Autumn #15: Thanksgiving - Boiled, not Baked / 秋＃１５：アメリカの伝統、日本の材料

Thanksgiving! The gloriously secular celebration of eating! However suspicious its originating mythology may be, I have to admit that I can't suppress my enthusiasm for collective gluttony. And what else is Thanksgiving?
アメリカの感謝際！食いしん坊のとてもとても愛された感謝祭！

Last year, it was two ducks in place of a turkey. This year, lacking both turkeys and ovens, I decided that I'd take the opportunity to give thanks for the bounty of the shitamachi -- the "low city" -- in which I reside.
今年伝統的な七面鳥もオーベンもないチェルは下町の豊かさに感謝します！

Tokyo's shitamachi comprises the eastern neighborhoods of Ueno, Asakusa, Yanaka, and Tabata. It is here, according to Donald Richie, that "still retains what little is left of the feel of old Edo -- distinctly plebian, also fun-loving, less inhibited than those remains of areas where the military aristocracy, the shogunate, observed its rules of decorum." The most significant manifestation of this "fun-loving" shitamachi character is the street food. There are breaded and fried glories to be taken in hand, sweet bean paste of every imaginable configuration, and even -- if you are lucky -- the occasional "scotch egg": a hard-boiled egg ensconced in minced meat and fried. All this and more.
下町の魅力はいろいろですが、注目に値するのはその食い物。ミンチコロッケ、まんじゅうの勢ぞろい、たまにスコッチエグでも（揚げたったミンチに囲まれた卵！）。それに感謝します。

 

So I got a bone from a local butcher shop to start a mellow soup base for our hotpot Thanksgiving party of nine hungry people.

それで、近所の肉屋さんで買った豚の骨を鍋の汁に。

Broken open, of course, so the marrow can seep out.

骨髄が流れるために折った骨。

I blanched the bone, and put it in a pot to simmer with an apple and star anise.

骨をリンゴとスターアニスに煮た。

I let it go for eight hours or so, adding bits of vegetables along the way.

このままで８時間ぐらい。少しずつ野菜もいれた。

For example, I added some daikon -- a kind of radish, the name of which translates literally as "large root."

例えば、大根を。

This particular "big root" was about the size of my arm.

この大根は文字通り大きくて、腕の大きさぐらい。

The daikon is pretty benign as radishes go.

可愛いね。

So once the bones had simmered and simmered and simmered, I added a touch of soy sauce and sugar, and assembled the shitamachi bounty we'd use for our tableside hotpot thanksgiving feast.

骨が煮て煮て、その間下町の恵みを集まった。

Napa cabbage. Of dinosauric proportions.

白菜の爆弾.

Tentacles peeking out from a fishcake casing. This is getting very Jurassic.

ゲソにハロー。

To distract my arriving guests, I had prepared some crudites (And yes: I still like to pronounce them to rhyme with "Luddites." Croooo-deee-teh, la deee da).

お客さんがだんだん来るので少しだけ前菜も準備した。

Chili-miso and yuzukoshô dipping sauces... just to tide us over until...

野菜とチリみそソース、柚子こしょうマヨ。それで我慢できるかな。。。

Everybody in the pot!

ジャーン！

Alongside this hotpot, we also simmered a pot of this chicken broth, to which I had added ginger.

もう一つの鍋にこのチキンスープを使った。

 

Holy hotpot! Nothing secular about my feelings toward this food. Hotpot as a communal meal does have something of a primal urgency. We were stripped down to our natural state: just a tribe collecting around the fire, literally grunting into our food. Never mind that the fire was fueled by propane, or that our appetites were whetted not through vigorous cooperative hunting, but through the consumption of cans and cans of beer and malt liquor.

無宗教の感謝際だが、鍋に参った。

Plucking our dinner from the primordial ooze.

みんなが火に集まって、昔の人間のように。

First, a little from pork-bone pot.

まずは豚骨鍋から。。。

Then a little from chicken hotpot...

それでチキンも味見を。。。

And when the nine hungry pilgrims feared that they were at the end...

最後の最後の恐れがあっても。。。

 

Udon noodles descended into the broth like manna.

うどん。と。。。

For the pork-bone pot, rice and eggs soaked up the last of the broth real nice.

豚骨の鍋にご飯と卵を。

Just one last little detail really set this rite right...

この下町のごちそうさえあれは、他にいることないでしょうね。

Fried garlic shards. Happy thanksgiving!

一つだけが必要：揚げたニンニク。ごちそうさま！

Autumn #14: In the Soup / 秋＃１４：I love ゆ

Winter is creeping up on us here. The days are shorter, skin is drier, feets are colder, moods are heavier.
冬が私にこっそり忍び寄っているじゃん。日暮れがだんだん早くなって、肌がだんだんかさかさに、足下はだんだん冷えて、心がだんだん重ーくて。

Time for soup.

