Happy New Year!!
On January 1st, Japan starts its New Year's celebrations. This is similar to New Year's here in America, but the Japanese celebrations lasts 3 days!
One of the most important preparation is cooking the food to eat during the 3 day New Year's celebrations, which is called 'Osechi'. Many types of dishes are prepared and placed in a wooden box. It is like a fancy, multi-story bento box.
Inside, it looks like this. This is the New Year's feast that I made. There is 18 types of dishes. The feast is like Japan's version of Thanksgiving, except that all the dishes have some kind of meaning or wish.
For example, the shrimp - is to wish for a long life and age until our backs are bent like a shrimp.
The fish eggs - is to wish for lots of babies.
Golden Chestnuts - is to wish to be rich and have lots of money.
The Osechi dishes are often eaten with a soup, called 'Ozoni'. There are different flavors to this soup but the one you see here in the picture is made of white miso. This is Kyoto style!
Wish you guys a very happy new year!!