Indigo Days

After the Quake

Photo: Tokyo Insider

[originally published on The Rambling Epicure, April 25 as From Tokyo: Quirk of Fate After the Quake]

 

Just moments before the Great East Japan Earthquake began to shake I was thinking about food.

While making my way towards Tokyo Station to catch the bullet train back to my local area 100 kilometers northwest of Tokyo, I was toying with dropping by my regular sushi shop near Tokyo Station for a palate cleanser (to chase away a disappointing sushi lunch earlier). Though really, I was wishing I could stay in town for dinner. Alas, I knew this would not sit well with husband Tadaaki, as I had just gotten back a couple days earlier from a quick trip to the U.S. And I had been gone way too much this last year.

Nonetheless, the idea took hold.

That morning I had sat in on a brain storming session exploring logistics of bringing the next edition of Cook It Raw to Japan. As the talk flowed around me, my nascent desire to “experience” Yoshihiro Narisawa’s provocative Japanese influenced French “food” swelled into an obsessive urge to eat at his Minami Aoyama restaurant, Les Créations de Narisawa that night. Impractical, crazy, costly…impossible. Or so I thought.

When the ground of the massive station building where I stood stopped rippling and the initial terror had passed, the other passengers and I all waited quietly with backs leaning against the station walls. All eyes were fixed on our cell phones in hand, trying unsuccessfully to get a signal. No one said a word.

I emailed my 14-year-old son Matthew, home sick from school that day, and got a return email immediately. The house and family were fine.

At that point I still thought the trains would be running again. The JR announcements were telling us there had been a “big earthquake,” and to wait as they checked the train lines, so I dutifully waited for 45 minutes before realizing it was pointless. And so I made my way through underground walkways to Tokyo Station and began to realize the enormity of what had just happened.

Student groups trapped on their way through Tokyo for the annual School Trip were seated on the floor as teachers gave instructions. The bullet train would not be running that day (or the next).

My first thought was getting a hotel (and that I could stay for dinner). I had already squandered a crucial hour waiting for the trains to run, so the streets had swollen with commuters by the time I surfaced outside of Tokyo Station. I only knew of a few hotels and was not sure which side of the station they were located. Tokyo Station is a massive behemoth spanning multiple city blocks. When I finally got my bearings, it was getting on towards 5pm, already 2 hours after the earthquake. The hotels were full, so I lined up for the payphone to call Les Créations de Narisawa. My iPhone battery was dying, I was getting cold, and I knew I needed to get to a safe haven to recoup my energy before the night ahead of me. I needed food and I needed good food.

The minutes slipped quickly away and the hour hand of my watch was edging toward six. I glanced over at the hoards waiting for taxis and optimistically told the restaurant I would try to get there by 7:30, but gave them my email for contact.

I now had a destination and nothing would deter me from getting there. Nothing.

The line for taxis looked insanely long and seemed to feed in from different directions. I dithered. I stood in line for a while, still unable to commit: wait it out or find another way. I tried to gauge how long it would take by talking to others around me in line—I’m not sure what we were thinking. We somehow believed that if we stood there long enough, the taxi would take us where we wanted to go. But what exactly was, “long enough?” One hour…five?

The alternative was unthinkable. Walk.

But I didn’t have all night to passively wait. I had less than 2 hours to get to my asylum away from the massive surge of humanity that had filled the sidewalks and streets. I knew I could handle a night on the floor of Tokyo Station, but desperately needed something to ground me in the chaos. And the only thing that does that for me is a quiet room and thoughtful food.

So I set off walking. Power walking, that is.

Thanks to a fellow “traveler” met early on in my trek, I got to Minami Aoyama in about an hour and a half. We stopped one time on a pedestrian bridge over Aoyama Dori (a main thoroughfare). The vast sea of lights before us was from the cars that barely inched forward. No taxis were getting through that night. Walking had been a good decision.

