It’s food day at the blog, and Imma show you what I made for the Monkey God Festival yesterday. If you don’t know who Monkey is, you can get a quick rundown at the deliciously named GodChecker.com. See that underlined text there? That’s what we call a “link”. It will take you to the site I just told you about. Yes, Mom, I’m talking to you. 😉

MISO SOUP

• vegetables-fresh, leftover, frozen or canned (I used mushrooms, water chestnuts and frozen veg soup mix.)
• 4 cups water
• veg bouillon to flavor 2 cups water
• rice noodles
• 2 Tbs white (yellow) miso paste mixed into 1/2 cup of the hot broth
• 1 egg, slightly beaten

Cook the veg until they’re as done as you like them. Turn off the heat but leave the pan on the burner. Add noodles. Add miso. Add egg, wait to a count of ten and then stir. Let sit for about 5 minutes to soften the noodles and set the egg. Add a splash of sesame oil, if desired, and garnish with chopped green onions.

MONKEY BREAD

• bread dough
• butter

I used the basic recipe from ARTISAN BREAD IN FIVE MINUTES A DAY, which you can find here (Note to Mom: This is a link.), but you could use any bread dough or even biscuits. Heat the oven to 450F. Roll the dough between your palms into balls and roll them in butter. Put them in a pan. I did one layer, but you can do more, if you want to. Let rise for 20 minutes, then bake for 20 minutes. Sometimes it’s called Monkey Puzzle Bread. Some people make a sweet version, but this one was just plain, and was very nice with the soup.

And my own creation:

MONKEY’S REDEMPTION

• smoked almonds, ground or crushed
• peaches
• honey

The almonds represent Monkey, smoked by Lao-Tze and target of multiple assassination attempts by the gods, then finally crushed by Buddha. The peaches are the mountain Buddha used to keep Monkey captive. The honey is Buddha’s compassion in the person of the goddess Kwan-Yin, who delivered Monkey when he promised to reform and become a good Buddhist disciple.

So that was our feast. And very good it was, too.

WRITING PROMPT: Have one of your characters tell you about a time someone showed him or her unexpected compassion–something you didn’t know about before.

MA