Indigo Days

Edamame

“Don’t eat the pod,” Toshi-san warned as he set down a small saucer of what looked like pea pods with a slight peach fuzz.

That was my first taste of edamame.  It was 1987 and I was in California.

Those edamame were quite tasty…at the time.  Slightly salty to the tongue, it was fun to run the pods through my teeth to pop out the green soybeans.  I liked the idea of something green to go with my cold beer.

But those first edamame had certainly been frozen and who knows where they were grown.  Probably on some huge factory farm.  I hadn’t yet made it to Japan, so I didn’t know then how edamame should really taste.

Now that’s a whole other story…

Edamame season starts in early summer here in Japan and extends into fall.  But really, edamame is all about cold beer and the hot, sultry summer.  It’s just like fresh corn.  You yank the whole soybean plant from the earth, strip the pods right there on the field, then run quickly to the pot of boiling water waiting in your kitchen.  And just like fresh corn, the frozen or canned variety is just not at all the same.  I remember the time my sons had some edamame that had been frozen without their pods.  This was about 10 years ago in California at my sister’s house and the kids were eating them with Trader Joe’s Macaroni & Cheese.  All the food was  “organic”…whatever that means.  My oldest son, Christopher looked at me with such hurt in his eyes and whispered, “Mommy, when are we going to have “real food?”  I tasted the edamame and had to spit them out.  Really foul stuff.

The frozen pods aren’t so bad, though they don’t have much taste—just texture—and I suppose protein.

The good news is that small farmers in the U.S. do grow soybeans and are selling edamame.  Look around at the farmers’ markets and encourage your local farmers to grow them for you.  And tell your farmers to “please, please pick them in the morning before coming to market.”  Tell them you don’t mind the bare roots, or picking them off the branch.  Tell them, it’s just like shucking the corn at the farmers’ market.  It’s part of the fun.  Then run, run, run to the boiling water you have left in the kitchen (attended by your faithful mate or children…or whoever) and boil them for 3 or 4 minutes before you toss them with sea salt and serve with beer.

Edamame should be an almost luminescent chartreuse green and not dull, dark or flat-colored.  The inside beans should be straining against the pods.  You can feel them to know more.  The pods should telegraph you their freshness.  Unfortunately, most soybeans in the U.S. are grown on a gigantic scale and are from genetically modified seeds that mandate the use of specific chemical fertilizers and pesticides for that particular seed.  I don’t think these sound very delicious, so finding a local farmer is the ticket.  Here again, though, the variety is important.  Heirloom Japanese varieties will probably taste best.  Some soybeans are meant to be grown in the early summer, some in mid-summer and yet others in late summer.  Our grower friend Suga-san grows a pleasantly nutty variety that I love.  Tadaaki’s edamame are similar and we harvest them in August.

Our friend, Matsuda-san, lives up in the hills near here.  He’s another city transplant who has made a new life in our local area.  He’s also a bit of a folk hero for having taken on the biggest mayonnaise producer in Japan: Kewpie Mayonnaise.  They were lobbying to make it impossible for him to call his Matsuda Mayonnaise, “mayonnaise” because he uses honey instead of sugar.  Funny, I never thought either had a place in mayonnaise.  Though I guess the sweet balances out the vinegar for longer shelf life.  Personally, I go for the traditional egg yolk, lemon juice, mustard and oil variety of homemade mayonnaise.  But that’s another story.

We do a Slow Food Edamame Picking Event at Matsuda-san’s place in early October every year because his area traditionally grows the late variety of soybeans.  We all pile into small trucks and bounce across the land to his edamame field not too far away.  We pull a big section of plants and then strip them right there so they can mulch back into the land.  He leaves the rest to be harvested as soybeans and he uses those throughout the winter.  Kids love to help and it’s great fun working in the warm fall sun, on the side of a green hill overlooking the valley.  Back at Matsuda-san’s little mayonnaise factory and organic café, we boil the beans in batches over a wood fire and make pizza in Matsuda-san’s home-built brick pizza oven.  Sometimes we roast chickens.  Microbrewery beer on tap is always a must…Did I mention that already?

