Indigo Days

Going on Book Tour

My family at my Book Launch Dinner - Chez Panisse Café                                                                    photo by Kenji Miura

 

Going on book tour conjures up a dual image of the feted author winging from one city to the next making her way (on the dime of the publisher!)….adoring fans lined up out the door at major bookstores across the United States waiting for a stolen moment with their favorite author, a few personal words, and a signature…and on the flip side, grim hotel rooms with even grimmer food.

 

Signing at Keplers - Publisher had to pay (!), store under construction (hammering!), not enough books (!) - a successful nightmare...

 

My book tour was none of the above. It was mainly orchestrated by me (at my choice). I had a willing and able publicist provided by my publisher (Andrews McMeel) but for me it made sense to contact the people I knew in the food world and plan my pivotal book events layer by layer. It took every day, all day, throughout two entire months of the summer of 2012.

The one thing people don’t tell you when you say, “I want to write a book” is how many steps there are in the process and how long the experience will extend for if you are serious about sustaining book sales. Everyone all say “Don’t do it for the money!” –and that much is true. I had just not anticipated how much of my life Japanese Farm Food would take over. (Not that I have one iota of regret – husband, Tadaaki, would have a different response!)

Photo shoots: 2+ years!!! (started before I wrote the proposal). Proposal process + working with agent: 3 months. Shopping the proposal to book contract: 3 months. Futzing around: 9 months. Madly writing: 4 months. Re-testing and editing: 6 months. Preliminary Book Tour planning: 2 months…Serious Book Tour scheduling: 2 months. Main Book Tour Sept/Oct 2012 (7 weeks); Mini Book Tour Feb 2013 (2 weeks); Spring 2013 Book Tour (5 weeks). ….You can see why Tadaaki was not so excited about the whole book thing.

But for me Japanese Farm Food is a living thing and every time I have some reason to go to the States, I feel compelled to put events on the docket to spread the word and introduce this simple style of food to more and more people.

I have some strange impression that only people I know are buying the book so when I see random tweets or posts from people who have (and love) the book I get a tickle/twinge in my stomach. Is it real? How do these people find the book? I always wonder. I am also touched by the periodic email from fans (fans…hah!...so odd to say).

And it is because of that kismet chance of opening up this door into the Japanese countryside for people that I continue to do events. I will be in the U.S. for my Stanford Reunion and have five Japanese Farm Food events on the calendar. I will post the schedule on my website.

You know the saying “in for a penny, in for a pound”…that is completely how I look at where I am. These days it seems easier to get a book contract, but you need to pour much more of yourself into the project than in the golden years of book publishing. I can live with that. Also who cares about the project more than I do? Nobody. So I better get out there and do something about presenting myself and my book in front of people who love food. Certainly doing food events what seemed like every day for 7 weeks  (or the 2 weeks in winter and the 5 weeks in spring) was thoroughly exhausting but it was also exhilarating. And that is why I keep doing it again and again. Because I am lucky enough to get the holy grail of all for writers: A book contract. So I will not squander it whining about not having support (which I do) or not having enough money to travel (which I don’t).

Also writing a book about a way of life that is mostly unknown by modern, urban Japanese has catapulted me into the eye of the media (Fuji TV is documenting my pickling and farm food methods for periodic 20-minute segments aired on Sunday mornings under the title of “Lost Japan.”) and the government (I presented at Japan Night of Summer Davos on our life and food). Japanese Farm Food has given me a big voice in Japan at a time where traditional foods and ways of life are in crisis. And for that I am deeply grateful.

 

I am also deeply grateful for the ever-inclusive community of Chez Panisse and Alice Waters for kindly allowing me into their world. It is my second home. For that, the book launch dinner deserves its own post and I will write it separately.

Dinner meeting at Chez Panisse - Chef Amy Dencler                                                                            photo by Kenji Miura

 

Once Alice and Jen Sherman had given me the thumbs up for holding my book launch dinner at the Chez Panisse Café, the rest of my first book tour fell slowly into place. Over the course of seven weeks in September and October of 2012 I collaborated on 7 Japanese Farm Food dinners; talked, signed books, and served Japanese farm food snacks at 12 bookstores; conducted 4 cooking classes and 6 cooking demos; and was also interviewed by 7 well-known radio shows. I travelled from the Bay Area to Portland, Seattle, Woodstock VT/Hanover NH, Boston, NYC, and Albuquerque, NM. My publisher kindly underwrote a portion of the expenses, but let’s face it the book tour is the responsibility of the author these days so it makes sense to go where you want! Of course unless you are a well-known author like some of my friends. Something to aim for, perhaps?

 

For now, here are some other highlights of the Fall 2012 Book Tour.

