Indigo Days

Radiation in Japan

Above photo: Hiroshi Furukawa photos                                                        Below Map: Just World Map

The first thing that people asked me when in the States in early June was, “How bad is it in Japan?”

I gave the only possible answer, “Bad. Very, very bad.”

Radiation is here to stay and it won’t abate anytime soon.

But what exactly does that mean?

Tepco is nowhere close to getting the situation under control and in their efforts to keep cooling the melted down reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, they are creating massive amounts of highly radioactive water with no place to store it. Efforts to filter, then recycle the water have not been highly successful. So far.

Radiation is slowly seeping into the air and leaching into the ground supply. The dismal prognosis is that we could be living with these low-grade radioactive releases for perhaps a decade or more.

For us, 215 kilometers from Fukushima Daiichi, it’s hard to gauge the long-term effects. Now four and a half months after the Tohoku Earthquake, life in outer Saitama meanders along as if it all never happened. No one really talks about the radiation or the fact that tens of thousands of people from Miyagi prefecture are still living in shelters all over Japan. We continue to eat local produce, and as it stands now, there is no immediate threat. I love how we are told there is no “immediate” danger from the radiation.

But then, what else can we do? Where could we possibly go? And do we really need to? Recently, my 16-year-old son Andrew somehow convinced me that riding a scooter to work would be safer than riding a bike. Having just read an article on the high risk of cyclists being hit by passing motorists, he caught me at a good moment. I weighed the risks, and gave in to letting him buy a scooter. Does he have a better chance of getting killed on the scooter than getting cancer at 46? Definitely.

Risk is all around us. And if any of you are parents, you will know the agony of letting our child go out on the street on his or her bike for the first time alone. Or of letting our teenagers drive, or even go out with friends. What are they doing? Are they drinking…smoking…or, god forbid, drugging?

So perhaps we are all playing Russian roulette with the future health of our children, but one thing I am certain, every other part of our life is pristinely “clean.” We live in an 80-year-old traditional sod and wood farmhouse that breathes real air (and dust) from the outdoors. We do not use air conditioning (even in the sweltering summer), or forced air heat. We eat simple foods with no additives or chemicals. We do not buy prepared foods.

In the last 23 years, I have seen Japan embrace convenience stores and readymade foods with a vengeance. While this food certainly (on the surface) appears more healthy than the typical fast food available in the United States, make no mistake that the so-called well-balanced bento box meals available at convenience stores on almost every corner in Japan are laden with chemicals and preservatives. It’s cheap food made cheaply. 

Maybe now is the time to take back the heart of Japan. Maybe now is the time to go back to a simple farm diet. Miso, soy sauce, salt, and vinegar. Those are the true preserving agents of Japan. People can’t do much about the increase of radiation in their lives, but they can do something about what they put in their bodies or in the bodies of their children. Now is the time to embrace clean food.

So where can people find this clean food? Farmers.

Sadly, farming in the Kanto region (eastern Japan) has taken a huge hit because many Tokyoites are boycotting food from the whole region. Kind of mind-boggling when you think about the fact that parts of Kanto are certainly further away from Tokyo than parts of Kansai. You can’t just boycott a whole region. It makes no logical sense. Also it is effectively destroying lives of farmers who have no problem with radiation on their crops. But Tokyoites as urban dwellers have little connection to, or understanding of, the land or of the people who have been growing the food that has been consumed in their city for generations.

I find it ironic that Fukushima Daiichi was built to supply energy to Tokyo, and not used by the local inhabitants. Ironic that some people in Tokyo can turn away from the people and area that kept them supplied with food and energy. Ironic and sad.

But I suppose it’s all about ignorance and lack of transparency. The truth is, there have been many lies told about the situation at Fukushima Daiichi. A source in the Chinese embassy reports that the Japanese foreign office gathered heads of foreign embassies together a few days after the earthquake and advised them to evacuate their citizens. This news comes as no surprise to me as on March 17, I had reported via Facebook,

“The American government took a sharp right turn on its stance early today, deviating from the Japanese party line, by urging American citizens in a 80 km radius of the nuclear reactor to evacuate or stay inside (as opposed to the 20 km-30 km advised by the Japanese government). But realistically, there is nowhere for the Japanese to go, even if they did start advising more drastic evacuation.

Late this afternoon, the American government took an even stronger position and has initiated "authorized evacuations" for American citizens who want to leave Japan.

More rumors circulate that Tepco families at Fukushima Daiichi left right after the earthquake. And the head of Tepco was MIA for a couple weeks post-earthquake. The Japanese press (which relies heavily on ad revenue from nuclear power related sources) was mild in it’s reporting of the nuclear disaster. The foreign press was vilified for being sensationalist, and foreigners despised for “escaping,” were called “flyjins” (a take off on “gaijin” or “foreigner” in Japanese).