Edamame Method

You boil the edamame for about 3-4 minutes depending on the bean, scoop them out with a strainer, toss them with sea salt and serve immediately in a crockery bowl.  The edamame should be so hot you can barely touch them.  Grab a handful and eat quickly because they cool quickly.  Don’t forget to prepare a cold beer alongside and a bowl for the empty pods.  Boil in batches for a big crowd so you can keep serving them hot.  If you have any left over, save the edamame pods in a Ziploc, then pop them the next day and fold into a vegetable salad, potato salad or any curry or stew-like dish.  

Matsuda-san

Curry Rice

Tadaaki's Curry Rice Vegetables:  Late Summer 2009 

Mention curry rice to any Japanese and they’re likely to swoon.  For some reason that escapes my understanding, this gloopy concoction is one of the most beloved dishes of all ages here in Japan. 

My 12-year-old son Matthew takes loving curry to a whole other dimension.   Matthew starts the campaign, lobbying for my husband, Tadaaki, to whip up a batch.  Tadaaki, a busy farmer, makes the kids do the prep work.  Tadaaki, a busy farmer is rail thin.  For him, deep fat fried means “gorgeous.”  For me, deep fat fried often means greasy.  We don’t see eye to eye on this point.  Tadaaki has several methods of making his curry, often with fatty pork, but sometimes with marbled beef slices or breaded pork cutlets (tonkatsu).  I think you can see where I’m going.  This doesn’t sound appealing to me, but I’m the distinct minority in this family.  Tadaaki also thinks that deep fat frying the curry vegetables adds a je ne sais pas quoi touch to his creation.  We don’t see eye to eye on that either.  But what really puts me off this dish is the sheer volume they make.  Using three boxes of curry roux, they fill my 9-quart Le Creuset.  Tadaaki and Matthew eat it morning, noon and night over the course of several days.  The pot stays on the stove and gets heated up a few times a day.  It never travels to the refrigerator, though in winter it might get stuck out the back door.  Matthew says that the curry gets better with each successive day, reaching its peak of perfection right before it spoils.  At the end of this daily reheat ritual, I’m left with a crusty burn of curry roux at the bottom of my Le Creuset.

Now do you see why I hate Curry Rice?

To the untutored, Curry Rice may not seem like a traditional Japanese meal.  But it’s as Japanese as tempura.  Just as tempura was borrowed from the Portuguese, so Curry Rice was borrowed from the British (via India).  Curry Rice has been around since Meiji Period, more than 100 years ago. The British Navy most likely brought this dish ashore as they were fond of adding curry powder to thickened stews at the time.  Originally, Japanese made the curry roux by frying curry powder with flour and oil.  In 1926, House Foods came out with an instant powdered roux.  Thirty years later, S&B Foods revolutionized the Curry Roux market by introducing the block form we know today.  Nowadays, you can buy premade packets that you heat up in boiling water.  Sounds gross, but I guess it works if you don’t want to cook.

You know how in the U.S. there are shelves and shelves of breakfast cereals that stretch down the length of one aisle in the supermarket?  Or have you ever noticed how many flavors of Coca-Cola are available?  It’s mindboggling.  Well, in Japan we have shelves and shelves of curry roux all touting different delectable not-so-secret ingredients.  Most of the boxes look pretty cheesy and frankly, unappealing.  No surprise that the most enticing looking one is the best tasting.  Frieden’s Spicy Curry Roux is sold in three levels of heat, roughly translated: “big, medium and small” (hot, medium-hot and not-so hot).  Around here you can only find the medium hot, so that’s what we buy.  The box is chocolate brown with big gold letters.  There’s a steaming pot of curry in the background, surrounded by jute bags overflowing with spices.  An antique scroll reminiscent of pirates and seafaring days lists the impressive array of spices in the roux:  caraway, cardamom, red pepper, ginger, pepper, basil, onion, cinnamon, fenugreek, nutmeg, bay leaves and chili powder.  Some of the other brands boast apple or milk as ingredients.  MSG is also a given.  The selling point of other brands is that they are cheaper, sweeter and more palatable for children in their blandness.  Spices are an acquired taste, but children can learn.  So we buy the Spicy Curry.

