🍎Newsletter #2: Japanese Picture Books + Frozen Food for Obento!

Hello to all The Big Ringo readers! I love receiving feedback and witnessing more people sign up. Thank you all for your lovely comments!

These days... what’s keeping me up at night is not a sleepwalking toddler but the Olympics! 

As a former lover of sports (long distance running + rowing), I love all aspects of sports - not just the athleticism, but the ability for top athletes to compete while facing tremendous pressure and expectations. To perform at the highest level in front of the world’s biggest crowd, is something I will always have so much respect for. 

I used to cheer so hard for any Japanese athlete, almost to the point where it was probably unsafe for me to do so in public in America. Then, after I became a parent - things shifted. Now, regardless of nationality, I cheer for everyone. Everyone is someone’s daughter. Everyone’s someone’s son. And a mother is watching her daughter compete, somewhere in the world, whether in the stadium or via zoom. Can you imagine your son up on the vault as he tumbles his way to the mat, to hopefully “stick” the landing? Or your daughter in the last 30m of a dead heat 100m breaststroke, with her rival right on her side? NOOOO, I simply cannot.

So, as a parent, the Olympics have taken on a new meaning. It’s less nationalistic, more maternalistic. It’s less about winning, more about the journey. So when you hear a loud “ganbareeeeee” somewhere in NYC, you know it’s me, screaming for all the daughters and sons I’ve never met in my life. 

Enjoy the Olympics, and the rest of Summer 2024! 

P.S. Did you know that Karate is NOT an Olympics sport this year? It debuted in the Tokyo 2020 (ahem, 2021) Olympics, but is no longer a sport at the Paris Olympics. Read on about the Japanese American Karateka Sakura Kokumai’s journey.  

EVENTS + ACTIVITIES I’m CURIOUS ABOUT

This is where I share activities and events around NYC that are related to Japan and are family-friendly. 

[NEWLY ADDED] are events that have been newly added since the last newsletter! 

• [NEWLY ADDED] Ponyo - Studio Ghibli Fest 2024  - various theaters in the city; Aug 3~ 
  • The thought of Studio Ghibli just puts a smile on my face. This weekend, it’s PONYO! There are options throughout NYC with major theaters (Regal Cinemas, AMC, etc) for English dubbed or Japanese original / English subtitles, so you can choose what works for you and your family. 
• [NEWLY ADDED] Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami) @ Brooklyn Museum - ends August 4th!
  • Not exactly a kid-friendly activity, but truly a magnificent work of art that deserves a spot here. Cool off, go back in time, and witness life in the Edo Period. If your kid is like my older one who needs to check out every detail on every page of any book, then this could be great fun for your kiddo! 
• [NEWLY ADDED] Japan Arts and Crafts in NY 2024 @ Tenri Institute ~ Aug 5 
  • If you’re stopping by Dainobu this weekend, walk around the corner to Tenri, where Japanese entrepreneurs and artists showcase their work and arts
• Japan Fes - various dates and locations https://www.japanfes.com/2024
  • I’ve attended a few of these in the past and they are so much fun, reminding me of Matsuri in Japan - delicious food, great energy to keep the summers going! 
  • There are various days throughout the summer in different parts of the city: East Village (Aug 24, 25), and UWS / UES (Aug 10, 18, Sept 7), to name a few
• Summer Thursdays Concert Series @ the NYPL “Japanese Family Concert”  - August 15th @ SNFL 
  • What a fun way to spend Thursday morning listening to Japanese songs with your kids! Nobuko Wilson, the NYPL librarian who I emailed back and forth with recently, shared this with me and encouraged me to share with the newsletter broadly. 
  • From the website: “Miwa Gemini is a Japanese born singer/songwriter who happily calls Brooklyn home. She has appeared in theatre productions as well as film productions and performs regularly in NYC. One of her favorite projects to date is collaborating with Steve Buscemi on his web series, Park Bench, where she wrote the theme song and appeared as the house band leader. Her dream is to advocate for all dreams through her songs. She believes even lost and forgotten dreams have an important place in all of our lives.”
• Family Storytime in Japanese - August 18th @ SNFL
  • Held every third Sunday, this is a great way to meet other parents interested in Japanese culture and for kids to listen to Japanese reading, participate in songs and on your way out, check out Japanese books that are abundant at SNFL. 
  • Make sure to register with the library - it’s a simple call or in-person! 
  • Next one is coming up on September 15th! 