Photo: Christian Science Monitor

A flute of champagne in hand, my iPhone charging, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. I was “home.”

For the next two hours, a surreal dinner like I had never had before unfolded. It almost seems obscene in retrospect: tree bark, tree sap…bread baked before my eyes in a small stone capsule. Unusual and whimsical morsels from land and sea played together on the equally fanciful “plates.” I was the only customer that night. Perhaps I was the only one crazy enough to take refuge in such a place. Shut off from the outside world, none of us in that hushed room of Les Créations de Narisawa really knew or understood the gravity of the earthquake and all the horror and devastation it had brought. Nor had any of us imagined the unthinkable happening as it has happened at Fukushima Daiichi.

That night at Les Créations de Narisawa, I was caught in a soft little bubble, coddled by the staff. All of us unaware of what awaited us when the bubble burst.

At 10 o’clock, I stepped back out into the brisk night and started my return voyage. Long (useless) waits for trains, a night spent shivering on the marble floor of Tokyo Station, and more endless lines later, I finally got home late the following day. And for now we are safe, though 215 kilometers does not seem far enough from Fukushima Daiichi. But hundreds of thousands of Japanese are still in shelters and many will not be able to go home for many years to come.

And in the aftermath, we try to pick up our lives. I am planting seeds for the summer and looking towards the future. I am trying to organize food for a shelter in our prefecture and to offer a family the vacant teacher apartment at our school, but the wheels grind slowly here and accepting help from outside sources means someone has to manage that. There seems to be an absence of organization to deal with donations and the shelter contacts prefer money or instant ramen over real food like a big pot of stew from farm chickens and local (non-irradiated) vegetables. But that’s Japan, it’s all about the face to face meeting, not phone arrangements. I suppose a road trip is in order.

 

Japanese Summer & Monster Weeds

We’re having the longest heat wave in the history of recorded weather in Japan. Today is Day 50. For many of you who have visited Japan, this may not sound odd since Japan is always sweltering in August. Typically the Japanese summer is characterized by hot humid days with barely a breeze at night to give relief. Clothes and body are uncomfortably damp from morning ‘til night, a reality that I had a hard time accepting twenty years ago when I moved out to the countryside as a foreign bride to my Japanese farmer husband.

We live without air conditioning, not intrinsically a problem for me, as I am not fond of forced air, though we do rely on fans to circulate air. But the first couple summers in our new house were fairly miserable and I fought the icky sticky weather with all of my spirit. I took a lot of showers and changed my clothes constantly, silently cursing the suffocating blanket of muggy heat. Year Two, I had newborn Christopher, and continued to drip unpleasantly as his body was melded to mine. Finally, Year Three I put on a bathing suit and t-shirt and jumped in and out of Christopher’s rubber pool, thus circumventing the troublesome shower and change ritual. I just stayed wet all summer.

But then Year Four came along. 

In December, I had lost a baby at 24 weeks gestation, I couldn’t get pregnant again, and life just seemed too damn hard. That summer, I gave into the oppressive heat because in juxtaposition to what was going on personally, there was no comparison. And with that acceptance came a small sort of peace with my life in Japan. I still continued to butt heads through the eventually pregnancies and births of Andrew and Matthew, but I never fought the summer again. And that has come as a huge personal relief.

This year is testing my forbearance however. Fifty days of temperatures in the mid-90s (36ºC) is hard to withstand, especially when the field needs attention and cannot wait for the cooler weather to come. What is unusual about this year is the blinding sun that beats down on the earth. The typical Japanese summer sees a rash of rainy days in June on into July, and then intermittent showers and hazy days during August. We normally don't get many of these burning-hot, bright sunny days.