 

First, had it not been for my dear friends Ceciily Dumas and Sarah Moulding, I would have been a poor little orphan fending for herself in Motel 6. They and their darling girls Izzy and Pinky took me in for the 2 months I was a vagabond in the U.S. Their basement apartment was in a constant state of out-of-control disorder as I unpacked and packed for each new venue. Having this home base kept me grounded and and being part of their family kept me feeling connected.

 

Cecily - Nancy - Sister Pam

But many people supported my 7 week book tour...friends and family put out all the stops to come to as many events as possible. And they have been equally patient and understanding with my lack of free time to meet privately. I have tunnel vision: book, book, book.

 

Pam - Nancy - brother-in-law Jeff - Sarah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite events was sadly also the least attended. The food at our Japanese Farm Food Party at Pizzaiolo was true to the book and completely delicious. Unfortunately we were not successful on getting the word out and the date coincided with a major ballgame as well as the day after a huge wedding in our community. But Charlie Hallowell kept a smile on his face and kept making pizzas...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Sylvan Mishima Brackett of Peko-Peko Japanese Catering brought out the kamado wood-fired rice cooker to cook Tadaaki's rice for umeboshi-filled rice balls on the back patio. Chez Panisse Chef Cal Peternell, assisted by son Henderson, was grilling teriyaki burgers along side Sylvan's kamado. Wish you could have been there for all the food...there was a lot. Charlie goes big when he puts together an event. Watch his website for future dates and for the opening of his new place in Oakland: Penrose.

 

? & ?, Cecily & Sarah, Jeffrey & Pam Hiver & nephew Patrick 

? & ?, Cecily & Sarah, Jeffrey & Pam (Frantoio Grove Olive Oil), Hiver & nephew Patrick (Chromatic Coffee)

Since the book tour was of my design, I decided to try and fit in some of those places I had been wanting to

Since the book tour was of my design, I decided to try and fit in some of those places I had been wanting to visit for many years now. My mother had been a professor of English literature at Dartmouth for 10 years and I spent several months in the Hanover area during the summer of 1987 and the winter of 1988. The draw to go back was strong and deserves its own post. 

draw to go back was strong and deserves its own post.

I approached Deirdre Heekins and Caleb Barber of Pane e Salute in Woodstock, VT--never thinking they would actually agree to do a Japanese Farm Food dinner in their very Italianate osteria and wine bar. The return email from Deirdre asked one question, "What should we grow now for the dinner in October?" That says it all, doesn't it?

return email from Deirdre asked one question, "What should we grow now for the dinner in October?" That says it all, doesn't it?

Caleb and my old pal from SF days, John Larkin. My most loyal supporter. John came to dinners in Berkeley, Seattle, Woodstock, and Brooklyn! 

Caleb and my old pal from SF days, John Larkin. My most loyal supporter. John came to dinners in Berkeley, Seattle, Woodstock, and Brooklyn! 

vvvvvvv

vvvvvvv

by" dinners that

Another inspiring Japanese Farm Food dinner venue: the airstream trailor behind Marlow & Sons in Brooklyn. Chef Ken Wiss and crew put together two dinners inspired by the book. They remain the only "inspired-by" dinners that I have truly loved. Really stunning in fact. Ken got the sensibility and yet made it his own.

Chef Ken Wiss and crew put together two dinners inspired by the book. They remain the only "inspired-by" dinners that I have loved. Really stunning in fact. Ken got the sensibility and yet made it his own.

John (who grew up in Brooklyn) waits for me to finish talking to the guests. We ate at Reynard, their sister shop, then got to sit down for Ken's full Japanese Farm Food dinner the following.

John (who grew up in Brooklyn) waits for me to finish talking to the guests. We ate at, the now defunct, Isa that first night, then got to sit down for Ken's full Japanese Farm Food dinner the following.

After asking Chez Panisse to host the Book Launch Dinner, I approached Nate Tilden of Olympic Provisions and Clyde Commons. Olympic Provisions SE is my go-to restaurant when I am in town to visit son, Christopher in college at Lewis & Clark. Nate immediately said yes, but it took awhile to get the date set. This dinner was another of my favorites - warm...and beautifully executed.

After asking Chez Panisse to host the Book Launch Dinner, I approached Nate Tilden of Olympic Provisions and Clyde Commons. Olympic Provisions SE is my go-to restaurant when I am in town to visit son, Christopher in college at Lewis & Clark. Nate immediately said yes, but it took awhile to get the date set. This dinner was another of my favorites - warm...and beautifully executed.

m...and beautifully executed.