But most unconscionable is that the Japanese government did not tell its citizens about the huge release of radiation following a hydrogen blast on March 12 in Reactor No. 1, until two months after the release. So in the end, were those foreigners so wrong to leave? No. In fact, they should have left sooner. WE should have left sooner. On Tuesday, March 15, I got an email from my older sister Pam telling me to send the boys to the U.S. When I mentioned it to my husband Tadaaki, he looked at me and walked away without a word, having given no credence to Pam’s (apparent) over reaction. Thursday night, he started to think otherwise, and by Friday, Tadaaki’s position was that I should leave with the boys and he’d “hold down the fort” with his 83-year-old mom, and our cat and dog. Oh, and the 3000 chickens.

Tadaaki tried to pack Baachan (granny) off onto the bullet train to Kansai to stay with his brother, as he had some wild idea of grabbing the cat and dog and jumping into his van to outrun the imminent nuclear blast. Once his gas ran out, he was prepared to run. Oh yes, another point was that, mysteriously, gasoline was hard to come by, so no one could get very far even if they wanted to. Mysterious.

But, all that doesn’t matter any more, because obsessing about what happened in the past is pointless. Life is now and we should not let the presence of radiation consume us. Who really knows, or who can really understand, how much radiation is around us, or what that means in the long run. I certainly don’t.

 

 

 

I check in periodically to NHK World: Society & Others and I get updates from the New York Times on the nuclear disaster. Otherwise, I read the Japan Times twitter feed and sometimes click to the links. If I’m feeling like it.

Right now I have the field calling my name as the weeds are already starting to engulf. The hot, hot unusually dry spell that lasted for most of June and July segued into a cool typhoon. Bringing what I hear was “black rain.” Oh dear.

No time to worry about the black rain since there’s nothing I can do about it, so I carry on with our lives. My Japanese Farm Food manuscript and photos are due September 1^st, and I’m thinking in a more positive vein. I’m thinking about how simply (and naturally) we live and about how clean the air is in our house and this little agricultural area in which we live. And I’d not trade this way of life (radiation and all) for life in the Bay Area where I grew up, because even there I feel far removed from the farm and this “real” way of life.

And as for the Tokyo people who are shunning Kanto produce…well Tokyo can be a fickle town. But then the sense of community has been long lost in urban areas. And that sense of community is really what created the collective energy that enabled Japan to rise up from the ashes of World War II. I wonder if now there will be a renewed interest in recapturing the rural customs of cooperation and mutual support.

I hope so.

Tokanya

All Photos this Post by Toshiji Tomori

I skirted the gray block wall along our driveway and rounded the corner onto the street in front of our house. I could barely make out the figures in the dim light of the lone streetlight, and only the flash of Tomori-san’s camera illuminated the ropes pounding on the pavement. “Tokanya, waradepo yomochi kutte, buttatake!” (Tokanya, straw gun, eat mochi in the nighttime, shoot!)

 

 

A car came up fast behind me and I yelled, “Car!” and stepped aside quickly as the driver did not show signs of slowing. “Car…Car!” The figures scattered, but took up their cries right after,“Tokanya, waradepo yomochi kutte, buttatake!” Thwak. The crack of the “straw gun” on the pavement wakes up the sleeping winter bugs and kills them (metaphorically). After the rice harvest, in the late autumn we make “straw guns” called waradepo for Tokanya, an ancient farming rite to send off the rice field god to the mountains. Our friends come over to help us pound mochi and we eat in the garden at torch light.

Normally celebrated the 10^th day in the 10^th month in the lunar year, it should have been held the day before (November 15), but Tadaaki kindly agreed to wait a day so that I could participate. My JAL flight now gets into Haneda airport too late to get home to Saitama, so I spent the night at the airport hotel and hopped the train in the morning. Feeling a bit discombobulated, I set to unpacking with uncharacteristic haste (usually my bags hang around the tatami room for a couple weeks as I slowly chip away at them). This time I was determined to wipe the traces of my third and last overseas trip this fall and reenter life in Japan without the typically bumpy transition period.

But the publisher discussions and book contract were both in limbo, so I too felt “in between.” When I got home that morning, I asked Tadaaki if there was anything I could do to help. He shook his head and told me, “It’s under control. Yoshie is coming at 4:00 and the rest of the people are coming around 5.” So I went back in the house to unpack.

 

 

My editor friend Kim Schuefftan showed up at 4, then disappeared. I went upstairs for a while only to come down and find a strange girl in the kitchen. Not Yoshie. Tadaaki has a fairly loose style to his events and gives little instruction to his helpers. I never did learn the girl’s name, but she did bumble about in our kitchen. Yoshie eventually showed up with another friend in tow, and at one point all three girls were stirring and skimming the soup together. I never have understood why it takes so many people to do one task here. I guess it is the sense of comradery and also the feeling that if one is not working, one is being lazy or warui to the group.