One of my good friends used to work at Chez Panisse and now has a Japanese catering business in Berkeley (www.eatpekopeko.com ).  I didn’t bother asking him why he likes Curry Rice—he’s ½ Japanese, so that’s reason enough.  It’s his soul food.  But I did ask him how he made his Curry Rice, hoping to gain some insight into the process.  I had made it one day at the school.  Matthew’s lukewarm assessment:  “Well, Mommy…you don’t like curry rice…so you really shouldn’t make it.”  Determined to make a Curry Rice that would pass muster in Matthew’s eyes, I tried again using my caterer friend Sylvan’s methods.   I added some hints of my own.  I have to confess, it was pretty tasty.  And last week Matthew asked me when I was making Curry Rice at the school again.  I guess my Curry Rice did pass muster.

The whole thing about Curry Rice is that it warms your tummy in an inexplicably satisfying way.  Maybe that’s why it’s soul food for Japanese and maybe that’s why I really don’t hate it as much as I thought.

Curry Rice Recipe:  A Collaboration (Sylvan + Nancy + Tadaaki)

Slice a couple large onions into thin ½ rounds.  Peel 4 large potatoes and cut into large chunks.  Peel a few carrots and cut into medium-sized segments.  Though not traditional, cauliflower is also a nice addition.  Any green vegetables (like broccoli or green beans) should be parboiled separately and added at the end to keep their color.  Make vegetable stock from ends of vegetables and onion skins (don’t use the potato peels, but do use the carrot)—throw in some herb stems if you have them.  Sauté onions longer than you think reasonable in canola oil, until caramelized.  Towards the end of cooking, add a few large tablespoons finely chopped ginger and a dash or so of dark sesame oil.  Add potatoes and carrots, then vegetable stock to cover.  Simmer uncovered until vegetables are cooked.  Meanwhile, put curry roux in small pan and separate squares.  Spoon hot stock over roux to soften, then cover pan and let sit.  When the vegetables are done, whisk softened roux in the small pan until smooth.  Add more stock gradually, until you have a creamy sauce.  Stir curry sauce into simmered vegetables.  Slosh in some soy sauce and the small packet of garam masala included with the roux.  At this point you have vegetarian curry.  For traditional curry:  sauté 1 ½ lbs thin sliced pork meat (should have fat on it as well) in a non-stick pan until liquid has cooked out and the fat sizzles and browns.  Deglaze with a little herb stock.   Stir meat into curry and serve on top of rice.  (I prefer my curry on the side of the rice, topped with plenty of plain yogurt and shiso chiffonade or chopped cilantro.)  Eat with a large soup spoon.

Matthew & Andrew: Winter 2009

Rice Planting

Early July 2009 

It's raining.  “Piri-piri, piri-piri,” the rain bounces off the leaves outside my bedroom window.  “Piri-piri, piri-piri.”  I can’t sleep, but know I should.   Tomorrow is taue.

If it rains, some of the people coming to help plant the rice tomorrow may cancel.  They’re worried about the rain.  But rice planting has already started.  Yesterday, Tadaaki and a few others gathered the shoots he grew from seed and began tying them into bunches for planting.  There is no going back.  Rain or not, rice planting is happening. 

My husband used to plant the rice with a machine, but the machine left so many seedlings floating on top of the water that he had to go over the whole field to fix the missed plantings.   Before, Tadaaki worked on the rice field with his father, but recently the boys (and I) have been helping.  Last year Tadaaki decided to plant the rice by hand and our Slow Food friend, Yoshikai-san, volunteered to bring some Youth Food Movement students who were hot to try their hands at “real farming.”  Tadaaki made doburoku  (homebrewed sake—strictly illegal) and invited more friends.  A few students came…late.  Students’ hearts are in the right place, though sometimes they’re unrealistic about commitments.  This year none actually made it, but we had about 18 adult friends show up to plant.  Some SSU! kids came too.  Cooking lunch and dinner for 30 plus takes time, so I also never made it to the field, but everyone else finished planting the field at around 6 pm.  It took 7 hours.

