After the sleepover at Nicole's house and how much fun it was, soon other people wanted to host events at their host family's houses as well. Another good friend I made named Lucy Rubin decided to host an event after that, a soba-making afternoon! Her host father made soba for a living, so he generously offered to give a lesson in how to make noodles to about six people after class one day. The seven of us--Nicole, Thaddeus, Kat, Harriet, Jared, Lucy, and I--took the bus and then the train together to her house.

Lucy's host father started us on rolling out the dough for soba into a circle, with rolling pin. We all took a try (while I attempted candid shots).

Harriet was the first to try!

Lucy's host dad watches Harriet.

We rolled the circle of dough over and over, with bigger and bigger rolling pins until it became quite thin.

Then Lucy's host dad showed us how to cut the dough into thin slices, which would become noodles once boiled. He used a large, heavy knife that honestly looked pretty intimidating. He cut extremely quickly, so that all the noodles were almost exactly even in size. It was way harder than it looked, as we soon discovered as all of the noodles we cut were thick and uneven.

Fortunately a silly thing like that doesn't affect the taste, which was spectacular! The meal we had, which consisted of the soba we had made, a salad made from vegetables grown by Lucy's host parents, and potato salad, was amazing. It made me a little homesick, though, since my grandmother also grows vegetables so we can prepare them together in salads.

Here's a picture of the salad!

After we all ate together, Lucy's host parents surprised us with dessert, fruit in jelly that I ate so quickly I didn't manage a picture (dessert is one of my many weaknesses). The jelly was lychee flavored, I believe, a delicious end to a delicious afternoon.