At the beginning of the summer, for the first time, I was excited to weed and also determined to stay ahead of the monster weeds. Tadaaki alerted me when the little babies appeared on the field and advised me to hoe the surface to dislodge their shallow roots before they could take hold. I did so. I also brought the SSU! kids to the field and they helped since this is a fun and not so difficult task. I made squares on the field and had the kids take turns doing a square. There wasn’t much that could go wrong on this operation. But I turned my back for a week (or was it two?) and the next thing I knew the weeds had come back and were about 2 feet tall. I had to give up trying to weed the whole area and concentrated on weeding around the struggling summer herbs and vegetables. A row of chives had survived from two years before, despite being located in the middle of a swatch of wheat. I weeded them first because I love chives more than any other onion-like allium. In fact I crave chives, though don’t often have them. Recently they’ve been weeded out accidentally by well-meaning assistants or Slow Food volunteers. Tadaaki cropped the wheat while I was gone in June and uncovered the row of chives (that I had thought long gone). And discovering them on my return to Japan made my month.

 
 
My varietal thyme patch had survived and flourished for more than three years, so it was low on the priority list. The fraises du bois had been robustly healthy in early June when I last checked, so I turned my sights to the pressing need to weed around the newly planted summer shoots: basil, summer savory, marjoram, parsley, lettuces, tomatoes and scallions; and also the corn. Tadaaki cut the by then 4-foot tall weeds and I finished my weeding a little less itchy than I would have otherwise. But stupidly, I did not remove the cut weeds that had fallen on the fraises du bois, though finally did a few weeks later. My gorgeous wild strawberry plants had almost melted and I cursed my lack of energy and inability to have pushed myself to get them weeded earlier.

The truth is, going out to the field is like a daily mountain to climb. Once I start, I cannot stop because there is so much to weed. Because of the lack of rain (and the fact that my tomatoes were engulfed in weeds until recently), the tomatoes aren’t producing much. So except for the herbs, scallions and chives, my field is fairly sparse (except the weeds).

 

When I go to Tadaaki’s field I try to weed his tomatoes and peppers, but leave the eggplant, okra, and cucumbers to him. There’s a limit. He’s got a couple thickets of 12 to 18-foot tall weeds that I dare not tackle, despite the fact that one patch is casting a shade on my precious peppers. Tadaaki says he’s thinking of using these monster weeds as poles for the fall green beans, though that sounds like a messy nightmare to me. Tadaaki seems to love that style of dense planting. Maybe it doesn’t bother him like it does me because he works on the field in long pants and boots, unlike impractical (imprudent?) me in flip-flops and shorts. Jungle planting notwithstanding (or perhaps because of it), Tadaaki’s vegetables are always healthier and tastier than mine.

How does that work? I grew the shoots.

Tadaaki planted some on his field and I planted some on mine with the kids. After Tadaaki’s tutelage, I painstakingly laid down straw under the plants so the tomatoes would not get fungus from touching the dirt. Yet, my Sun Gold tomatoes have little flavor and Tadaaki’s (planted on his field from my shoots and no painstakingly laid straw bed) are bursting with that warm juicy distinctive “tomatoey” taste. It’s disheartening.

I talk a lot about putting love in the food, though I’m still learning how to put love in the field. But when I do, maybe then I can at least call myself a part-time farmer.

Cucumbers & Young Ginger with Miso

Eggplant Stir Fry with Shiso: Peel a small piece of ginger with a sharp knife and cut into about 1 tablespoon of slivered matchsticks. Stack about 10 shiso leaves together, roll and slice crosswise into fine tendrils. Slice 500 grams (a bit over a pound) Japanese eggplant down the middle lengthwise, then diagonally crosswise into slightly less than ½-inch (1 cm) slices. Heat 6 tablespoons high quality mild organic oil such as rapeseed in a large skillet over high heat with 2 or 3 dried red peppers torn in half (japonica or arbol). Throw in eggplant and ginger. Toss over high heat until glossy and soft, but not falling apart. Sprinkle with salt (or soy sauce), add shiso tendrils, toss one more time and serve in a medium-sized pottery bowl. Eat immediately.