My Portland

My Portland schedule coincided with Feast Portland so I kept it light. That gave me plenty of time to hang out with pal, Giovanna Zivny - my indulgent and fun host for the week. Christopher is lurking in the background - he was the tolerant participant in several of my events and a wild Bon Appetit dinner at Luce.

background -

Some of m

Some of my favorite events were the cooking classes I did at colleges (Christopher is in the black). I sent around an email on Monday night to the Lewis & Clark Rice Club (!), Japanese Club, and TCK's (Third Culture Kids). By Tuesday night we had over 30 kids signed up for a Wednesday night class. The class was held in Christopher's dorm so we improvised by bringing in long tables for prep and using the postage stamp–sized kitchen for boiling the greens and cooking the country vegetable soup. I brought 10 carbon steel Japanese vegetable knives so the students could get a sense of the feel for a "real" knife in their hands while cutting. Although I bought all of the vegetables at the Portland farmers' market, the food service was incredibly supportive and the kids were very enthusiastic and interested. Some even went back to their dorms to get tupperware to take home any of the leftovers. A hit!

Some of m

                                                                                                                                                                                     Photo by Tim Dang

                  

I also had a great class at Stanford with equally enthusiastic, engaged students. Doing cooking classes at colleges was never about selling books. My aim was to stimulate the hearts and minds of young adults on the verge of creating their own cooking and eating practices for life. But I did sell one book to my new pal Patrick (on my right). 

Patrick (on my right). 

                                                                                                                                                                                     Photo by Tim Dang          

shi -

Ohitashi - boiled, refreshed, squeezed greens sprinkled with shaved katsuo bushi and drizzled with our local soy sauce from Yamaki Jozo, repackaged by Gold Mine Natural Foods under the Ohsawa Nama Shoyu label.

Patrick (on my right). 

                                                                                                                                                                                         Photo by Tim Dang

                  

Kenchinjiru - konbu soup broth with simmered root vegetables and homemade tofu flavored with organic soy sauce.

Patrick (on my right). 

The cooking demos were also lots of fun and gave me a chance to cook the food myself in a way that some of the dinners did not. Working in new kitchens provides its own challenges but finding the venues where I might want to go back was always an underlying thought behind my choices. I was particularly taken with the experience at Los Poblanos an incredible organic lavendar farm and hotel on the outskirts of Albuquerque introduced to me by Deborah Madison.

of Albuquerque

Another great takeaway from the tour and the book are the friendships forged because we are all in it together.

Another great takeaway from the tour and the book are the friendships forged because we are all in it together.

Another great takeaway from the tour and the book are the friendships forged because we are all in it together.

And finally after 7 weeks I am almost home....too late to get back to rural Saitama, I stay the night in the Haneda Airport hotel and have my sandwich brought from

And finally after 7 weeks I am almost home....too late to get back to rural Saitama, I stay the night in the Haneda Airport hotel and have my sandwich brought from The Local Butcher Shop in Berkeley....and some wine.

wine.

Shiokara

Photos this Post by Kenji Miura  

Shiokara, or more precisely ika no shiokara, is most often described as “fermented squid guts.” No surprise that I mistakenly thought the white tendrils inside this delicacy were actually guts, and not the julienned slices of fresh squid that they really were. The raw squid pieces are cloaked in the creamy coral gastric juices squeezed from the inner sack of the squid and are seasoned with a bit of miso, salt, soy sauce, sake, red pepper, and yuzu peel. Heavenly.

We had spent a better part of an hour winding our way through some narrow back streets in a god-knows-where neighborhood of Tokyo. My newfound pal Mike Verretto (a Harvard guy with mad Japanese skills) was intent on finding a Robata-ya. We never did. He was just as intent on me tasting shiokara and ordered it straight away. The server set the dish down on the table and Mike slid it my way. “Squid guts, “ he said. Salty, funky….downright stinky…unpleasant is putting it mildly. “When it’s good, shiokara is very good,” Mike assured me. And those words became almost a mantra for me in my life in Japan. The good is very good, the bad is very bad. And the mediocre is pretty common. Trust me on this.

I was recently at a confab attended by long-term foreigners in Japan, Japanese trend-setters, and some members of METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry). The theme of the meeting was to brainstorm about ways to introduce or promote Japan to countries overseas or foreigners visiting Japan. One participant mentioned he had been thinking to bring a jar or two of shiokara as a way of introducing an unusual Japanese taste but then had reconsidered because it might not appeal to foreigners. Ya think? The thought that immediately jumped into my head was who would want to eat shiokara from a jar? They don’t even sell it at our fish market. When I asked one of the fishmongers he was perplexed (as in “why the hell would you buy it in a jar?”) and pointed me to the semi-fresh plastic packs stacked in the fridge case. I sidled up to the case with my camera and snapped some shots of the label (squid, guts, sugar, salt, vinegar, honey, MSG, sorbitol, polysaccharide thickener, ethanol alcohol, annatto, paprika). Yum. Sounds good, right?