First of all, you don’t wear boots.  You plant rice in bare feet.  When you take your first step into the rice field, your toes curl to get some purchase.  It’s like sticking your feet into cornstarch gloop.  Every time you take a step the wet mud does not want to let you go so there is a suction effect making each and every step a concerted effort.   Also, you must step slowly and carefully, walking in others’ footsteps, so as not to create more holes in the rice field that has been carefully leveled.  At this point there is about 1 cm of water covering the field.  Trying not to think about the leeches that live in the muddy water, you separate a seedling from the dripping bunch you are carrying and holding it gently, almost like a calligraphy brush, you flip your wrist as you insert the seedling straight down into the mud.  The seedling should not be planted too deep.  The roots should just break the mud’s surface.  It’s slow going but when that last row is planted and you look out over the scores of other rows, that is a mighty feeling of accomplishment.

Our friend, Harigaya-san, lives up in the mountains.  He’s an ex-IT guy who chucked “the good life” and reinvented his life near here.  He rebuilt an old Japanese mountain home, leaving the original irori open hearth cooking area and traditional wood-fired kitchen.  He makes musical instruments, computer music and furniture.  He’s an interesting guy.  Harigaya-san’s crew joined the rice planters in mid-afternoon.  Having donned traditional Japanese summer yukata and shishimai headdresses, they performed a wild lion dance to excite the gods and increase the rice “fertility.”  As Harigaya-san’s flute lilted over the rice fields, the workers felt a freshening wind and increased their pace, gaining energy from the quick bursts of air Harigaya-san sent into his slender piece of bamboo.  At 6pm the exhausted, muddy crew was on its way to the local hot spring for a bath. 

By 7:30 they were back at our house for a dinner that started with steaming bowls of fresh-picked edamame quick boiled and tossed with salt, served with ice-cold beer—a welcome relief after a day of planting in the hot sun.  Tadaaki dragged out the big pottery urn full of doburoku and started passing cups around.  Doburoku has a pleasant overtone of flowers, but it’s disconcerting to have bits of rice floating around in my drink.  I stuck with wine.  The dinner meandered along until 11 or 12, I lost track of the time.  We started with sliced tomatoes and Italian style white beans drizzled with olive oil.  I served these with crostini.  New friends were made and old friends re-discovered.  Our guests had worked on the land and now they were eating the food that came from that land.  For them, my western take on food was unusual and welcome.  They ate with gusto and great interest.  Lively conversations spilled out as we milled around.  It was an eclectic, unconventional Japanese crowd and these people clearly had no social barriers.  They knew how to let go and have fun.

Before we moved to the tables for dinner, Harigaya-san’s group set up an alter outside complete with drums and lit by torches.  In the courtyard before our house, they performed their lion dance, crouching, leaping and feinting in the flickering flames.  I glanced over to see a couple of my preschool girls playing the drums.  It made me smile.  Their dance came from some primal place and even the little kids could participate.  This lion dance was different from the formalized dance my kids learn and perform at the local shrine.  This dance came from the heart of the mountains and from the hearts of the dancers.  As I looked around the semi-circle of friends watching mesmerized in the night, I felt the power of these ancient agricultural rites and beliefs.  And thought where else, but here.

Rice Planting Dinner:

Italian Slow Roast Pork: Have the butcher tie up a loin roast and salt overnight.  Bring to room temp then slit at various intervals with a sharp knife.  Add olive oil to chopped summer garlic and rosemary to make a paste.  Massage into the pork.   Cook for 2 hours at 325.  Let cool.  Serve at room temp.

