Terebi Champion

My son's favorite TV shows these days is "Terebi Champion" (Thursday nights on Osaka TV at 8PM, if you're in Japan). Translated, it means "Television Champion." Every week, contestants compete at something. One time, everyone built masterpieces out of Legos. A Japanese high school kid constructed the golden temple, Kinkakuji, and a European guy made a ship with a sushi restaurant hidden inside. It was very impressive. Last week, owners of Vietnamese pigs put their pets through the paces, nosing along balls and such.

This evening, my son made me sit down and watch a bit with him. The event was sausage-making. One guy made a soccer ball out of sausage, and then there was the loaf that, cut crosswise, had a picture of a pig on every slice. The winner made his face out of sausage. In addition to being highly original in presentation, it must have been delicious, too, as good taste was a factor in scoring. My personal favorite was the picture book made out of sausage. It was a story about ogres.

In future, I propose a bento-making competition. Get a bunch of ambitious mothers together and see what kind of box lunches they come up with for their pampered darlings. On the last deaf school outing, there was one kid who had link sausages in his lunch that were carved into the shape of crabs. I still don't know how his mom did that.