Dodging the mob of people laying in provisions for New Year, I returned to the “real” fish area and selected three of the last squid of the year. My fishmonger scolded me for buying it at the expensive time. “You should have gotten it last week!” Hey, I did…but it was so good, I wanted to make shiokara again. Thrifty has never been my strong suit. I want it, I buy it. And anyway they were only a 100 yen more a piece (adding $3.44 to the total). I could handle that.

Here is the tricky thing about squid though….until you pull the gastric sacs out of the squid you cannot tell what they will contain. If you are lucky, each sac will be plump and the contents will be a rosy coral color. Unlucky and you could have flaccid sacs with brownish or even acrid black juices. The solution here is to buy extra just in case and air-dry the squid bodies you don’t use for shiokara. At least that is my solution, you can choose your own.

The other issue is that in Japan we use surume ika (Japanese common squid, Pacific flying squid). The only squid I had handled in the States recently was at Chez Panisse and I remembered that the guts oozed out a greyish color as we cleaned the squid. Pretty plump sacs of coral were nowhere to be found.

I asked my pal Sylvan Mishima Brackett from Peko-Peko Japanese Catering to give me the low-down on squid in the San Francisco Bay Area. Here is what he found out: “I just talked to Tom [Worthington] at Monterey [Fish] and he told me that most of the squid from Monterey Bay is caught in a seine, vacuumed up, and otherwise abused—causing the ink sack to rupture. He does occasionally get dip net squid, which would be in much better shape. However I have also gotten a couple of really beautiful and LARGE squid from Humboldt from another fish vendor.”

There is no taste sensation that can quite match home-cured ika no shiokara and I hope you can experience this gorgeously enticing dish yourself. So easy to prepare but perhaps so far out of grasp without the Japanese fisherman who takes care to fish the squid gently and lays the bodies lovingly in styrofoam boxes packed in ice and whisked to the nearest fish market. A different culture for a different way of eating. In Japan, raw fish starts with the fisherman and without him we would not be able to continue this way of eating.

Recently someone asked me if I take care to buy only fish from the Sea of Japan to avoid risk of radiation contamination from the Pacific side. I don’t, because I trust my fishmongers and that is one compelling reason to buy from an honest professional with whom you have a relationship. For that kind of person does not have it in him to dupe his customers because he takes pride in his métier. He is a shokuninsan—a craftsman.

Rather than handing someone a pro forma jar of preservative- and MSG-laden ika no shiokara, I’d rather show that person how to make the real thing. If you can find dip net caught squid, that is.

 

Ika no Shiokara: Miura-san (my photographer) came to record our family’s Christmas preparations and celebration this year and we stopped by the fish market to grab some squid to make shiokara. I had remembered how good his version was from a previous photo shoot and had developed an insatiable craving for it. (He also wrote about it last January on Umamimart.)

Running water makes the squid cleaning process easier to handle but if you live in a water-poor state or country, making due with a bowl of ice water may be more prudent.

I position a cutting board immediately to the left of my kitchen sink, set the bag of squid right behind the board and a wire mesh net in the sink itself. Any squid refuse gets returned to the bag and later composted. Remove the squid from the bag and lay them on the board. Detach the tail portion of each squid by pulling it away from the main body. Drop in the sink as you go. Gently dislodge their inner gastric sac from the body by running your finger around the perimeter of the inside body walls. Grasp the tentacles around the eye area and pull the sac out in one piece. Add the bodies to the pile of tails in the sink. Move the board with the sacs and tentacles to free counter space and bring out another board for your workspace.

Score a vertical line down the outside skin of the squid with a sharp knife (don’t cut the meat, just the skin). Ideally this line will be directly outside of where the plastic-like stick called the gladius is attached. Remove the skin by nudging it off laterally from the center in a rolling motion. Running water helps here. Some skins come off easier than other. Pull the skin off of both sides of the tail, a welcome easy operation. Rinse the tails and set to drain in the wire mesh strainer.

 

Lay the squid bodies on the clean board and slice them open vertically at the place where you scored the skin. Scrape off any remaining inside slimy tendrils, toss those into the squid bag, and drop the cleaned squid bodies into the strainer with the tails.

Move over the board with the tentacles and sacs. Cut off the tentacles below the eye. Rinse them in the sink under running water and remove any hard portions of the suckers by running your fingernail down each leg. Drop the tentacles into the strainer.

Dry the tails, bodies, and tentacles in a clean dishtowel. Evaluate the amount of squid “guts” in the digestive gland sacs and make a decision about how much squid to keep for shiokara and how much to dry. I usually go with about 3 small sacs per 2 squid or 2½ plump sacs per 2 squid.