Warui is roughly translated as “bad.” The usage is fairly common, however, since this is a completely Japanese cultural concept. If someone does something for you, your response will often be warukatta, ne. Oh I was so bad to have received this from you…oh it was so bad of me to put you out for cooking this for me. My mother-in-law uses it a lot. Me, not so much. Bad American wife, I guess.

And I suppose as the “wife,” I should have been the one feeling badly for not helping, but already the plan was out of my control, careening along without direction. Tadaaki tends to whoosh in, give a few minimal cooking commands and then spin back off to the eggs, chickens, or deliveries. I am the opposite, completely controlling in the kitchen and not one to let people go willy-nilly. When I make the kenchinjiru, I like to slice the vegetables myself because I want them all to be the right size and thickness to cook at the same pace. Good enough is not where I look to end up. Each ingredient deserves to shine, so the finished dish should not be messed up by unwitting mistakes of well-meaning, yet untutored assistants. But if the cooks at Chez Panisse could let me blunder about in their kitchen, I suppose I should be more forgiving (and flexible). Though I do relax the “rules” when it comes to little kids—but then I’m just serving ourselves and not a crowd of thirty or forty hungry adults.

 

 

It used to be that the countrywomen all spoke the same language of food and knew how to prepare the same dishes. Today that is not true, as most young women do not learn to cook from their mothers, and there are few farming families passing along traditions. Mothers (and even grandmothers) work, so supermarket prepared foods regularly appear on the table; and convenience store foods are eaten in the car on the way home or in transit to study school. After all, there is no mess in the kitchen if one eats in the car or re-heats in the microwave. At a recent Japanese food event in Napa, there was much talk of seasonality and local foods in Japan…but the reality is much more bleak. Though I suppose those convenience store bento meals are better balanced than MacDonald’s and actually look like real meals, as long as you don’t mind inferior ingredients, MSG, and preservatives. Did I mention that I’m not a fan of convenience store or prepared foods? But then our kitchen is never pristine, so that’s the trade off.

 

 

Tokanya, manju stealing at Jugoya and even mochi making at New Year have all virtually died out in Japan. Our family never gave up on mochi pounding in the garden at New Year, but it wasn’t until recently that Tadaaki revived Tokanya and Jugoya in our house. Having home businesses, trying to grow food for the family, and bringing up three small homeschooled sons stretched both Tadaaki and me to the thinnest point where sometimes I wondered when we would break. Yet somehow when I did not have energy, Tadaaki did and visa versa. So we survived those years. Unfortunately, mushroom hunting and wild berry gathering in the mountains did not. Though somehow we managed to keep river trips and fishing expeditions alive in the summer. I guess it was the cool water in the impossibly sweltering summers that pushed me to get on board these excursions. In contrast, climbing up the mountain with little babies did not seem as appealing (or practical).

 

 

But all of this takes energy. And as I look around me, I realize that most (though not all) of our friends who are trying to live off the land or revive dying country customs are all transplants from the city (me included). I suppose we do not have the weight of generations past pulling us down a bit and I suppose we bring some naïve energy to the equation. But then I look at Tadaaki and Suka-san, carrying on the farming life, college degrees in hand. A new generation of farmers who choose the land, because the land chose them. They both live and breathe farming in a way that we transplants will never be able to, yet we transplants also bring a fresh wind to the area, and so our partnerships have a spirit of dynamism backed by mutual support and respect.

 

And as I stood there on the street that night of Tokanya, I thought about how the old customs clash with the new. About the cars zooming down our old neighborhood street no longer lined with old farmhouses—now razed for large prefab versions that the younger couples favor. And about Tadaaki leading the kids and friends as they banged their “straw guns” on the pavement—as if they owned the street and the cars were the intruders. And I thought about the shishimai dancers who had come to celebrate the sending off of the rice harvest gods and that we can do this because we do it together. We fight the fight to keep those traditions alive because that is the heart of Japan and without them there is no life.

