Mama Kat Prompt Thursday: Learning Gyoza

Welcome Back!

I had to mow up the leaves in the back yard before I could sit down and write! I have a Maple and a couple Bay Laurels that are real leaf litter bugs!

I also pulled out my stash of Christmas cards.

(I buy them on sale and have quite stockpile!) 

When I looked in my storage closet, I was pleasantly surprised to discover I'd already cleverly marked with post-it's the ones to be used for this year, saving me the trouble of hauling them all out to sort through! That was a rare stroke of genius! 

 

Today's Mama Kat Prompt is:

"Something you learned in college."
 

Now that took something thinking, considering it's been so many years---but I finally came up with something, something I still use today!

After 5 years in the Air Force, I went home to Indiana to attend Vincennes University. At the time, Vincennes was just a 2-year school. I lived in the dorms the first year---but being 25, quickly decided I hated that! So the next year I lived off campus.
Vincennes is an old river town full of gorgeous huge old houses and such was the one I roomed in---a house so big, the family had an upstairs roomy enough to accommodate 6 girls. It was fully furnished with a kitchen, one bath and 3 bedrooms.

 

Now one of the girls rooming there among these many girls was a Japanese girl there to study English, named Kyoko. We didn't share a room, but just passed each other in the public areas. However, when summer arrived that year, Kyoko and I were the only two room-mates staying on through the summer.
We had the upstairs all to ourselves.
Kyoko was attending summer classes, her last before graduating in the fall. I'd already graduated in May and was staying because I'd been hired by the college to work in their summer theater, my last job before I married my current husband in the fall.

Being there, just the two of us, allowed Kyoko and I to become really good friends. I'd watch her cooking her various Japanese things, started asking questions and pretty soon--she was teaching me all her home-style Japanese recipes!
She taught me how to make really good steamed rice, Japanese style scrambled eggs and fried rice, om-rice, sukiyaki and a myriad other things.

A sample pic of Gyoza

However, my favorite thing she taught me to make was Gyoza.

Kyoko just used whatever was at hand---our kitchen had a little electric skillet, so that's what she used. For the Gyoza, since Chinese wonton wraps were easy to come by, that's what she used---and that's what she taught me to use. She taught me her secret recipe for the hamburger meat to go inside, which involves garlic & parboiled Romaine lettuce, how to pinch the won tons together, how to brown, then steam them in the electric skillet!

 

I still make Gyoza regularly to this day. I love it and though Kyoko and I lost touch years ago, I'm always reminded of that last, great summer we had together!