Tuesday sweets

This is Wednesday so I am out of here in a few minutes.  I have yet to reach my goal of not forgetting anything on a Wednesday.  How will today go?

On Tuesdays I teach two two hour ladies classes... well, we chat over coffee and eat sweets and crack open a book for about 45 minutes.  If I am on top of things I will make cookies or a cake the night before.  If I'm not organized my contribution besides the coffee will be rice crackers.  Usually one of the many ladies will bring some omiyage (present), either one that she has bought herself for the group or that has been given to her.  All of us regularly get omiyage.

When an elementary student will go on a student trip (the 6th graders went to Disneyland last week) he might bring me Mickey Mouse cookies.  If a friend takes an overnight trip to some tourist spot she will often stop by with omiyage crackers or bean cakes or something.  EVERY town in Japan has an omiyage specialty, usually sweet but sometimes not... For example, the town next to us is famous for its Pot Stickers and so whenever I visit someone in another city I will buy Pot Sticker omiyage.

Oh... I'm off the subject.  For yesterday's English class I made cheesecake (recipe here).  That was pretty good.  But it was out-shone by the cute omiyage macaroons that one friend brought.  Aren't these darling?!  The macaroon bears all had different faces and different flavors.

For photo purposes I put two bears on my plate.  No, I did not eat both of them... One slice of cheesecake and one macaroon omiyage are quite enough calories.