Polenta Torta: Follow recipe from Alice Waters' Simple Food book. I used organic corn meal, made a tomato sauce from our friend's summer tomatoes into which I folded some thick cut onion half rounds that I had sautéed until still slightly crunchy.  I used less Parmesan in the gratin because I ran out and perhaps more mozzarella--Organic Valley, grated not sliced.  The result was creamy and very lovely. My polenta was fairly loose and I think that contributed to the creaminess--but the mozzarella was a fantastic addition.  Top with sautéed zucchini cubes.

Sautéed Zucchini Cubes: Make sure you do not use any spongy center.  Cut into 1/2-inch cubes and cook quickly in good olive oil over high heat with a little salt.  Toss continuously with two flat wooden spoons until no longer raw, but still pleasantly crunchy.  Sprinkle with chopped garden parsley and serve.

Garden Lettuce Salad: Prepare greens in Ziploc bags and make salad at last moment.  Muddle roughly chopped fresh garlic with salt to make a viscous paste.  Add a little homemade vinegar and fresh ground pepper.  Toss greens with excellent olive oil and chopped summer savory leaves.  Drizzle in the garlic and vinegar to taste.  Best to toss with your gentle hands--think lightly.

Fresh Corn: Well the corn was serendipity.  We couldn't say no to the offer.  I know, polenta and corn.  It still worked.  Use corn same day as picked (preferably within a few hours).  Shuck corn.  Prepare boiling water.  Turn off flame and add corn.  Stir and cover.  Remove corn after 3 minutes.  Serve without butter.

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream & Raspberry Sauce: Follow Lindsey Shere's Vanilla Ice Cream recipe (Chez Panisse Desserts).  Use best cream, eggs, vanilla and organic sugar available.  Freeze ice cream in small batches (preferably use an ice cream maker with its own freezing unit).  Stir in each new batch to the previous batches to end up with a smooth, homogenous finished ice cream.  Start to make raspberry jam (4 cups berries to 3 cups organic sugar) and remove "syrup" once the sugar has melted and the mixture has thickened a little.  Cool.

Traditional Shishimai:  Shibuya-san, Matthew, Andrew

On Washing Rice

Have you ever read something that you pretended to understand, but really didn’t? 

The Heart of Zen Cuisine was one of the first books I bought in Japan and I learned how to wash rice from this book.  Or at least I thought I did.

The author had a beautifully soft style when describing food and cooking.  In essence, she told the reader to focus on the task at hand and immerse oneself in the process.  I would stand in front of my stainless steel sink in my new 2LDK apartment, and reaching down into the rice would focus very hard (too hard) on the grains as I swished them around in the cold water.  My back would hurt a little, because the sink was deep and the counter 4 inches lower than Western standards.  But I was not deterred, I knew I could get this concept.  I really wanted to be “Zen.”  You know, one with my rice.  But I was trying too hard.  Even then I knew it was an act.

One thing I’ve learned while living in Japan is that good things take time.  And I don’t mean it takes 2 hours to make a fabulous dinner.  I mean it takes years to get to a “destination” and the journey in itself is important.  Maybe I never got the idea of Zen, but maybe I did.

Don’t get disheartened if I tell you it probably took me another 10 years before I really was focusing on the task at hand.  Cooking is one of the most soothingly therapeutic occupations we can do when not hurried.  But so often, our minds are elsewhere as we go through the motions, not thinking of the food in front of us that we are chopping or stirring into yet another meal.  I notice my cooking students mixing dough completely disconnected from what they are doing, chatting across the counter with other students equally distracted from their tasks.  They are often completely unaware of what is happening in the bowl before them.  And now, I counsel, pour yourself into the bowl and put your love in the food.  Use a light hand with a powerful spirit. 

These days, fourteen-year-old Andrew is in charge of washing rice in our house—a task he performs with a singular lack of enthusiasm.  A couple weeks ago Tadaaki and the boys were off doing pottery, so I made the rice.  Andrew and I share a common trait:  we both tend toward the slapdash.  When under the gun, my cooking usually involves a lot of swearing, spilling and blood.  I’m no less focused, but “in the zone,” so stay out of my way.  It’s dangerous.  My food may not be “pretty,” but it definitely is “gorgeous.”  I splash the plates with vividly colored vegetables, not unlike an edible canvas.