 

 

Cut the squid bodies in half vertically. Slice crosswise into julienne strips after excising the two hard lumps near the top. Slice the tail portion vertically into strips. Cut the legs off of the portion that joins them and cut into 3-inch/7.5-cm segments. Chop the top portion by cutting through crosswise to free up each little leg nub. Slide the squid pieces into a smallish bowl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Squeeze the creamy gastric “juices” out of the sacs into the bowl with the squid. Professional chefs will also pass them through a drum sieve (uragoshi). We don’t have to do that though, squishing with your fingers works perfectly fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blend in 1 teaspoon deep-flavored miso, ¾ teaspoon salt, a splash of soy sauce, a splash of sake or shochu, 1 teaspoon finely slivered yuzu or Meyer lemon peel, and one very small red chile pepper sliced into fine rounds. Toss with your fingers and taste for salt. Add a speck more if needed. It should be flavorful and mild, not overly salty. Spoon into a jar and let “ferment” for 24 hours. Eat within 2 days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Air-dried squid: lay cleaned squid bodies and tentacles (still attached at the top) on a bamboo basket and dry in direct sunlight for 2 to 4 hours until the skin has tightened and developed a slightly leathery texture. Turn once. If you have crows in your area, a nylon fish-drying basket comes in handy. If you clean the squid in the late afternoon or evening, leave it on the basket at cellar temperature and dry outside the next morning. Grill lightly over low-ember coals, julienne, and eat dipped in soy sauce or salt for a before-dinner snack with cocktails. Uncooked dried squid keeps wrapped in the fridge for about a week.

Moving On

With not much fanfare, I sent in the last edits on my book and index on April 19 at 8 am. The editing process stretched from the end of last November on into a very furious back and forth well into this March. I don’t think any of us had anticipated it to take so long.

But the book is now at the printer and I am moving on to planning the fall “book tour.” As most people know, book tours are a thing of the past (no money except for the luminaries), but my publisher has been supportive and I am willing to kick in as well...and my community of food people has been overwhelming generous with offers to host or help.

And so, off I am going to Paris for 10 days. I know, it doesn’t make much sense, though I am trying to lobby for translations beyond the obligatory Japanese (after all, I live here, and I write about a version of Japanese life that is quickly disappearing, but in which there is burgeoning interest to revive). Patricia Wells is graciously hosting a Japanese Farm Food cooking class at her atelier on the rue Jacob in the 6^th that I am whimsically calling A Spring Lunch in Paris. And the menu (with much fanfare):

                 Radishes with Miso 

 

                  Kelp-wicked Sea Bream 

                  Fava Beans Smashed with Tofu, Sesame, and Yuzu

                  Thinly Sliced Asparagus with Shaved Bonito

                 

                  Clear Fish Broth with Chives 

                  Flowering Tops Tempura 

 

                  Steamed Ginger and Spring Onion–Stuffed Sea Bream

                  Spring Onion and Snow Pea Salad with Miso Vinaigrette               

                  Organic Hachisu Rice 

                   Ginger Custard 

But before I go, I had my summer seeds to plant. I got morale (and physical) support from Alyssia and Yumiko, my teacher and assistant at Sunny-Side Up! The kids were there for entertainment and company. There wasn’t much for them to do. Shoveling dirt into bags is heavy work. And digging out mulch from the middle of an overgrown mulch pile topped with several inches of dried leaves is even heavier. Unwieldy comes to mind.

Here is how Tadaaki told me to do it (I need a refresher course each year so I won’t do it wrong): “Mix dirt from the field and sifted dirt from the mulch pile half and half for your planting boxes. And you had better cover the planting boxes with a plastic tunnel.”

OK, let’s just back track a little here. First this means rummaging around in the garage for the shovels (not there) and the sifter (Tadaaki had to find). Then going to the chicken coop to search out where the shovels really were. And then there is the business of reaching over a stack of 25k bags of feed to access the paper feed bags (for the dirt) that are of course lying under a whole slew of plastic feed bags. By this time the kids were already waiting for me at the field with Yumiko and Alyssia.

The SSU! kids danced around the field a bit while I searched for the cilantro that had miraculously reseeded last winter, but was becoming engulfed in weeds. (Found it!!) The kids scrabbled around at removing a patch of weeds and Yumiko shoveled dirt into the feed bag that Alyssia held. Division of labor (Yumiko is strong.) I set to work on the worst task of the day: digging out mulch dirt (read: digging a hole in the middle of the mulch pile and smooshing out the dirt by hand onto the flat, mostly useless, shovel). I lay a feed bag down and set the sifter on top of that while some kids crowded around to watch the “fascinating” operation. (I like to fool them into thinking that everything I do is utterly captivating and intrinsically worth study and discussion.) And from there I proceeded to sift the dirt of pebbles and sticks. Repetitious, tedious work that made my arm tired. The only bonus was finding a yochu—not sure how you call it in English but it looked like a large beetle (kabuto mushi) was due to hatch out in the not too distant future. We looked at him for a little bit, then I put him back in the mulch pile and covered him up.