 

Kenchinjiru (Country Soup with Vegetables): Traditionally, this was a vegetarian soup made with root vegetables, tofu, konnyaku, and perhaps dried shiitake for depth of flavor. But we often make a broth from our Christmas duck carcasses for the kenchinjiru we make at New Year…because we have them. In this case, add some sliced ginger and a few generous stalks of Japanese negi (substitute thick spring onions or thin leeks) to the fresh duck bones (I use the term “fresh” loosely because actually we freeze the raw carcasses whole in Ziploc bags). Alternatively, I like to make a stock from the cooked bones of roasted chickens that I stuffed with garden thyme branches and Mochizuki-san’s lemons, quartered. Our chickens are so sublime that I add nothing but water along with the thyme sprigs and drippings off the cutting board. I tried to cook the soup all night but the gas alarm company called my mother-in-law in the middle of the night and she crept upstairs to wake my husband. He has now nixed the overnight cook method. This deeply flavorful chicken soup makes an unforgettable ramen broth for homemade ramen; also I see it as a base for a mochi-less kenchinjiru. For a vegetarian broth, I would add a generous piece or two of konbu kelp to a large pot of cold water and bring it almost to a boil before removing the kelp and then proceed to make the root vegetable soup.

To prepare: scrub equal amounts of carrots, gobo (burdock root), and daikon with a rough brush (tawashi). Slice into thin rounds, half rounds or quarters depending on thickness of the roots. The vegetables should be fairly uniform in thickness and size, as you will be cooking them together and eating the soup with chopsticks. Peel and slice the same amount of taro root (satoimo) as you did for each of the other vegetables. Keep the daikon and taro each in separate bowls. Cut horizontally through a block or two of best quality soft tofu (in Japan use momendofu), then crosswise into 6 x 4 pieces (thus creating a dice). Slice usuage into ¼” strips (Tadaaki cuts them again horizontally to make pieces, I prefer them a little long and dangly). If the usuage is not fresh, pour hot water over to take off any unpleasant odors—or maybe just skip it.

Film organic canola oil in large soup pot, and sauté sliced carrots and gobo for a few minutes before adding the sliced daikon. Stir and sauté a minute or so longer, then add hot homemade broth (duck, chicken or konbu kelp). Throw in the sliced taro and bring to a boil and cook until the vegetables are getting soft, but not falling apart. Slide in the tofu, usuage and konnyaku (see below), and simmer a few minutes more until heated through. Season with organic soy sauce to taste and serve with a bowl of white rice on the side if there is no mochi in the soup. Pass shichimi togarashi (7-spice powder) for those who like a little extra kick.

Optional konnyaku: Fill a large pot half way with water, toss in a small handful of salt and bring to a boil. While the water is heating, tear the konnyaku into 1½” round misshapen blobs (a little bigger than bite-sized). If using mochi, slice konnakyu instead into thin strips (1½” x ¼”). Boil konnyaku pieces for 15 minutes in salted water, drain, and reserve.

Optional mochi: drop pieces of hot mochi into soup and eat immediately. 

 

Kids, Food & Overnights

"Big Momoka," sister "Rammy," and "Little Momoka"

Momoka Kanezawa tilts her four-year-old-cute face up toward mine, eyes brightly excited as she accosts me at the threshold of my English Immersion Preschool in the Japanese countryside.

 “I wanna overnight Nancy’s house,” she blurts out, urgently awaiting my affirmative answer. I barely make it through the door when ten other preschoolers crowd around. They join her anxious pleas, which I palm off with my signature crunchy eyed-smile and a non-committal, yet hopeful, “OK!” knowing it’s not up to me. Alhough as their teacher, sometimes the lines are blurred, I’m not the mom.

Overnights at Nancy’s House happen a few times of year and attendance is a much-coveted privilege. What the kids don’t quite understand is that attendance at the Overnight is up to Mommy and Mommy’s willingness to pony up the extra fee. It’s as simple as that.

Why are the kids so desperate to go to “Nancy’s House?”

Since “what are we eating for dinner?” or “are we having ice cream?” are the most common questions kids ask before the overnight, I would say they come for the food. I believe in a no-holds-barred kind of attitude when it comes to kids and food. The butcher cuts me a few thick pieces of the best Japanese beef for tender marbled steaks cooked on the grill, I pick vegetables from our field and churn ice cream from local grass-fed cow cream, my husbands’ free-range eggs and organic sugar. That’s why the kids come.

 

But why do the moms send their little three year olds (on up to ten year olds) off for a night at my house? Like most of the special programs at my school, the Overnight “Camp” started at the request of the moms. I’m guessing they wanted a free night more than anything else. Some spend it with their husband, but others go out with “the girls.” In Japan, the babysitter system doesn’t exist. Parents rely on family members to watch their kids, so handing over a child and spending the night on the town is not really an option. Too selfish.

Never one to follow the rules, I hired a local mother to watch my babies while I taught. And I also found high school girls to pitch in part-time on the weekends so I could get some work done as we didn’t use a playpen, and parking the babies was not in the cards.But we never went out at night without the kids. Eating in restaurants (or traveling) with children is not what I would call “fun,” though it's a necessary rite of passage for parents to get through if they want to enjoy meals out with their kids in the future. For many years now, our sons have been delightful dining and travel companions, and the early years of harried meals and constant vigilance at the table, now barely a memory, were well worth it.