Summer Vegetarian Dinner: Garden lettuce salad vinaigrette with chives--chopped cucumber, Sun Gold cherry tomato halves, and sliced hot pepper salad lemon vinaigrette—late spring harvest squash tian with thyme—skillet-roasted eggplant slices with pistou

 

Corn and Radishes

Corn and radishes go from bright and juicy to woody, in the space of a week. As soon as the first delicate little corn kernels are just raising themselves off of the cob, but are still not completely plumped out, we madly start eating the corn. By the end of the week, the kernels are turning chalky and it’s an effort to get through a whole ear of corn. From then the kernels quickly become wrinkled and inedible, and the few ears that are still mildly edible, were the slow starters, so slightly deformed.

Picking the corn a bit early was a battle I fought long and hard to win with farmer husband, Tadaaki. For him, it sounded wasteful to eat the immature corn.

Remember how I said that corn comes and goes in a week? The reality of that is that the corn from our field is at its peak for really only three days. Of course, we stagger planting, but we still plant a whole row in the field, and there are probably about 30 to 40 plants in each row. This year, Tadaaki was clever and planted a few varieties that had different maturing rates. The corn was even more clever and all seemed to mature exponentially at their peak. And one segued into the other so we had about two weeks solid of corn. Then nothing.

I love a lot of food in Japan, but the typical Japanese corn is not one of them. So unless we grow it, I don’t eat corn. For some unknown reason, Japanese love mature corn with broad dark yellow, very sweet (and starchy) kernels. And they boil the corn for a while. Until dead. They also eat the corn at room temperature. Too weird.

I had a friend who worked in an Iowa cornfield one summer when she was a teenager. She described how they prepared the corn for eating: pick the corn, husk, and run to the boiling water pot waiting on the stove. Turn off water and dump in corn. Cover and let “cook” for 3 minutes in the hot water. Remove with tongs and eat with salt and butter. I follow that method, but these days skip the butter.

Tadaaki takes it one step further and always eats a raw ear of corn while he’s still on the field. Now that’s fresh.

We planted the corn and radishes (late) in early June with the SSU! kindergarteners and elementary kids that come for After School Club. I prepared two sticks and we tied a hot pink nylon ribbon-string to one of them. A big kid walked down the field until I called, “Stop!” and we tied off the other end of the ribbon string onto the stick another kid was holding. We eyeballed a straight line and the two kids rammed their sticks into the loose dirt to mark the line. Hoeing a little trough out left me huffing and puffing, but it was a job I could not hand off. It’s harder than you’d think. Even I couldn’t quite keep the line straight and evenly dug.

I devised a system to give everyone a chance to plant, but also to avoid the massive seed dumping in one area. It worked. I lined up the kids at regularly spaced out intervals along the waiting trough and starting with the first kid, sprinkled some seeds in her hand. I then pointed to the place she should plop two or three seeds and thus moved down the line. As we planted subsequent rows, they started getting the hang of it. I’m working towards a less stressful, better-managed field experience with the kids, so am investing time in training them. The corn was slow to sprout, but the radish shoots popped up nicely the following week and valiantly raced against the fast-growing weeds over the following three weeks until their plump red bulbs underground had reached optimum maturity.

The radishes, scallions, and lettuces were drowning under the weed cover, so one day the whole school went out to the field to weed. The SSU! kids carried straw from the neighboring wheat field to lay down under the tomato plants. “Don’t step on the tomatoes!” was the refrain that day. My assistant Yumiko weeded the radishes and I asked her to pick radishes for lunch that day. She announced they were ready to crop, so we picked a big basketful. I meant to go back that evening to get more, but was distracted, and in the end missed the chance. One day of radishes was all we got this year, and that was my fault. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up and keep track. The radishes were hot and explosively flavorful, so even the kids couldn't resist them dipped in salt. I had some that night with miso as well, but am still longing for a few more. I suppose that’s what keeps me going, that desire to eat that special thing we have planted, I just wish I had more power to tend them.

