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Tonight's Dinner Is Onigiri — Two Reasons Rolled Into One

The Tuesday listener phone-in welcomed a call from "Wagamama Body Mamanaran Mama" (わがままボディままならぬママ), a listener based in Honjo City, Saitama. A regular contributor to the show's email segment, she was greeted warmly by Su-san (スーさん) with a "Thank you, as always, for your messages." The caller laughed self-deprecatingly about her radio name — "still just as uncooperative a body as ever" — and Su-san replied that most listeners were probably in exactly the same boat.

Tonight's dinner is onigiri, and two reasons happened to coincide on the same evening. The first: the previous Sunday she had visited a rice farm with her mother-in-law and come home with 30 kg of freshly harvested new-season rice. "My plan was to eat it right away in the best possible form — onigiri," she said. The second: her three-year-old son has his sports day the following morning, Wednesday. "I wanted to make his favourite onigiri and tell him to do his best tomorrow," she explained, giving the meal a quietly encouraging purpose.

Sports Day Without a Bento? — How Things Changed After COVID

Su-san was taken aback. "Isn't there a lunch break at sports day?" The caller explained that many events now finish before noon. Su-san nodded along: since the pandemic, she had noticed that the classic all-day, eat-together sports day had become far less common, replaced by compact morning-only programmes. "The bento hour used to be the highlight — borrowing onigiri from someone else's family was part of the whole experience," she said, with a touch of nostalgia for how things used to be.

A Three-Year-Old Who Loves Umeboshi — A Surprisingly Grown-Up Taste

The son is, by all accounts, a reliable onigiri eater. Asked about his favourite filling, the answer came without hesitation: pickled plum, umeboshi. Su-san's reaction was immediate. "That's so grown-up of him. Doesn't he find it too sour?" The caller said he simply seems to love sour flavours, and Su-san marvelled: "Eating umeboshi at three is genuinely impressive."

Tonight's lineup covers four fillings: umeboshi, konbu, okaka, and mentaiko. The mentaiko is earmarked for her husband; her son is firmly in the umeboshi camp. The plan is to make them together — mother and son shaping rice balls side by side. "That will be a lovely memory," Su-san said encouragingly. When asked whether they had cooked anything together before, the caller revealed that it was actually her father-in-law, not herself, who had once made udon with the boy. "What does a three-year-old making udon even look like?" Su-san laughed.

Karaage: Buy It, Don't Fry It — Plus a Homemade Miso Soup

Onigiri alone felt like it might not quite stretch to a full dinner, and the caller was still working out the sides. "Something like karaage maybe — the kind of thing you'd pack for a picnic," she mused. Su-san stepped in: "Frying karaage from scratch tonight sounds like a lot of work — why not just buy some?" The caller brightened at once: "Oh, that's clever — of course!" A nearby karaage specialist shop settled the question on the spot, and Su-san gave her full backing: "You should absolutely go. That's the answer. It's decided."

The final menu: new-season onigiri made together with her son, karaage picked up from the specialist shop, and a homemade miso soup loaded with ingredients. "It's an indoor picnic," Su-san declared, and the segment closed on a warm, cheerful note.