 

The Sunny-Side Up! kids are like my own, so table manners are taught relentlessly (sit on your butt, please…eat over your plate…close your mouth when you chew…turn around…don’t play at the table….the list is endless). I also encourage the teachers to actively promote conversation, since the table is a great place for language learning. As a result, SSU! kids are quite comfortable hanging at the table and just “shootin’ the breeze.” I feel strongly that everyone should sit down before the food is actually ready because I want them to soak in the cooking smells and get their appetite aroused. Also, I want the kids to have a visual reminder of the work that goes into a meal, and that it’s not just the push of a button (it helps that we have an open kitchen and dining space). Typically, the kids wait for about ten minutes or so as my assistant and I finish and serve the lunch.

Several months ago, I had a little oven disaster with a humungous Le Creuset pot full of cabbage balls. The bottom layer was almost cooked, but the top layer was virtually raw. It took another thirty minutes to get lunch on the table that day. And not one kid said, “I’m hungry,” or asked, “Where’s my lunch?” I looked over at the tables and the kids were chatting away, like they were born to be there. I was so moved that I put four fingers in my mouth and blew out a sharp whistle shriek to call their attention so I could tell them how great they were. And I gave them a round of applause. It’s their vocal appreciation and positive attitude towards the food that keeps me going back into the kitchen every day. You gotta love that energy (and those kids).

 

We had an Overnight last weekend and for the first time in three years, I did it at Sunny-Side Up! These past three years we’ve had our share of trauma and drama at SSU!, and it came to the point where I almost wanted to close the school. But I’m not a quitter, so I forged on, initiating a school garden project and increasing the school lunch program from twice a week to every day (except Sunday). Before you start thinking I’m a super woman, stop. I have an assistant who does a lot of the prep work for lunch and teachers who actually do the teaching at the school. I’m the “sweep in at the last minute person,” who takes all the accolades. Though I do hear from the teaching staff that the lunches are never as good when I’m not there. (It’s the love I put in.)

But Sunny-Side Up! has passed into a new era. We have an earnestly engaging new teacher, a young woman who is bicultural/bilingual and spent half her life in Germany. I’m writing every day, and find myself now able to work at the school despite (or because of?) the din. And we have two little boy kitties scampering around the house thanks to a friend twisting my arm (it wasn’t too hard). So Sunny-Side Up! feels like home again. 

And the Overnight was a blast. The lot of us all hopped in the big inflatable pools we have on the patio for a night swim right before a storm whipped through. And while we were swimming, one of the BBQ legs fell off and the $100 steaks dropped into the dirt. Tadaaki washed them off and slapped them back on the grill, none the worse for wear. When it came time to change into P.J.'s, I sent them off with an airy, "Go get ready for bed." A far cry from the days of frantically scrambling to get the kids to jump in and out of the bath and at the same time keep all the clothes separated and prepared for the next day. I've let go of all that. And we had raspberry milkshakes with French toast for breakfast. Like I said, it was a blast. 

Panzanella Bread Salad (adapted from Simply Recipes)

Elise Bauer, founder of mega-successful food blog, Simply Recipes, told me I’d love this salad, and I did, though I altered the recipe because of my mood and the vegetables I had.

I made this Panzanella Bread Salad for the overnight, and the kids liked it with varying degrees of enthusiasm. That’s OK, I just keep cooking regular food and eventually they all start to eat everything. I’m patient. In my version, I marinated the torn bread chunks in olive oil first and added homemade red wine vinegar (I was craving that taste). I also put in more cucumbers (about 4 slender Japanese ones), because that’s what we have coming out of our ears right now. And I wasn’t feeling the mix and sit idea, so tossed the vegetables into the bread about 15 minutes before serving. I also always slice basil with a super sharp knife because it bruises if you tear it with your fingers.

Wagyu Steak

I started working on my youtube channel: nancyhachisu’s My Japanese Farm and was looking around at what other people are posting. I stumbled upon a few Jamie Oliver clips. He’s an engaging chap, wouldn’t you say? I think he said something about rubbing a steak with rosemary and garlic, so I gave it a go. As I suspected, there was no hint of either flavor in the cooked meat, though perhaps dropping the steaks into the dirt didn’t help. When kids ask me why the meat is red (we serve our beef rare, no exceptions), I tell them because “it’s supposed to be.” Their response, “Oh, O.K.” Who said kids are hard to cook for?

New Garlic & Miso

When I mentioned seasonal garlic in one of my recipes, a friend asked, “Garlic has a season?”

Oh yes, everything has a season.  We just may not see it, especially for those ubiquitous everyday ingredients like potatoes, onions and garlic.  But seasons they do have and their seasons should dictate how you use all three.