Most of the heirloom corn seeds from Berkeley horticulture didn’t sprout, resulting in a scraggly looking row that also 

Most of the heirloom corn seeds from Berkeley Horticulture didn’t sprout (poor choices on my part), resulting in a scraggly looking row that also suffered from the weed explosion. It has been blazing hot during the day this summer and while cooler in the late afternoon, the mosquitos come out in droves, so weeding is a nightmare. I was working my way through my field trying to save the herbs, lettuce, Mexican corn, tomatoes, chives and scallions, but still hadn’t made it to my pathetic American corn stalks. Seeing me drowning, Tadaaki compassionately took a weed-whacker to the field, thus rendering the job finally manageable. The Mexican seeds I bought in the Ixtapa market were most likely meant for posole, and perhaps genetically modified not to propagate, as the 50 odd 10-feet tall stalks are singularly lacking in actual corn. At least the stalks are healthy. After all that work, we may get about 6 ears of Mexican corn and a perhaps two or three American. Oh well, it’s all a learning experience. Whenever I ask Tadaaki how to do something on the field his answer is always, “Just do it, then you’ll learn.” Of course when I “do it,” it’s most likely in some way wrong. But I am learning.

This summer, as we raced to eat four rows of corn in those two short weeks, I wondered if 

This summer, as we raced to eat four rows of corn in those two short weeks, I wondered if 

This summer, as we raced to eat four rows of corn in those two short weeks, I wondered if people really understood that corn takes three months to grow, but must be eaten within a week. In a blink of an eye it is gone. Fairly mind boggling when you think of the long growth process (and weeding), juxtaposed by the short window of maturity. The ephemeral nature of radishes is easier to wrap one’s head around because they only take one month to grow. One year I sent an email inviting friends to an afternoon lunch party and wrote that we had planted radishes for the party. The concept of growing something for a party blew away my Tokyo friends.

I still have a chance to harvest a couple ears of my fresh corn, (the Mexican one is meant to be dried), but that is it for the year. I can plant some radishes at the end of August, and hope I’m back from California when they’re at their peak. Another reason why Tadaaki says I shouldn’t travel—I miss the vegetables when they’re at their best. But then that’s the Japanese farmer mentality: don’t leave home. I guess I’ll never be a farmer.  

This summer, as we raced to eat four rows of corn in those two short weeks, I wondered if 

Japanese farmer mentality: don’t leave home. I guess I’ll never be a farme

 

Corn Cakes: These are adapted from a recipe in Chez Panisse Vegetables. The original method called for corn flour, but we don't produce that, so I substituted our own home grown four and some tasty organic corn meal I had. I also doubled the corn as I was looking for a big corn taste. Set corncob in a large bowl, and cut kernels off of 4 ears young corn with a sharp knife. After all the kernels are removed, go over cob with the back of the knife to get the juicy corn "meat" still adhering to the cob. Whisk 3/4 cup (75 g) organic flour, 3/4 cup (125 g) organic corn meal, and 1 teaspoon salt together in another large bowl.

Break 2 large farm eggs into a medium-sized bowl (preferably copper). Scoop the yolks out one by one into a small bowl by cupping your fingers gently under them (or use half of an empty shell). Heat 1 cup (240 cc) milk, ½ tablespoon organic sugar, and 4 tablespoons (60 grams) unsalted butter in a small saucepan over low flame until butter has melted. Let cool a few minutes and add in egg yolks. Slowly add milk and egg mixture to cornmeal mixture stirring constantly with whisk or wooden spoon to avoid lumps. When batter is smooth, stir in corn kernels.

Depending on size of your pan, heat a tablespoon or two of high-quality rapeseed, canola or peanut oil in a large nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Ladle in 3 or 4 scoops of batter with a soup ladle and cook until golden brown on bottom. Flip with a flat spatula and continue cooking until the second side is golden brown. If the cakes are thick, cook covered for a few minutes on low to conduct heat to the center. Remove to a paper-towel lined plate or cookie tray. Serve with a summer meal. Also would be good for breakfast with melted butter and homemade raspberry jam. Makes 20 3-inch cakes.