Let’s Talk About… Books My Kids (and I) are Loving

This is where I share books that we’ve loved recently and are available at the NYPL to borrow. 

“うみへいくピン・ポン・バス”(Umi e iku pin pon basu) by Fumiko Takeshita

Perfect for summertime, this beautifully illustrated book will make you want to hit the beach with your kids! Or, perhaps easier, to get on the MTA bus to explore the city 😄

I especially loved the different scenes the bus route captured that are distinctively “Japan” (my favorite is the “bread shop” page).  You can feel that “wakuwaku” (“thrilling”) feeling as you flip the pages in this book, ultimately leading you to the final destination - the big, blue ocean. 

Random note: I find that on a really hot day (or a rainy day), one of the easiest and fun things to do with kids in the city is to just take the MTA bus… around and around, randomly exploring the city. It’s amazing how captivating that experience is for kids. My favorite is the 5th avenue route going downtown (M1, M2, M3…)  because there are so many buses along the avenue, you can just hop on and off without waiting for more than a minute for the next one to arrive. (...because who wants to wait in a 90 deg weather with a hungry child!) 

“Shark Lady : the true story of how Eugenie Clark became the ocean's most fearless scientist” by Jess Keating

We picked this book up because we loved the shark theme and the female scientist behind it - little did we know that Eugenie Clark was a NY-born Japanese-American scientist! Great book for anyone interested in sharks and exploration, and teaching kids about curiosity and doing a ‘deep dive’ (no pun intended).  Learn more about Eugenie Clark, the Shark Lady, here! 

Last but not least… 

“サカサかぞくのだんながなんだ” (Sakasa kazoku no danna ga nanda) by Tatsuya Miyanishi 

The rhythm of this book is what makes it so fun for kids. Every word in this book can be read up or down, which is unique to the Japanese language. Sometimes it hardly makes sense, and sometimes it makes complete sense.  The artwork here is also unique and bold - has a modern anime-like feel to it. The NYPL carries various books by this author in both Japanese and English, which is always nice. 

BENTO STUFF 

This is where I talk about…. bento. 

One of the things I miss about Japan is its insane variety of packaged frozen food at local supermarkets, prepared specifically to be put into bento boxes. They are perfectly sized for bento boxes - I mean, if you know Japan, Japan wins at things tiny and compartmentalized. Most are scientifically formulated to be defrosted on its own in the bento box so literally all you have to do is take out the package from the freezer, remove the individual package and put it in your bento box, and it will be ready for you to be consumed at lunchtime. Nothing like that exists here - or at least, nothing is made specifically for the purpose of being put into bento boxes, automatically transforming itself “ready to be eaten.” If you know of one, please let me know!

I find a lot of frozen items in general to have ingredients that I am not aware of, or have too much sodium, or oil, or both. Here I’ll share with you one of my go-to’s, where it’s guaranteed to show up in my kids’ bento box at least once a week: 

KOREAN SCALLION PANCAKES from Trader Joe’s  (less than $4 per package!) 

How to cook: I basically don’t even wait for the oven to heat up to 400F (who has time for that)  - I put one scallion pancake in as I turn on the oven, and choose 5 minutes, so that the scallion is in the oven for a total of 8 min or so as the countdown begins once the oven heats up to 400F (BTW, I love my Breville countertop oven - we do not even have the standard "American" large oven in our kitchen - we love this microwave-sized convection oven that does all things, including cooking a whole medium sized chicken!). 

If you think there’s too much oil, you can dab it off with a paper towel. Then I use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut them up in pieces to put in my kids’ bento boxes. It has a lot of veggies and not too crazy amounts of sodium. Kids love it because of its crunchiness. I love it for its convenience and veggies (which means, I can do more carbs / meat at dinnertime!).  My daughter calls it her favorite “karikari" (“crunchy”) thing. 

Next newsletter will be August 9th, where I cover “tips” I learned on traveling to Japan with kids… because the end of the Summer 2024 means planning for Summer 2025.

Don’t stay up too late watching the Olympics! If you are enjoying this newsletter, please forward this to anyone in your network who might enjoy receiving these types of info. Every sign up makes me happy, and keeps me motivated to keep going :)  

EO