Chapter 20

“I guess I’ll try whatever she’s having,” I answered.

She nodded and broke two eggs into the frying pan that was already on the stove. It didn’t sizzle and it didn’t seem very hot. Very little of the egg started to look a little cooked.

While they were starting to cook slowly, she reached for two bowls and filled each of them with white rice from a big kettle that had been sitting at the back of the stove.

“I hope you like rice,” Aki said to me. “You’ll get a lot of it here.”

“I like rice better than potatoes,” I said. “I never had a lot of rice at home and I rarely cooked it for myself.”

“Rice is the staple here. If you get hungry you can always come in and get a little rice from this pot. There are also pickled vegetables in that jar to go with it. Daisuke seems to like it with milk and sugar but that is not a Japanese treat.” Aki made a face about that. “Did you like the meal last night?”

“It was delicious,” I said. “I’d love to watch you make sushi. Is it hard?”