With a singular lack of enthusiasm, I went out to the dusty storage house (where mice lurk in the corners) and scooped out some rice from a 25-kilo paper sack.  A Japanese friend once told me that a mouse had run out once when she opened a rice sack, so I’m always leery of opening the bag. 

I brought the rice into the house and set about washing it.  I felt the grains bounce off my hand as I scrubbed them.  The cool water slipped against the grains and though my fingers as the rice sent soft little currents up my arm.  I thought about how those grains got to be in my sink.  I remembered planting this very rice by hand last year—squelching around in the viscous mud.  I thought about the work it takes to grow each grain of rice.  And I felt the energy that my farmer husband Tadaaki had put in, helped along by the sun, soil and water.  I felt how beautiful each little grain was.  So simple and perfect, but so hard to produce.  Each little grain so precious.

And that night when Tadaaki took his first bite of rice, his head jerked up and asked me what had I done to make the rice taste so good.  What had been my special touch?  I told him I put love into it.

To wash rice:  Use a 2-cup Pyrex glass measuring cup and scoop up enough rice to fill (about 3 cups).  Pour rice into a rice cooker or medium saucepan.  Fill pan or cooker to top with cold water and pour off any debris or little bugs floating to the top (don’t be squeamish; better bugs than chemicals).  Scrub the rice between both of your palms and fingers to dislodge extra bran.  Fill with cold water repeatedly, pouring off the water each time until the water runs clear.  Try not to let any stray grains fall into the sink, as this will betray sloppy western behavior to rice farmer husbands.  Fill the 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup with filtered water, pour over the rice, sloshing around the sides a little to incorporate the few grains sticking to the sides of the pan.  Let sit for 30 minutes, if possible. 

Cook rice in rice cooker or in saucepan over stove:  place lid on and bring to boil (you will see the bubbles rice up to the lid), turn down to lowest flame and cook slowly until you hear little crackles on the bottom—be careful not to burn your ear!  Let sit for 5 minutes, then fluff with chopsticks to aerate (a paddle will smash the rice).  Some people call Japanese rice, “sticky,” but that’s really a misnomer.  When you place a small mound of rice on your tongue, you should be able to feel each kernel break away and roll against your mouth.

Tamago Kake Gohan

Scoop rice into a small bowl.  Break a fresh farm egg over the steaming grains and splash in a little organic soy sauce.  Mix with chopsticks.  Eat every grain of rice.  Lick the bowl if you like.

It's Gonna Rain Today

Early Summer 2009

 “It’s gonna rain today.”  My Japanese farmer husband just slides that out of his mouth so easily. “It’s gonna rain today.”

Do you know what that means?  It means, “Nancy, you should plant those seeds/seedlings or whatever is waiting to be planted before it rains.”  And if I don't, if I miss the rain, I’m a “bad farmer.”

Well, the truth is, I’m not a farmer.  But I’m trying.

I’ve been helping in the fields (sporadically) since I was married.  A little less when the babies were small.  Although peaceful, I won’t deny that fieldwork is tough.  And in the summer, even picking vegetables is hot, sweaty work.  If you go in the afternoon, you’ll also be eaten alive by mosquitoes (which is always a treat).   And the knee-high (or taller) weeds leave your legs itching for a cold wash-off.  Sometimes, we just can’t keep up with the weeds that grow faster than the crops, so the vegetable plants melt into the field as they are engulfed by weeds.  But sometimes, there’s a limit to what we can do and we have to accept that and move on. 

