方 (eho) and eat 恵方巻き (ehomaki), a kind of futomaki sushi.

This was what dinner was like

Ehomaki

We eat the whole roll at one go, without talking, with continuous munching.

Which is why i didnt slice the rolls we were having for dinner.

But i did one for bento tmr, and divided this roll into 2.

this is what it looks like.

sweet simmered shiitake, sweet simmered kanpyo, tamagoyaki (sweet egg), cucumber, crab stick, and pink sakuradenpu (which means sakura flour, and is made of shredded dried cod coloured pink, a bit like fish floss)

This is the very basic traditional roll that has been made for years.

But recently, spiced with creativity, these rolls now come with various high grade seafood/sashimi, and this year being the year of the tiger, some restaurants have come up with tiger rolls, so the egg is in the form of a crepe, and is wrapped over the whole sushi roll, with tiger stripes made with nori. like this http://cookpad.com/recipe/1026102.

It is my first time making futomaki (fat sushi), so i wanted to go basic =)

Ok, and besides eating eho maki, we eat either ground nuts, or roasted soybeans.

Usually, you eat the number of beans according to your age, and eat an extra one, it is believed that you will be very heatlhy for the rest of the year.

and besides eating these nuts, you throw them at a monster

and say 鬼は外、福は内、(oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi) which means out goes the demon, in comes luck.

and with that, we pray that all fires, illnesses and evil is kept outside and good fortune kept inside.

To eat the eho maki, we face this years eho (lucky direction), which is west of northwest.

made kimchi gyozas to go with our fun

ahh, what an interesting dinner we had =)

it started snowing again this evening, and seems like this week is really cold (below 8degC), so i guess we are almost done with the chill peak?