March Comes in Like a Lion (３月のライオン)

Being Here

So let's do an experiment.

Finest Quality Refined Rice Flour Domestic Wet-land Glutinous Rice 100%

Should we start with 200 grams for the sticky rice flour dumplings?

Yeah!

NOD

Should we call it "chilled shiratama syrup"?

Yeah, that's really cute!

Crescent Moon was going to have a food stand at the annual summer festival

in the shopping district.

This year, Grandpa let us decide what would be on the menu.

March Town Shopping District March Town Festival Sunday, July 28th

To explain it simply, the way you make rice flour dumplings...

Step one. Knead the rice flour in cold water.

Step two. Roll into balls and boil in hot water.

That's all.

GIGGLE

AHAHA

See? Simple, right?

What? "Simple, right?" It's way too simple!

EHHH

I think we'll go with 200 grams of rice flour and about 160 cc of cold water.

Rice flour is sold at the super market.

Put the flour in a bowl and pour the water in a little at a time, mixing as we go.

Once it's mixed well, put some muscle in it as you knead it.

If you put in too much water, it'll get sticky, and make it hard to form into balls,

so stop when the dough has taken shape.

Then roll the dough out into rod shapes with your hands

and rip them apart into bite-sized piece.

I'm getting the hang of it!

KNEAD KNEAD

ROLL ROLL

This is fun!

Rice flour dumplings! This is Momo's!

FWHAAA

PUSH PUSH

SQUISH SQUISH

Yes, you're doing good, Momo.

But maybe it's a little big.

Sis, about this size?

Is it too small?

TINY

More circular?

Don't worry. They'll expand a bit when we boil them, so that's perfect.

When making large rice flour dumplings, you would put a little dent in them like this,

but today we're making smaller ones.

Next we put them in boiling water.

After two or three minutes, they'll come burbling up to the surface.

Maybe a little more.

A little more?

Then you keep them in the boiling water for another minute.

Then transfer them to ice water, which firms them up.

And...

They're done!

TA-DAA

Voila!

SPRINGY

Th-That was so fast! And simple!

Wonderful!

At first, let's just try it with sugar and soy sauce.

Yum!

It's so chewy!

The rice flour dumplings pass the taste test,

but the challenge is the syrup.

We have matcha, right? Plum syrup, chilled sweet red bean soup...

It's so delicious with matcha!

But powdered matcha is expensive.

I don't want to make each cup more than 300 yen.

Um, if we can get about 60 small dumplings from 200 grams of rice flour...

Let's see...

HMMM

OH

I got it! How about cold milk tea?

It's rich and sweet!

That could be good!

True, black tea leaves would be much cheaper!

Why don't we also put in black pearl tapioca? It would make nice color accents!

That's a great idea!

To defray the cost of the tapioca, instead of using disposable bowls and spoons,

we can gather spoons and bowls from our house, Crescent Moon, and Aunt Misaki's pub,

and just keep washing them, even though it might be a hassle.

- Oh, we can have Kiriyama do the washing! - What?

Good idea! Let's ask him!

CRESCENT MOON

You did a pretty good job with the dumplings.

You put them in ice water to firm them up, right?

And tapioca?

Another fancy thing, huh?

Hey, it's pretty firm.

This is a type of starch, right?

Grandpa.

Wh-What do you think?

THUMP THUMP

Well, I guess it'll do.

Damn it, it's actually really good.

I got a feeling the youngsters will really like them.

It should sell pretty well at a food stand. It's a festival, after all.

BRIGHT

Yay!

This one was especially good.

Plum syrup?

It's refreshing and tasty.

That plum syrup was made by Chiho.

Yeah? That's a nice smell from the plums.

As soon as summer vacation started,

we went to see Chiho.

Chiho!

Hina.

She took me around the farm.

WAG WAG WAG

WAHH

Love!

Play with me. Woof-woof!

Let's play!

She showed me Hana, and her puppies.

Love! I love you!

Sometimes while we talk, Chiho would go silent and space out.

Ms. Satou said that even now, Chiho freezes up when she sees a girl of middle school age.

Seeing someone of the same age makes all of her painful memories

come flooding back into her heart and mind.

Apparently her body is resisting that with every strength.

But Chiho is working hard here,

so that little by little,

she'll be able to talk and act like she used to.

That's what Ms. Satou told me.

CHIHO

Chiho developed a fever in the evening,

so her mom dropped Sis and me off at the station.

"Thank you so much for supporting Chiho."

Her mom said that as she clasped my hands.

She said, "Chiho and I will be doing our best here."

The first step is making friends with animals.

Next is making friends with people older than you.

The third step is making friends with people close to your age.

Even now, Chiho is fighting.

I'll send her photos from the summer festival.

Photos of everyone enjoying the plum syrup.

And then, I'll go visit her again.

All right, shall we go?

Let's get started.

CRESCENT MOON

Welcome! Crescent Moon here!

CRESCENT MOON

How about some sweet, chilled rice flour dumpling syrup?

Chilled Rice Flour Dumpling Syrup 300 yen

Milk Tea Plum Syrup Sweet bean

Chilled Ginger Drink 100 yen

Sweet and cold rice flour dumpling syrup!

It's nice and cold!

Here's your plum syrup.

Thank you.

It looks really good.

Here's some clean plates.

And I'll take these back.

Thank you, Kiriyama!

PROMPT PROMPT

Also 100 yen coins. I'll empty two rolls in here for change.

PROMPT PROMPT

And dish cloths. I'll hang up the ones I washed here.

Kiriyama is the best! He's so considerate!

That's a big help!

Sorry for working you so hard, kid.

Here, at least have a cool ginger drink.

Thank you.

There are so many people here.

This is good.

The festival is a success. And we're selling like crazy too.

This is my first time doing something like this, so I'm kind of surprised.

That it's pretty fun.

Kiriyama! Kiriyama!

- Hey... - What's up?

Yo. How you doing?

Takahashi.

Huh? Have you gotten way taller again?

Chiho made this plum syrup.

Thanks.

He's huge.

WHOA

Grandma. Mikako.

Delicious three-colored rice flour dumplings here!

Would you like any?

Welcome!

It's all right. They're doing a great job.

It's a nice night.

Rei.

This is what I like.

I guess I love this kind of thing.

Yeah.

KA-CHING

STUFFED