Sweet Potatoes

My daughter came home with a balled up piece of newspaper painted purple and with her name stapled onto it. This craft, as it turns out, is a さつまいも, or Japanese sweet potato. The sweet potatoes in my pantry are orange, but the ones in Japan are purple on the outside and white on the inside. In the fall, sweet potato vendors can be found in neighborhoods in Japan ringing a bell and selling roasted Japanese satsuma-imo, and people come-a-runnin. Kind of like the ice cream man.