Dango Making Lesson
“And a one, and a two, and a three- WAAAH!” Emi tripped right on over herself and onto the floor, with the Mochi mallet clattering to the ground right on after her. “Ow, ow, ow…”
A few feet away Dan sighed, and quickly walked over to pick the mallet off the ground. He offered Emi a hand to help her up again. “I told you already Emi, it was too heavy for you. Look, there’s an easier recipe that we can do and I think starting from there might be a good idea.”
Emi quietly rolled over, still on the ground. She looked up at Dan. “Yeah…you’re probably right. I got a little in over my head I think, aha.” She smiled a little before she took Dan’s hand and stumbled her way back onto her feet. “I was just excited to learn! Since you always looked so cool when you made your mochi, and they’re always super good!”
Dan laughed a little. Well, it was more a soft exhale, but she thought it probably counted. He could never deny a compliment on his skills. “Let’s make dango for now.” He said with a shrug. “We’ll mostly just need rice flour for this. Could you get a jug of water in the meantime?”
“Water, water, right!” Emi skipped over to grab a container full of water and placed it onto the counter. Dan had grabbed the rest of the necessary items and step by step walked her through the process. Even though it was a lot easier, Emi still struggled a bit with mixing the flour. Curse her weak puny arms!
“You’ll have to add in something along with some sugar if you want it to have any flavor by the way. Just making glutinous rice balls isn’t going to taste very good.”
“Oh! That’s right!” She had been too focused on doing things right that she nearly forgot. Emi thought back to the dango selection in Dan’s store to pick out a flavor. “Hmmm how about, ube! I’ve always loved ube!” Though if you took one look at Emi, that was probably really obvious already.
Eventually they managed to get everything together, and after a few attempts and trial and error, Emi could finally say that she managed to make dango all by herself. She picked one up from the counter to look at it. She pouted, “They’re kind of a funny shape compared to yours, Dan.”
The other bun simply crossed his arms. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get better with time. For a first, it’s at least alright.”
Emi brightened up a bit even if it was barely a compliment. “Thanks Dan! That means a lot coming from you.” She laughed. “Thanks for taking the time to teach me though, I know you’re busy.”
“That’s fine, I’m sure you did your best. Here,” He offered Emi a small package.
“What’s this?”
“A few extra supplies, so you can practice a bit more at home.”
Emi looked surprised. “Really?” Did that mean Dan really thought she did pretty ok? She felt her smile grow just a bit wider. “Thanks so much Dan! I’ll be sure to do just that!”
She probably would never make anything as good as Dan, but his encouragement was enough to make her feel like they were good enough. For now at least.