 

Corn “Kakiage” Fritters: Tadaaki hops the train every Thursday afternoon and travels an hour each way to practice the samurai arts of iaijutsu, kenjutsu and jujitsu. On one of those nights I got into a cooking frenzy and made salt broiled mackerel pike, salt-massaged cucumbers with miso and sesame, stir-fried eggplant with red pepper and miso, and served some beautiful local tofu with hand grated fresh wasabi. I also made corn “kakiage” fritters.

Baachan ("Granny") tends to fade as the hour gets late, so I was racing to get some food on the table before she conked out. Serving Tadaaki-style (one dish at a time), I called the boys and Baachan to the table to start eating without me. And in the kitchen, I munched on a crunchy-squishy corn kakiage, dipping the corner in sea salt before each subsequent burning hot bite. I ate two. They were that good.

Cut kernels off of 6 small ears of young corn as described in above recipe. Chop 2 scallions into fine rings (white and green part). Dump the corn kernels and scallions into 1 recipe tempura batter, add five ice cubes, and stir. Remove ice cubes. Follow directions for making tempura batter, heating oil and preparing workspace. Use excellent quality light oil, but only add 2” (5 cm) of oil to a a10-inch (25 cm) frying pan. Ladle in 4 scoops of batter with a soup ladle.

Cook over medium high heat until golden brown on bottom. Carefully turn over using two heat-resistant curved rubber scrapers.  Cook until the second side is golden brown and the oil bubbles have mainly subsided (indicating the water has cooked out). Remove from oil with a flat round slotted skimmer to the newspaper and paper towel lined cookie tray you have prepared. Eat immediately with fine white sea salt or organic soy sauce. Makes 8.

 

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
 

Volunteer Arugula & Flowering Tops

Some years we don't have lettuce.  To put this into perspective, salad is my favorite food, so no lettuce is a hardship.  But to fully disclose, a year without lettuce has not happened since the boys were small.  Though there are plenty of times during the year when we do not have lettuce in the field.  Usually it is because we planted late or because we didn’t weed at that one crucial moment in the early fall when the weeds threaten to engulf the fall vegetables.  Weed that one time, and no need to weed again until spring.  You’d think we wouldn’t miss that window, wouldn't you?  But miss it we do. 

It’s a bit like “out of sight, out of mind.”  After the last summer vegetables are harvested, my mind elsewhere, I often forget to go check Tadaaki’s field.

Late fall, I pick the green summer tomatoes that will never turn red and make green tomato relish from Diana Kennedy’s Nothing Fancy.  We valiantly eat the lingering eggplants, cutting away crusty brown patches or hard edges that result as the plant loses vitality.  If we have had a successful year of peppers, I fill my basket one last time, and pop them into Ziplocs for freezing.  Oh, I’ve done escabeche, but now find frozen whole, the best way to “preserve” the peppers fresh taste.  Though in truth, nothing matches that vitamin C blast from home grown, field peppers, bright and crisp in their complex hotness.  Some years we have one or two scraggly little plants that yield up a total of ten jalapeño or serrano chiles for the whole summer.  Some years we have none.  Farming at our house is an imperfect system and we are imperfect people.  But last year was a bumper crop, with six varieties of chiles grown from organic seeds bought at Berkeley Horticulture.  There is no greater pride than knowing the success of growing from seed.  Especially heirlooms.