 

Yumiko had filled three feed bags half way up in the time I had barely sifted enough mulch to make a quarter bag. Despite Tadaaki’s blithe recommendation of the 1:1 ratio of dirt to mulch, I figured we could make due with less mulch as I was losing steam (and interest in the project). I kept smooshing and sifting while Yumiko filled a bag with the unsifted stuff (to be worked on later). And that was that.

After lunch we grabbed some kids and finished the planting operation (which mainly consisted of throwing dirt and mulch into newspaper-lined plastic planters, poking in seeds, covering with more dirt and mulch, patting them down, covering with a thick layer of newspapers, and soaking with water). Tadaaki has mentioned a few times about making the tunnel. I haven’t yet. Last time I made a tunnel, I bought the wrong kind of materials. How did I know? That was the only tunnel being sold (still is). Apparently you can’t use gauze material, you need plastic. So this time I improvised and bought stiff wire poles and a plastic sheet that is supposedly meant for covering seeds. The only question here is whether there is soft enough dirt in a sunny spot at SSU! where I can erect this tunnel. And will I have time before I leave Sunday night? It is Wednesday here now, so there is hope. But the weather is not on my side since it is raining. And my staff is off until Monday for the Golden Week holiday, so I am on my own.

But I finished the book. There is that.

 

Christmas Eve in Japan

This post originally appeared on Apartment Therapy: The Kitchn                                                                 Photos by Kenji Miura                                                                                                                                                                        

I spent my first Christmas Eve in Japan eating hand-rolled sushi and sipping sweet sparkling wine. Oh, and I had a slice of the obligatory Christmas Cake…a cloyingly sweet concoction of generic sponge cake smeared with whipped “cream” and adorned with winter strawberries. At least we didn’t have the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken that many Japanese eat on Christmas Eve (instead of turkey?). The family I was visiting knew me better.

They knew that my love of sushi had inspired me to want to learn Japanese, thus propelling me to Japan the summer of 1988. My friend prepared a large platter of freshly cut sashimi, along with some other garnishes that I have forgotten (shiso leaves, daikon sprouts, green onion?). She had flavored some hot white rice with vinegar, a little sugar and a touch of salt and had snipped nori sheets into quarters. Each person grabbed a quarter piece of nori, slapped on some rice (with a dab of wasabi), laid a slice or so of sashimi across the rice, maybe some green onion, rolled it and munched it down (after dipping a corner in soy sauce). This is called temaki-zushi and is the most cost-efficient way to enjoy good quality sushi. It was the first time that I could eat as much sushi as I wanted without worrying about the bill. I was captivated.

But it still seemed a tad odd to eat sushi on Christmas Eve. The next day was Christmas, yet not one person uttered the words, “Merry Christmas.” I ate breakfast with my friend and her two children (the husband had already left for work), and made my way back to my train feeling deflated. Was that all there was to Christmas in Japan? Walking through the train station building, the department stores were still madly hawking Christmas wares, eking out the last bit of revenue they could. It was December 25, business as usual—people walking busily through the station, no feeling of Christmas to be had. The desolation that overwhelmed me was palpable and it was that day that I stumbled into the realization that I was culturally a Christian, despite being brought up as an atheist. This realization took a few weeks to set in, but the trigger was that empty Christmas Day twenty-three years ago.

The next year, Tadaaki and I got married right before Christmas. We went to midnight mass at Saints Peter and Paul Church on Washington Square in San Francisco, and spent Christmas Day at my sister Pam’s house in Gilroy with family. Then left for Puerto Vallarta.

I always looked at Christmas Eve as the dress rehearsal for Christmas. Despite my newly found spiritual leanings, for me Christmas and Christmas Eve are all about the food and the gathering of friends and family. Some years have been harder than others (deaths or births coinciding), but I’ve managed to keep both traditions alive here in the Japanese countryside. No Kentucky Fried, no Christmas Cake, no sweet sparkling wine.

For the last 21 years I have invited Tadaaki’s closest high school friends and their families for a late afternoon Christmas Eve dinner. We have skipped a few (because of deaths or births), but not many. Though now our family celebrates on December 23, not December 24. I thought it heresy when one of the friends suggested changing the date because he had to work on the 24^th (the 23^rd is a national holiday). “You can’t change the date of Christmas Eve…then it won’t be Christmas Eve!” I shot at my husband (a long-suffering cultural buffer between me and some of the more crazy-making Japanese customs).

