Omiyagi

Today Leina is delivering omiyagi to all the aunties and uncles. Every time she visits, of course she needs to bring gifts. And not just to those who host her or take her out; she need to give gifts to everyone. These are apparently called omiyagi in Japanese. Unfortunately, it is not so simple deciding what gift to bring everyone.

She fretted about what to bring this year. She wanted to bring food, but all these aunties and uncles are old and have all these dietary restrictions. Can't be too sweet, can't be too salty, can't be too fatty. Someone even said, "No nuts."

Leina was initially excited to bring persimmons for everyone, but Hawaii has imported vegetable restrictions, or so she claims (half-hearted attempts to confirm this were unsuccessful). She says that if a fruit has a stem or leaf, then they won't let it in without special permits. So she contemplated removing the stems and leafs from the persimmons and hoping Ag Control would be okay with that.

Last time, she was mildly successful with shitake mushrooms, but she can't bring them again. Another time, she brought Chinese beef jerky. The Chinese jerky, for those who are not familiar with it, is not only salty like typical jerky, but also cloyingly sweet. So that will never make an encore appearance.

Then she thought of dried fruit, but that didn't pass the dietary restrictions--too sugary. She was really at a loss for what to bring them. So she called up a few of the aunties looking for advice. One said she'd like some of those tiny dried shrimp, which can be a tasty to a fish or seaweed broth. Another one said, "Anything you bring me is just fine," but Leina knew she was lying. So she brought the dried shrimp.