Some may think this means sprinkling seeds in the ground and hoping they will grow.  Not so, here in Japan.  We don’t irrigate and the weeds grow madly.  We start shoots in planting boxes, otherwise the seedlings would never outpace the weeds.  Radishes are the exception, because they grow faster than weeds and can often be harvested in a month.  When the shoots are ready to be replanted, Tadaaki plows the fields right before the rain comes, and we take the SSU! kids to the field to plant.  This is a fun job because our feet sink into the freshly churned earth and there is a feeling like we are being sucked into the heart of the field.  I love that, and the kids seem to respond without thought, reveling in the tactility of the loamy soil.  They also love the trust I give them as I lay a tender shoot in each of their hands, admonishing them to be gentle with the “baby plant.”  They eagerly await their turn to place the tiny root tendrils straight down into the small holes we have dug out with our fingers.  And they are just as happy to troop down to the field with water bottles in hand, to water the seedlings when the expected rain doesn’t materialize.  Farming, it’s an imperfect art for imperfect people, but when we get it right, it’s right.

Getting it wrong is just as easy, and usually happens because we let an opportunity slide by, missing the perfect time to plant or that last chance to weed.  And in those years, we are lucky to have the volunteer arugula that can be used for salad; or wild mustard greens and reseeded turnips whose roots are not tasty themselves, but produce enough bitter greens for braising, to hold us over in the winter months.  I crave leafy greens, so am deeply grateful for the aliveness of the field.  Like a refrigerator in a well-used kitchen that yields odds and ends to be incorporated into the next meal, so does a field reproduce seeds from past seasons.  Volunteers sprout up in the late summer or early fall, little bonuses, to bridge the gap through less prolific seasons.  I love that the field hands us a present, so selflessly, because the field is our partner.  And we may not tend her perfectly, but she is forgiving if treated  with thoughtful respect and appreciation.

And as winter meanders along, so come spring and the flowering tops.  I call them rapini, but was told recently by Hank Shaw that this is technically incorrect, as rapini is a specific genus.  Hank should know, so I’ll call them flowering tops for now.  In Japanese, na no hana, is the catchall name for any green flowering tops that produce bright yellow flowers and small broccoli-like clusters, though mustard or turnip greens are most common.  Na no hana literally means flowering greens.  Sautéed, steamed or quick boiled, these flowering tops are both mild and bitter at once.  The pleasantly acrid winter leaves have softened by the early spring warmth as they turn from dark to bright green.  And this means spring has arrived.

I love that the field has given us the gift of salad, greens and flowering tops all without effort on our part.  A sort of helping hand in times when we cannot do our best job on the field.  I love that the field forgives us and that makes me want to try harder, because I don't want to let her down.

Photo by Kenji Miura:

Flowering Tops with Dashi:  Grasp flowering tops in the middle of the bunch and dip stems into a pot of boiling water.  Count to 10, then let go and cook for a total of 1-3 minutes, depending on thickness of stems.  Scoop tops out from boiling water, and refresh in a large bowl of cold water.  Once cool, remove from cold water, squeeze, cut into 5 cm (2") lengths, and stack attractively in a medium-sized bowl.  Julienne konbu from dashi and strew on top of flowering greens.  Ladle in one scoop of dashi (100 ml) and drizzle with organic soy sauce to taste (1-1.5 tbsp).

Dashi Method:  prepare 2 cups cold water in a medium saucepan.  Add a couple 6-inch pieces of konbu.  Bring to almost a boil, pluck out konbu and throw in a handful of katsuobushi shavings.  Turn flame to low and simmer 6-7 minutes.  Turn off flame and let sit 20 minutes before straining out katsuobushi.  

 

Pork Belly & Flowering Tops:  Sauté thinly sliced pork belly in a small amount of organic rapeseed oil with a few dried red peppers and some chopped ginger until the fat sizzles, and there is some minimal browning, but don't over do it.

Cut rapini or flowering tops into 2-inch lengths and place in a mesh strainer with a handle.  Lower into a pot of boiling water and cook for about 30 seconds, or until no longer raw.  Keep the strainer at the top of the water surface in order to scoop the rapini out in one fell swoop.  Shake off the hot water and toss into the cooked pork belly.  Toss a few minutes more over high heat and season with salt.  Cook for about 30 seconds more, then serve.