Like many people who do not grow professionally, there are times when our fields are lean and we must buy from other farmers or make do eating negi every day.  Family members tend to rebel, so we are lucky to have other organic grower friends in our area to turn to when we are between seasons.  And precisely right now, we are in the most barren season of all:  hazakaiki (literally:  “on the edge of the season”).  Late winter and early spring vegetables have come and gone, while the early summer shoots are still struggling their way to maturity.  Farmers who started their seeds in green houses are cropping vegetables now, so I break some of my unwritten rules about waiting to buy edamame, tomatoes or potatoes before ours are ready.  I cook lunch for the kids at Sunny-Side Up!, and the vegetables that Fukuda-san, Suka-san and Iwata-san grow, give me the essential inspiration and energy I need to create meals for those kids, day in and day out.

Garlic, though, is one of those crops that we are never too successful at producing.  So, no guilt there about buying locally.  And by some lucky stroke of fate, a few farmers in the next town over are growing rose garlic.  I first read about rose garlic in the Seeds of Change catalog.  I loved the sound of the small cloves with their purported delicate flavor.  I’m more of a "small is better" kind of person, so don’t buy into the gigantic fruit varieties that are so popular here in Japan.  Today, tracking down Japanese heirloom seeds is no easy feat, but twenty years ago, it was nearly impossible.  We ordered our seeds from Seeds of Change and along with those seeds, a couple pounds of garlic.  Too bad they didn’t make it through the agriculture inspection.

A few years later, inspired by A Food Lover’s Guide to France, my boys and I began meeting brother, Peter, and niece, Olga, in Provence every summer.  It was June, so new garlic flooded the market.  Rose garlic, how providential.  I stuffed some in my suitcase each trip, and no one was the wiser.  But school and other obligations have derailed our yearly summer sojourn in Provence.  I’m pining away for the sun, the lunches at Le Bistrot du Paradou and hooking up with Slow Food Provence Méditerranée friends.  Perhaps I’ll have to go on my own.

As for our garlic “seeds,” since I discovered those farmers growing rose garlic in a neighboring town, we now have our own local source.  Who would have thought?  They're not organic, but I’ll overlook that.  (Yes, I do go back on my principles.  Limes for mojitos or margaritas are from Mexico.  Sigh.  Andrew razzes me for my lack of conviction.)  The local rose garlic appears in the beginning of June and is sold out by the end of the month, so every year I order about 10 kilos to get me through the year.  The alternative is white elephant garlic from China, a bit rank and totally lacking in subtlety. 

Over the years, I’ve tried various storage methods.  Tadaaki always insisted on hanging the small crop of garlic that he grew under the eaves of the chicken coops.  But the cloves turned to dust after several months and never made it to Christmas.  Tadaaki completely ignored my logical advice, but not having grown the garlic, I had to shrug that off.  I learned to use our homegrown garlic quickly, before it disintegrated.  On the other hand, the garlic I bought was mine to store as I liked.  I tried refrigeration, but the air was too moist and the garlic tended to sprout.  Room temperature in the larder was not the answer either.  Eventually, I discovered that garlic stayed best when packed loosely in thick American supermarket bags (rolled up, but not sealed airtight), and left in the kura, a traditional storage house that maintains a cellar temperature through out most of the year.  There are some rats that scamper about, and although they gnaw at the wine bottle foils, they don’t get into the garlic.  And these days, Tadaaki has given in about where I store his garlic as well. 

Tadaaki grows garlic most years, though his crop is usually small and would be quickly depleted, should I use it to feed the SSU! kids.  I ration his garlic out bit by bit, usually only for salads constructed from our own baby lettuces.  Also, the garlic bulbs we grow sometimes melt in the field, engulfed by monster weeds.  As the boys and I were often gone in June (cropping season) and Tadaaki is busy with the rice planting at this time, our garlic crop suffered.  But this is changing since we are no longer traveling in June and I am more involved in supporting Tadaaki’s work on the fields.  When in Japan, Christopher has always been an invaluable right-hand man to Tadaaki, but will be leaving soon for college.  As for the younger boys, Japanese school and basketball club have swallowed them up, so I suppose that now just leaves me.  Gulp.

In a fit of I-don’t-know-what, Tadaaki decided to till the field where he had planted onions and garlic, so cropped them early.  Too early.  Though to give Tadaaki his due, it was a miserable crop to begin with, and probably not worth leaving in the field.  So much nicer to gaze over the pristine richly brown dirt, nary a weed in sight and begin one’s summer planting with a clean canvas.  Much more satisfying than leaving a single scraggly line of alliums to mar the vista.

