I think my Japanese painting teacher is part Italian.
It seems that every time I go over to the studio for class, she invariably brings me several treats. Actually, she's not even technically my teacher, her painter son is. She does the Japanese calligraphy classes.
I'm actually a pretty unremarkable painter, but I still like going because it's good to be making some kind of art again in a classroom situation, and taking this class in this setting is "so Japanese". It's called suibokuga (basically ink painting), and I know you've seen examples of it. Very ethereal ink washes of very "Japanese" scenes and objects. When I'm brave enough to show off one of my paintings, I'll put it up.
As for the food here - I know the white stuff is onigiri (rice balls), and the other has something to do with potato. I'll let you know after lunch :)


Here's an example I found on the web of a painting and some of the supplies used in suiboku-ga. In the next class my teacher is going to show me how to make a name stamp (inkan) so I'll be able to 'sign' my paintings.
(sorry to steal the image here without proper acknowledgment of the source, but there are some not so family-friendly images that pop up there - so I thought I should skip it)