Indigo Days

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.

 

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)

Radiation in Japan

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

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

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

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

But what exactly does that mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So where can people find this clean food? Farmers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

I hope so.

Tokanya

All Photos this Post by Toshiji Tomori

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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