I found Tadaaki’s newly cropped garlic in a heap on the garage floor, mingled in with some fresh-cropped onions.  Moist earth still clinging to their bulbs, the garlic and onions were all in danger of molding.  I separated them and dried the garlic a bit on the gravel in front of our house, heated by the late afternoon sun.

I also brought a few teeny bulbs into the house and set to work peeling them to mash up with salt and put in my salad that evening.

But as I peeled, a thought came to me.  Miso.  These little teeny cloves, not much bigger than a one year old’s pinky must be sensational dipped in the organic brown rice miso I had in my fridge.  Earthy, rustic salt against juicy hot.  Yum.  I tried one.  Yum.  I had to try another, and another.  But finally I forced myself to stop after about eight of those weensy cloves.  Before bed, I just had to have a few more, but regretted it the next morning.  I woke up to garlic in my brain.  Over the course of the following two weeks, I was addicted to this little snack and struggled to keep myself in check.  The only reason why I stopped was because I ran out of that special miso and my everyday one was too light to be an effective foil to the garlic.  I’ve been busy writing, so haven’t had time to make the trek up to Yamaki to buy more and don’t trust anyone else to buy the right one.  The taste haunts me and now I’m craving that miso with Tadaaki’s new garlic.  Today.  I’ll go today.  (as soon as I post)

 

New Garlic & Miso:  I overlooked miso for years but, a bit like taking an old friend as a lover, am now completely enthralled with it.  My favorite miso is made in Kamiizumi-mura, a mountain town bordering ours.  Yamaki Jozo is family-owned and part of our Slow Food community.  But do not despair, you can buy Yamaki brown rice miso in the U.S., packaged under the name Ohsawa.  The brown rice miso has enough depth of flavor to hold up to the garlic, and no distraction of the underlying wheat tones that you get with wheat miso.  I couldn’t have told you that a month ago, but recently I’ve been yanking off stalks of wheat to taste wheat seeds in the field with SSU! kids. 

Spoon out a dollop of miso onto a small plate.  Peel very young garlic, dip in miso, scooping up about the same volume of miso to garlic and eat sparingly.  Watch out, this is completely addicting and totally unforgettable.  (And can lead to an upset tummy if over-consumed.) Also fantastic with radishes, Japanese cucumbers, small green peppers or mild chiles. 

  

Planting Seeds

When May arrived this year, I still had not planted any summer seeds.  My attempts to buy seeds had also been thwarted by bad timing and falling asleep at the keyboard, mid-order.  But, by chance, I passed a co-op in Portland and managed to find an assortment of organic heirloom seeds.  Phew, saved.  Back in Japan, with only one week before my next trip, houseguests and a television crew at SSU! took precedence over the planting.  Finally on May 1, my departure date looming the following morning, I abandoned my packing, grabbed a shovel and headed to the field.  Tadaaki had instructed me to dig up our so-called mulch pile (really not much more than a decaying mound of leaves and scraps).   He makes everything sound so easy, but it’s just not.  To get to the rich decomposed soil and leaves, I had to plunge my shovel into the base of the mound.  But the weight of the 6-foot tall mound made this a fierce struggle.  What the hell, so there were a few leaves mixed in with the dirt, it was good enough for me.  I filled two feedbags with compost and returned home to dump the dirt into my planter boxes, first lining them with newspaper.  It took me another half hour to plant 23 kinds of seeds:  tomatoes, peppers, herbs and lettuce.  Feeling virtuous, I went back to my packing.

Planting seeds in planter boxes is one of those easy farming chores, quickly accomplished with a minimal amount of sweat.  Also, when the seeds magically sprout, the gratification is immediate.  But when it comes time for transferring the seedlings to the field, you start cursing their buoyant success and wish you could just throw a few over your shoulder and be done with it.  But you can’t, so you religiously plant each little sprout then plunge headfirst into a summer of gorgeous vegetables along with a Sisyphean battle against the jungle of weeds.  They say the rainy season is in July, but don’t be fooled.  It rains all year long here.

At the end of August, when the late summer vegetables are finally kicking into high gear, we almost can’t pick enough peppers, tomatoes or eggplant every day.  And sometimes we don’t.  But as we revel in our baskets piled high with green, red and purple, devising yet another way to use the eggplants and peppers (tomatoes, we can freeze) that is exactly the time we should be planning our winter vegetable planting.

And for this reason, we often miss the perfect time to plant.  First, planting needs to be done right before it rains, as we don’t irrigate.  Judge that wrong and you’ll be carting water to the field in containers like we did last year.  Luckily the SSU! kids thought this was great fun and helped carry.  Second, you need to get a sense of the overall weather pattern and suss out the exact turn from summer to fall.  Seeds won’t like being in the hot dry summer soil, but they will thrive in the warm waning fall days that are intermixed with rain.