The thing about growing your vegetables is that you learn to really, really respect them.  It’s like the first time you clean a chicken.  I bet that after going through that cleaning process, you will eat the chicken meat way down to the bone and gnaw off every single little errant thread of meat in every little crevice.  When we were first married, I started inviting families of friends over for long summer lunches under the shade of our chestnut trees.  Cooking a meal with three small children underfoot is no mean feat.  Picking the vegetables for that meal puts a whole other twist on the equation.  The blueberry bushes harbor little bright green stinging caterpillars so sometimes I’d palm off that job on my high school babysitters.  I wasn’t good at avoiding the caterpillars.  But the girls would watch my boys while I went to the field to pick the vegetables.  And as I got progressively itchier, wading through the weeds, stepping carefully between the creeping tomato vines, I kept up a refrain of, “I hope they appreciate this, I hope they appreciate this.”

There is a custom in Japan to serve lots of different kinds of foods to your guests.  The food doesn’t really need to be homemade, and these days, often is not.  The variety is what is important.  What happens, though, is that people lose a sense of value in the food.  It’s easy to throw prepackaged food away because it’s so anonymous.  But if somebody you know grew it and then somebody you know cooked it, it would be heartless to throw it away.  Before those long summer lunches, I always explained what was in each dish and where I got the ingredients.  And in those days I was much bossier, so I always made the parents eat the kids’ leftovers.  I could not stand to see the food thrown away.  But the amazing thing is, those kids, now grown up, love to come back and eat our food.  I guess the itchy legs were worth it after all.

Last year, I took my yearly trip to visit family and friends in California.  My father had died the year before, so for the first time I didn’t have the run of his vegetable garden.  I also didn’t have access to CSA or farmers’ market vegetables, and the only alternative left was buying from the health food store or supermarket organics.  Neither was good.  The brussel sprouts were woody, the potatoes turned orangey-brown as soon as I peeled them, it was disheartening and my desire to cook evaporated (or at least dulled).

I returned to Japan newly resolved to become a better field hand.  But in another turn of events ended up starting a school garden on one of my husband Tadaaki’s fields.

So the first time Tadaaki said those words to me was last year, in the early spring.  I was very busy that day, and not ready to start this whole planting extravaganza.  I knew though, I could not let the chance slip away and I wanted to prove I was serious about the garden.  I couldn't choose the perfect time, the weather did it for me.  It was time to plant.

We walked the first group of eager planters over to the field and were preparing some rectangular planting areas radiating out in a flower formation when Tadaaki cruised by in his van.  He stuck his head out the window and yelled at us to get off the field.  Apparently we were supposed to have waited until the sun had dried the recently rained on dirt.  Oh.  Could have said that one along with, “It’s gonna rain today.”  But that would have been too easy.  Or maybe I just should have known.  And now I do.  You don’t walk on the newly plowed, soft loamy field after a rain because it packs the dirt down.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Last year I did an OK job on the field.  The teacher who taught the afternoon classes didn’t really love vegetables.  In fact, he hated vegetables until coming to our school.  He trotted the kids over to the field every day, but his heart was not really into the growing process.  I tended my babies:  the herbs and lettuces.  They flourished.  The tomato variety we planted was not tasty. The vines produced a lot, but the tomatoes were insipid and flavorless.  This year I planted from seed and am putting love into the field.  This year will be better.

Sliced Tomatoes with Sea Salt and Olive Oil

Before dinner one night in California last fall, we stopped by for a glass of wine at my friends Rayneil and Michelle’s house.  Rayneil cooks at Chez Panisse.  He served us thinly sliced blood red tomatoes, glistening with a fine film of fruity olive oil and sprinkled gently with some sort of wonderful sea salt.  This was early October and these were his last two or three precious tomatoes from a vine that had not been prolific anyway.  Have you ever had someone give you such a rare and generous gift?  My 8-year-old food-loving nephew, Nicky, could barely keep his hand from reaching out for yet another slice.  I had to stop him to save some for our hosts.  But don’t bother to serve these unless you find tomatoes that send shivers through you as you lay a slice on your tongue.  Don’t bother if you are thinking of using a so-called “vine-ripened” tomato from Trader Joe’s.  Just don’t bother. 

Tadaaki teaching tractor skills