By the time I was ready to treat myself to these snowball-shaped beauties, I was really excited. I set the table with a boho-styled placemat (lacking something more ad hoc), a pair of chopsticks (I always mistake this word for “joysticks”), and a jumbo-sized glass of water.

I took one chopstick—just one, because I'm helpless with two—and tried to stick it into the mochi. It felt really soft, but when the chopstick tried to make its way into the mochi, it didn't split, it just expanded/spread out on the plate. And that gave me an idea: Why not skip protocol/decorum and use a knife instead? I know it's not popular in Japan to use knives at the table, but it was becoming a no-brainer choice. So I grabbed my little go-to knife and tried again, but still couldn’t. The knife just sank into the mochi, squashing it even more, looking like a mochi that had given up on life. It was sooo stretchy that I thought: you'd better eat it like that. But hold on, my built-in warning system said, what if there's something unexpected inside? Something like fortune cookie-like wisdom.

By the way, have you ever seen what happens when a toddler tries to eat a boiled artichoke? They will do anything but eat it: they will look at it, poke it, push it, until it "accidentally" falls off. I couldn't let that happen to me, so I went into the kitchen and grabbed my never-let-you-down Japanese knife that I've had for years and sharpened only once. That's how strong and reliable it is, a true blade-runner.