Go With the Flow, and Laugh About it if You Can!

A sister in our branch has a large garden/ small farm.  Nearly every week, she brings vegetables to church with her and puts them in the genkan for people to take.  Last week, she brought a large quantity of this vegetable.  Everyone was so excited and it was gone in no time. 

The sisters had me take some.  I asked Sister Hirayama how to prepare it.  "Do you eat the leaves and the stems?"  I asked.  Sister Hirayama speaks English.  She said you take off the leaves.  So that afternoon, I made stir fry.  I had Ken carefully remove the leaves while I cut up a lot of other vegetables and we put it in our stir fry.  When we ate it, one of these leaves kind of caught in my throat.  It had a very rough texture.  So I commented to Ken that I didn't care for this vegetable.  I pushed the rest of the cooked, wilted leaves aside.
Later that evening, we took some of the vegetables to a less active sister- a 93 year old- that we visit frequently.  We told her we had had some for dinner and that we ate the leaves.  She got a look of horror on her face.  "You are supposed to throw away the leaves and eat the stems!"  she said.  "Are they poisonous?"  Ken asked.  "I don't think they'll hurt you, but they aren't good.  You are supposed to eat the stems!"  This was all in Japanese.  I was listening, trying to figure out why Ken was laughing so hard.
We have been racking our brains.  Can you think of any other vegetable that you eat the stems and discard the leaves?  We can't.  But, oh, have we laughed and laughed about this.  It just is so typical of our experience here.  We get part of what is said, but not the whole thing.  So, the delicious stems went in our garbage and the leaves kind of ruined our stir fry.  Oh well.  I could tell you many other similar stories.  I wonder if, in a year from now, we'll still be getting things so mixed up?  Oh well, in the meantime, our mantra is "Go with the flow, and laugh about it if you can!" 


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