And then there is that pesky thing called daily life.  Which day will there enough time to prepare the field?  Will Tadaaki be able to squeeze in an hour or so to plow that section of the field?  Will the SSU! kids be around to help?  Do I want them to?

Last fall, I waited until late September before I planting.  Tadaaki (the real farmer), got his fields planted earlier of course.  It was a busy fall, SSU! curriculum planning and writing projects seemed to keep me at my computer.  I was dragging my heels, knowing the window for planting our school garden field was narrowing.  Everyday I felt that nudge at my back, “go to the field, get it done.”  But, somehow, each day went by without planting.  The guilt mounted until mid-morning one Saturday in late September.

Tadaaki breezed in to snatch up some egg orders from the fax machine.  As he headed out the door, he ever so casually mentioned, “it’s gonna rain today.”  The truth is, I had already seen that and had already made the decision to plant.  But, sometimes I get derailed from my plans.  Those four measured words, uttered so plainly, pushed me off my chair and into the car with my hoe, line measuring device and seeds.  And it really was going to rain, so I decided to plant on my own.  The kids who come for the Saturday program are a bit unruly and I just wanted to get it done.

Tadaaki had plowed that section of the field a couple days before, so the earth was like fluffy loam.  My feet sunk in several inches, my clogs pulling up and spewing out dirt sprays as I paced out the lines.  I had gotten about five lines marked, lettuce and radish seeds sprinkled, earth kicked over to cover and had side stepped down the row gently pressing the earth down with my clogs when, the previously tentative, raindrops began to increase their rhythm and pace.  I, in turn, picked up mine and raced to finish the last five rows.  The small drops seemed to join together into larger glops of water, glancing off my head as I worked furiously, almost at a run.  But I couldn’t move very fast because the water was also hitting the field making the soil clump together on the bottoms of my clogs.  Every step seemed to garner more heavy wet earth until it felt like I had bricks strapped to my clogs. 

I dropped my hoe and loped awkwardly to the car, where I had left my rubber beach sandals.  Back in business, it didn't take long for the beach sandals to amass about 4 inches of mud on their soles.  Stupid.  I shouldn’t have bothered.  I abandoned the flip-flops in the field and finished barefoot.  Sinking through the wet topsoil to the warm dry soil below was like putting my feet into a hopper of fresh-milled flour upon which water had been spilled.

By the time I finished, my hair dribbled rivulets of water down my back and my tee shirt and shorts were soaked to the skin.  But no time to change.  I grabbed my hoe and mud caked flip-flops, then drove to the school to cook lunch.  I felt a little guilty for not including the kids, but in the end the rain would have been a problem.  Mud, wet clothes…wet hair…parents, potential colds.  Sometimes it’s easier to just do it myself.

                       Photo by Kenji Miura

Soy Sauce Dressed Red Oak Leaf Lettuce with Half-Cooked Egg & Mayonnaise:  Salad is my favorite food, but I don’t often stray much further than pristine lettuce from our field.  So whenever I’m at Chez Panisse, I usually skip the mains and order three salads:  avocado, beets, whatever.  I’m in heaven with the sometimes surprising, yet always logical combinations as well as their characteristic sensitivity and restraint.  Chez Panisse knows how to make a salad (and many, many restaurants do not).  Drippy, gloopy, tasteless vegetables.  No thanks, I’d rather eat French fries.  But I suppose I’m getting off course.  Growing up, my sister and I were in charge of the vinaigrette for our family salad.  We never measured, but always tasted.  I continued following that “formula” well into my adult life, but now as I develop Japanese recipes, have started to measure.  And I derive great comfort from discovering the logic of ratios in all of these salad dressing variations.  Though ultimately, it’s up to you to figure out how much dressing to make and to hold yourself back from drenching the salad.  I’ve been using an extremely bright, organic rapeseed oil and recommend tracking some down.  Also, I would not skimp on the soy sauce or rice wine vinegar.  Buy organic and buy the best.  Whisk soy sauce & vinegar together in a small bowl, then whisk in rapeseed oil.  Pour enough dressing on salad to film leaves and gently toss with light hands (1:1:2—soy sauce: rice wine vinegar: rapeseed oil).  And, if possible, don’t wash the lettuce.  Just wipe any clinging dirt with a damp towel.  Half-Cooked Egg:  fill a small saucepan ¾ full with hot water and bring to a boil.  Lower in a few super fresh farm eggs and cook 7 minutes.  Dump boiling water and run cold water until eggs have completely cooled.  Dry, whack in half with a razor-sharp knife and carefully scoop out eggs with a soupspoon.  Serve with chopped chives and a dollop of homemade mayonnaise.

                                                                                                                                                                                       Photo by Kenji Miura