The Po Show

Heritage Breakfast

Yesterday was United Nations Day at my kids' school (always cool, as they get to learn about lots of other countries). Today as a followup, Tessa's class celebrated with a Heritage Breakfast, in which parents were supposed to bring in a food item that reflected their cultural heritage.

Well, this was a problem for me, since traditional Japanese breakfasts include rice, miso soup, fish, and pickled vegetables :p. Yeah, I can see that going over real well with the kids. I've eaten these traditional breakfasts, served at traditional Japanese inns, and lemme tell ya, I wasn't too thrilled myself. (The funniest time was when Ross' mom and stepdad were visiting us and we took them to Kyoto. We stayed at a really nice inn and were served breakfast, which included fish with the head and tail still on. My MIL asked what she was supposed to do with the head, and Ross replied by picking up his fish and biting the head right off of it :D. She thought he was doing it for effect, but he just has no problem with eating the head off a fish.)

So what was I supposed to bring to reflect my cultural heritage? I wimped out and put "pastries" on the sign up sheet. But what Japanese pastries could I bring? Most of them (and they are never eaten for breakfast anyway) have stuff like red beans inside, and I don't even like them myself. I didn't want Tessa to bring in something "weird." I found some cream buns at a Japanese market, but they were prepackaged and really nasty.

So I ended up going to the Japanese bakery in Hartsdale yesterday and spending a small fortune on chocolate filled horns, raisin sticks, and mochi donuts. Not exactly traditional Japanese sweets, but at least they approximate pastries that people in Japan eat today.

So you want to know what the most popular item at the Heritage Breakfast was this morning? Halloween Dunkin' Donuts!! Hell, I could have done that, and saved myself a lot of worry and aggravation!