Then I stopped a beat and considered. Christmas Eve on December 23…hmmm…what a great concept! Moving the date would give me an extra day in between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to clean up the previous dinner and cook the next. Hah. Moving the date removed a huge weight from my being and an incredible feeling of relief washed over me. I could move the date because I lived in Japan, because I was the one making the holiday happen. What once sometimes seemed like an overwhelming responsibility (to be solely in charge of creating a holiday feeling in a non-Christian country whose idea of Christmas is comprised of made up “traditions” like eating fried chicken and mass-produced, gooey cake on Christmas Eve), no longer binded me. Many people think of Japan as a restrictive society. I’ll go along with that, but if you pop out of the circle and walk your own path, you may get a little flak at first, yet pretty quickly people give up and let you be.

We usually eat duck on Christmas because we have ducks on our farm. And we always have gougères and small producer champagne from France or the U.S. Gougères and champagne are the one constants in our holiday meals, for I do not like feeling constrained into a boring repetition of obligatory holiday dishes. But then, I don’t like feeling constrained into anything, and that is why I feel so free here on the farm in Japan. Nobody thinks I’m an oddball for only eating what we or our friends produce, because nobody notices. I am already an oddball because of my blond hair, and most people don’t look much further than that. And so I go about my life quietly, making my own choices, no recriminations, no comments. It’s an odd kind of life, but one that suits me. I no longer crave the battles that we Americans so love to wage. And now it is my husband who gets energy from a good knock-down-drag-out. Funny, how life goes in a circle. For in some (small) ways, I have become more Japanese than he.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gougères

Makes 20

This recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Patricia Wells’ Bistro Cooking. My copy of the book (an early one) has thick deckle-edged pages and a convenient flap-style cover for marking your place. The recipes include such gems as pan bagnat and salade frisée as well as overlooked classics like blanquette d’agneau and pot-au-feu.

½ teaspoon salt

¼ pound (120 g) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 cup minus 1½ tablespoons (130 g) unbleached all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

¾ cup (60 g) grated Gruyère cheese

 

Preheat the oven to 425˚F (220˚C) and rub butter on 2 large cookie sheets.

Measure the flour into a medium-sized bowl and whisk to break up any lumps and lighten.

Bring 1 cup (250 cc) of cold water to a boil over medium-high heat with the salt and butter in a medium-sized heavy saucepan (preferably enameled cast iron). Remove the pan from the heat and add all of the flour, stirring quickly and strongly to form a smooth ball without flour lumps.

Replace the pan on the heat and cook the dough over medium-high heat, again stirring quickly and strongly. Try to smash the dough across the bottom of the pan to help cook the flour and dry out the dough a little. This should only take a few minutes depending on how much dough you are working with. You should see some whitening in places indicating that the flour is cooking.

Remove from the heat and add two of the eggs and half of the grated Gruyère. Beat on medium speed until the eggs are emulsified then add the other two eggs. Beat until all of the eggs are completely incorporated into the smooth dough.

Spoon heaping soupspoons of dough onto the buttered cookie sheets—leaving enough space to puff up (maximum about 12 to 15 per tray if you are making multiple batches). Sprinkle with the remaining half of the Gruyère cheese.

Bake in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven and serve immediately on a pretty plate lined with a piece of attractive cooking paper artfully folded in half (to absorb the steam).

 

Community

                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                             Photos this post by Kenji Miura

Community. What is that?

This summer with an early September book deadline nipping at my heels, I was in the last mad dash to get my manuscript finished. And as I wrote, I thought a lot about community.

For I have many.

I cancelled the annual summer party (much to Christopher’s disappointment) and never did end up staying abreast of weeding my field (much to Tadaaki’s disappointment). But in the midst of this crazy-busy summer we had three different sets of visitors: Rachael Hutchings of La Fuji Mama blog, Mark Wideman, a friend of Outstanding in the Field, and Casa Brutus magazine with Todd Selby (aka The Selby) as photographer. Visitors coming mean I have to clean the house. That’s a good thing. It also means taking a day or so out of my life, not particularly prudent this summer, but completely rewarding for the renewed energy derived from exchanging ideas with people from outside our locale.

We don’t get out much. Truly. I invite friends over for Slow Food or holiday events and the occasional agricultural celebration, otherwise we don’t do much socializing. No movies. No small dinner parties (at our house or at a friend’s). It is just not part of our daily life. We may go out to the ramen shop or local Italian restaurant when no one feels like cooking; or Soba Ra or Ro when we have birthdays or visitors. But the basic model is: stay home, work at home, eat at home. Home is where life is.

