Let me attempt to lay this out so that I sound more objective and less whiny. Fact: On Monday I sent an email to the Board of Education with a plan for Wednesday’s lesson at the alternative junior high school. I listed the ingredients for gingerbread and royal icing, requested that the school buy candies for decorating, wrote out a schedule for the day, and asked that the school alert me should they be unable to procure any of the necessary items. Fact: ALT Lars was scheduled to go with me [opinion] about which I was thrilled. Opinion: This lesson would be awesome. It was fun, it would take most of the day, and even the boys could get into it. Fact: If we needed any more supplies during the day we could easily run to the nearby grocery store.

Fact: On Tuesday when I was home sick I received an email saying that the schedule had changed; I would visit the alternative elementary school instead. Opinion: There was neither enough time nor support to do gingerbread houses as I had planned. Gingerbread men would be better. Fact: My supervisor told me to call the school and tell them that, myself.

Fact: I called. Opinion: That was one of the most painful conversations I’ve ever had. Though I had studied some kitchen and cooking vocabulary I didn’t know the word for dough or substitute, two important words when one needs to chill in the refrigerator for an hour and the other is something severe that a students has in regards to eggs, nuts and dairy. It was unnecessarily difficult, given that the teacher claimed to have read the recipe from a Japanese site that I had included in my email to the Board of Education. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I was really that terrible at Japanese or if the woman on the other end of the line just wasn’t listen to me. I told her, “We need a lot of sugar and powdered sugar.”

“Sugar?”

“Yes, and powdered sugar.”

“Powdered sugar?”

“Both. About four cups of each.”

“So, sugar. Four cups of sugar.”

I was waiting for Abott and Costello to hop out of the shadows. Fact: The teacher already had informed the students that they would be making gingerbread houses; she had received my original plan from the Board of Education. She asked me to continue with that plan.

Fact: I never made gingerbread from scratch before Wednesday. When the teacher picked Lars and me up at 8:30 we rehashed the ingredients we needed. A key ingredient to gingerbread is molasses, which cannot be found in Kameoka, but I had read that one could replace it with a simple syrup made from brown sugar and water. We needed soy milk and so stopped at a grocery store on the way. Fact: the school is located in the hills, about fifteen minutes from the nearest convenience or grocery store. There was no turning back and I [opinion] was led to believe that we had all the necessary ingredients.

Fact: I had brought the spices and brown sugar. I printed templates for gingerbread men, snowmen, and mini gingerbread houses. I laminated the templates and Lars cut them out while I typed up the dairy and nut-free recipe for gingerbread and royal icing. The students didn’t arrive until 10:45.

Fact: I was nervous.

Fact: When we started setting out the ingredients we learned that there was no plain white sugar, only brown. I learned that the teacher had not bought the amount of powdered sugar I requested. We had about 1/2 cup of it, which I knew was not enough to make icing for gingerbread houses. We had oil instead of butter (because of the allergy) and baking powder instead of baking soda. The teacher said she had bought the powder to replace the meringue powder in the icing recipe, which contained egg products, which I had told her we didn’t need, anyway, because I had found a different recipe with soy milk and sugar and honey (recall that we stopped at a grocery store for soy milk). They had purchased no candy. Opinion: I foresaw disaster.

Fact: The students did not follow my directions to make the molasses substitute. It was runny and nothing akin to syrup. Fact: Using three times the amount of baking powder can replace baking soda, but alters the taste. Fact: Using brown sugar is not the same as using white sugar. Fact: Using oil instead of butter or margarine will make for pretty crispy cookies.

Opinion: Though American children often err on the side of overconfidence, I do miss their independence. Fact: “Why don’t you use a spatula?” Lars suggested when the dough was too thick for the whisk the students were using (which had replaced cooking chopsticks). The little girl stirring the dough continued as directed. Her companion picked up the whisk and a spoon. “Okay?” she asked while gesturing that she would clean the dough from the whisk. “Yeah, sure,” I said. She cleaned it to her satisfaction then held it up for us to see. “Okay?” Lars and I nodded. The girl looked around for a place to put the utensils. I pointed to a bowl that we had used for the dry ingredients. “Okay?” she asked again. Opinion: Strange coming from a child who is convinced that I’m pronouncing “fine” incorrectly, and consistently responds to the question “How are you?” with “I’m pheen.”

Fact: After Lars handed one girl a spatula, I pointed to it and said, “This is a spatula.” The teacher nodded and repeated after me. “This,” I added, tapping a dough-covered utensil in an empty bowl, “is a whisk. A whisk.” The teacher made an “Oh, oh, oh, sorry,” noise and grabbed the whisk to wash it. I said “Oops,” and Lars laughed at me.

Fact: The older girl stirred the powdered sugar while the younger poured soy milk into it to make icing. After a couple teaspoons worth I told the girl to pause on the milk. She added more, [opinion] seemingly deaf. I said, “Milk stop. Tounyu (soy milk) stop.” She added more. Lars said it in Japanese twice. The teachers said it. The girl added more. I reached over the table and pried the carton from her fingers. Fact: The icing was too runny to use for gingerbread houses.

Fact: We cut some shapes from the dough and baked them. Fact: Lars and I told the teacher that the icing was too thin to use for gingerbread houses; it needed to look like thick glue. Fact: I put the pieces for the houses on a separate plate and suggested that the teacher add more powdered sugar tomorrow, bring in some small candies, and then make the houses. “Ooh, like chocolate buttons?” she asked. I affirmed. Fact: The teacher then suggested that the students use the soupy icing to construct a house [edit] once they had finished taking tiny polite bites out of their tiny cookies and then chewing the morsels with their tiny mouths wide open. Fact: Sigh. Fact: Lars explained it again and she understood.

Fact: Those cookies were not gingerbread. Opinion: They tasted fine and gingery, but not like gingerbread. I was so exhausted with the whole concept that I didn’t bother taking a picture.

Fact: I am oversimplifying my feelings of frustration and exasperation. I wanted to smack some folk. Opinion: My emotional summation of that phone call and five hours (only five!) of culinary misadventures would be me flailing on the floor, yelling “Listen!”

FACT: I am going to make real gingerbread in Japan, and I will make tiny houses and they will stick together because I will not attempt to skimp on the powdered sugar.