A friend of mine asked me to be a judge on an Iron Chef project. He's been volunteering as a staff on a business skill/leadership training project called CVS Leadership Institute. They bring Japanese college students (about 30?) from all over Japan for training here in LA. They stay in a dorm in a church for about a little over a month.
All of the students seemed like they're some of the best in the country. Many of them came from top universities and had various backgrounds. Judges were amazing, too! I felt so out of place, but the students seemed interested in the fact that I'm a Japanese woman working here in the US and that I've been here since 4th grade.
The ingredient for the Iron Chef competition was potatoes. Both teams made soup, main dish, and dessert. The first team made kind of an ordinary type soup. It was very good but I felt like there was something missing. The main dish was very interesting (potato au gratin with meat and eggplants) but there was barely any potatoes! Their dessert (sweet potato...not pie but I forget what they called it) was very good. They based their menu on certain concepts and made video clips about each concept. Very interesting!
The 2nd team was more entertaining, but were soooo unprepared. Nevertheless, they had excellent concepts that fell into place very nicely in the end, even though their presentation was a bit of a mess. Their soup was kind of scary...a lot of oil and some unidentifiable white stuff floating. It tasted very good but I was too scared to eat it all! Main dish (I forgot what they called it) was very good! Dessert was very unusual but innovative? Potatoes with Kit-Kat inside! I voted for the 2nd team for their concepts and cost performance. They won!
They invited various guests for students to talk to about any questions they might have for people who are actually working in the "real world." I ended up being interviewed and felt kind of out of place because social work is totally different from the business/for-profit kind of environment. Yes there are similarities but I felt bad that maybe they couldn't really relate to my situation. In the end it didn't matter, though, and had some interesting conversations with the students. I felt so close to them even though we've only just met (one of them even asked me if we've met before even though it's impossible!).
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Before any of this happened, I got a phone call while was driving earlier in the day. I was a bit distracted because I was with the kids and I felt bad that I couldn't speak to the person a bit longer. My grandmother's cousin called me as soon as he got the letter from me. He sounded like a very nice person and was surprised that he has relatives out here, too! He's supposed to e-mail me and I can't wait to hear from him and continue talking to him about everything that he remembers and everything that he's been through. Yay!
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