 

 

One reason for this is because up until a few weeks ago, we lived with Tadaaki’s mother. As a farm wife, she was not used to going out to eat, so always a reluctant participant (or flat out refused to come). Though she did like Soba Ra (Western chairs for comfortable seating and phenomenal Japanese food). Baachan (as we called her), climbed into the bath on Monday, November 14, and slipped peacefully away from us. We are still a bit shell-shocked, but manage to make it through each day—now so much more quiet without her fretting or fussing about this and that. Dinnertime is positively a ghost hour. She used to be the center of attention with all of her foibles. Baachan drove us to distraction, but damn we miss her.

So, I guess first, community is family. (And that extends to my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews in California.)

After that, community is those with whom you spend your daily life. The little SSU! kids are my community. As are Alyssia, my teacher, and Yumiko, my assistant.

 

But this summer I began to think about my community in terms of the people from whom I buy my food. The fishmongers. The local farmers we use to supplement what we grow. The ladies at the farm stand who are excited to hear when magazine people come or we do a big event. And the people at Yamaki, our local organic tofu/miso/soy sauce place where I bring foreign visitors and where I

buy gobs of products to bring to the U.S. as presents (mainly for restaurant friends). The fact that what they make is so well appreciated gives the people at Yamaki a great feeling of pride. And conversely, I am so deeply thankful (and proud) to have such a place in the next town. It is a mutual relationship.

 

Besides my writing and blogging community, I also have my childhood and school friends (many of whom intersect more than one of these worlds). It is so much easier to stay in touch now because of email, facebook, and twitter. (Not that I do…)

 

And then I have a community of food people out in the world. Some in France (the Dordogne and Provence), some in Italy (Piemonte), some in Portland, Oregon, but most in Berkeley, California through Chez Panisse. Chez Panisse is not just a restaurant that happens to make the food that most matches how I like to eat. Chez Panisse is a supportive food community from whose midst have come scores of luminaries in the food world (of course), but more importantly, thousands of other just plain people who were innervated by their time spent mentoring in such an unusual learning environment. As for me, Chez Panisse (and its extended family) is a community of friends with whom I share the same love of that elemental part of food. A love and an appreciation of where the food comes from and a commitment to let that food become what it should be on the plate without heavy-handed manipulation. And it is a place I can relax and be myself.

 

When friends from Berkeley converged on Japan in October this year, it was a chance to bring two of my main communities together. They were here for a food and art installation project called OPENharvest, organized by the OPENrestaurant group on the U.S. side and Foodlight Project in Japan. I had consulted on the initial planning stages, but the project had taken on a different life under the auspices of the uber-plugged-in Tokyo crew. Out of my purvey. Instead, I set up a series of farm and mountain visits in our area of Western Saitama to introduce our local ingredients to the people who would be putting together the food. And over those two days I got a chance to introduce the members of one of my most important communities from the U.S. to the members of my most important local community. And in those meetings, despite language differences, there was a visible kinship and innate understanding between the members of those two completely disparate, but completely similar communities. As I knew there would be.

And in the middle of the fray, my dear Portland friend, Giovanna Zivny, and her quirky husband, Pavel, arrived. We made the food and antique rounds for a couple days then crossed paths in Tokyo at an edible street fair that OPEN had organized in Shibuya. Tadaaki was there pounding mochi in a traditional get-up that I had never seen before and the young Tokyoites, enthralled with the mochi making, took turns at wielding the mallet. The food was spectacular on that night…especially the deer burgers and the sardine sandwiches.

 

I never did become much involved with the OPENharvest Tokyo events. Again, out of my purvey. But I kept busy supplying the cooks with organic pork and vegetables, local dairy, and Tadaaki’s eggs. And I came away from the whole project with a deep feeling of warmth for having hosted food people I respect and like in our small part of Japan and for having seen their appreciation for our way of life and for our local friends and producers. It’s not the typical life that can be easily understood by my fly in/fly out visits to the U.S. (especially all dressed up, eating at Chez Panisse). But our life is part of what makes me me and just as I need to go back periodically to the U.S. to be normal, so I want my friends in the U.S. to see how I am in Japan (ripped jeans, garden clogs, floppy sweater…house in constant disarray). It gives me a feeling of being whole, not just showing one side.

So….Sylvan, Sam, Jerome, Charlie, David, Kelly, Sasha, Yuko, Chris and Melissa, Yoko and Kayoko…thanks for coming out to Saitama and thanks for sharing our life for a couple days.

And thanks for getting it. 

(here's a video of the mochi pounding party we did at our house where Bay Area friends and local friends met over a shared interest in funk)