Autumn #13: Strictly Roots / 秋＃１３：ルーツに戻ろう

Cashing in on the carb-hungry 1980s, my parents supported their young family with a pasta restaurant.
８０年代のアメリカででんぷん食品ブームがあった。それで私の両親がパスタ料理屋さんよやりました。

This meant that my earliest memories include not only eating spaghetti with my hands, but also learning how to separate egg yolks from the whites. In retrospect, I'm not sure what the Health Department would have made of snotty nosed kids in the food prep area. Also, I'm really curious what the Department of Labor would have made of Cheru, age 9, standing on a turned-over milk crate and pre-rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Aside from an accelerated education of swear words from the staff, it was here that I first learned the bitter dynamic inherent to labor and management. I demanded more than 25 cents an hour, threatening a tantrum strike. My parents threatened to charge me for room and board. I remained on that overturned milk crate.
最初の思い出の中に手でパスタを食うこととパスタ生地を作ること。９歳のチェルは皿洗いとして働いた。その経験で初めて労働者と経営者のつらい関係を味わった。時間給が２５セントで、もっと欲しかったチェルは一人ストライキと指名しようとしたとたん、両親の方から下宿の値段上げの発言。チェルは皿洗いを続いた。

This is a long way of saying that I feel I have an intimate connection with pasta.
ごく簡単に言うとパスタと仲の良い間柄あります。

So please forgive me if a lot of my improvisations are pasta-centric.
それで、このブログでパスタ料理がちょっと多めで許してください。

Tonight, I decided to add some spice to my pasta dough with ichimi togarashi.
今晩のパスタを一味唐辛子で辛くしようともって。。。

Lovers of Japanese soup noodle dishes will recognize the package, although the more common expression is not this just-chili powder, but the seven spice -- shichimi togarashi -- version. After adding a little heat, then, I rolled out the dough and roughly cut myself some broad noodles.
これを入れてから粗切りのパスタを切った。

While my lovely, albeit roughly hewn, noodles stood by, I then contemplated another root. This one had nothing to do with metaphors; it was a total stranger to me.
この荒削りのパスタが待ちながら、もう一つのルーツをじっと見つめた。

Having an irresistible affinity for strangers, I picked this one up at the farmer's market. The name read yurine: lily root. It was supposed to be both similar to, and yet unlike, a potato, according to the farmer.
ユリネです。百合の根らしい。ファーマーズマーケットで買った私が農業さんに作り方を聞いてみるとユリネは同時に芋と似てると似ていない。へえええええ。。。

Once I loosened it up a bit, it fell apart into these lovely petal-like segments.
切ると花弁のような形。

In the soup with it! To match the floral theme, I brewed it up with chrysanthemum leaves in a light consomme.
お汁に！花がテームですので菊の葉とコンソメを。

Save the flowers for the romantics. I'm a realist, happy with the roots and the leaves. As long as they are edible.
花はロマン派にいい。唯物主義の私には葉と根でも結構です。食べれるならね。

And what of my patient pasta? It got treated right, pan-fried with butter and fragrant eringi mushrooms.
それで待っているパスタは？勿論愛情含めて、パーターとエリンギでソテーした。

Whether the epiphany comes from eating a hot yam on an Harlem street, or pasta in my tiny Tokyo kitchen, there's something to be said for roots. Especially the delicious ones.
ルーツを大事にした方がいいという考え方ありますね。おいしいなら、大事にしましょう。

 ごちそうさまでした！