スープの季節だ。

I've been reluctant to attempt any ambitious broths here, since I can literally walk out the front door and eat a cheap bowl of noodles bathing in a well loved soup of bones and other various choice tidbits that has been stewed for days. The details of such potions can be found here, at my favorite ramen blog. But since I'm celebrating Thanksgiving with nabe -- Japanese hotpot -- I thought I'd try my hand at loving up some soup.
日本は世界中愛されたラーメンの天国なので、別に自分が時間をかけて、骨から汁を作る必要がないね。でも今年の感謝際は鍋で祝おうつもりで、ゆっくりでスープをやってみようと思った。

My idea was to pair chicken with yuzu, to flatten any ambitious cold viruses. Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit. It's kind of the ugly cousin to the beloved mikan -- mandarin orange. Its juice is similar to that of the grapefruit, but it is certainly unfriendly to the casual curious eater.
チッキンスープに柚子を使おうと思って、風邪を防ぐために。

As you can see, it is humorlessly jammed full of seeds.
みかんより醜い柚子を開けても中身も種いっぱいで、まるでみかんのへんてこないとこと考えちゃう。でも柚子にでも魅力あるね。

I'd also add some fragrant mitsuba, which is not dissimilar to parsley.
それに三つ葉を。

Mitsuba is also a little unfriendly. Be sure to at least blanch it, or it pricks the mouth.
三つ葉も熱湯に通さないと友好的でないね。

A wonderful pot of soup requires a certain kind of commitment. It's not a particularly high maintenance relationship, but it does require a long period of tending to, even if with just a bit of one's energies. It's more like a steady, healthfully rooted relationship, that still needs someone to skim the goop off of the top and keep the fire lit.
すばらしいスープを作ることに傾倒しなければなりません。あまり多くを要求する相手じゃないけど、スープはいい付き合いのように根気がいる。

Hours of tending the hearth yielded a light and tasty broth, brightened by yuzu.
何時間が経ってからこの軽くて柚子で明るくしたスープ。

Perhaps more gratifying still was the stewed chicken meat I extracted from the soup, sliced up and served over rice with mitsuba and chili sauce.
もう一つの楽しみはその煮た鶏肉！それを切って、ご飯に載せた。

  

 Also have to eat your vegetables...

野菜も食べなきゃね。。。 

Napa cabbage in sesame vinegarette...

白菜のサラダ。。。

And grilled asparagus.

と焼きアスパラ。

They seem happy to have each other.

幸せ。

Oh... and those mysterious bits on the rice: Those are the chicken skins I grilled on top of the asparagus.

それでもう一つご飯に載せたものがあるね。それはアスパラと一緒に焼いた鳥皮。

I have to fatten up for winter, you know.

冬の覚悟で太らなきゃ。

ごちそうさま！ 

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！

Autumn #12: One bad egg may spoil my lunch, but not the bunch / 秋＃１２：食通の卵。とそのあたり。

A little over a week ago, I had the great pleasure of deepening my intimacy with one of my favorite elixirs...
しょっちゅう焼酎！

Ah, shochu! So similar to humble water, yet so much more potent. In the sobering light of day, however, its glowing promise dimmed. The Japanese term for a hangover is "two-days drunkenness." With the help of a light case of food poisoning, the "two days" turned into a week of a self-pitying, vaguely unsettling stupor.
夜の輝きは朝の暗い苦労。二日酔いより一週間酔いになると、あら。。。食あたりの疑問も。

Thinking back, there were about four raw eggs of varying degrees of trustworthiness, and a rather pink mouthful or two of grilled chicken, all of which I had consumed either with or shortly after the offending shochu.
ちょっとだけ考えても、４個の生卵、生ぽいの焼き鳥。。。容疑者は少なくないね。

So, in reviewing my equations, I hit upon this formula: (copious amounts of shochu) + (raw eggs of suspicious extraction) 
それで、（焼酎）＋　（生卵、鶏肉）＝

One week of a diet based on Seirogan pills. The key ingredient seems to be creaosote, which Wikipedia (alarmingly!) informs me is a kind of coal tar.
１週間の正露丸ダイエット。

But I'm back on the horse! Or, rather, under the chicken! A little touch of salmonella is no fun, but a life without runny eggs is no life at all. What better way to celebrate the newly harmonious relationship between myself and my guts than with an omelet?
でも私とわが内蔵の関係が改めて仲良くなって、一個だけのいやな卵を食べるは食通の卵の運命と理解して、卵を防ぐなら人生の意味もないぐらいので、また卵を挑戦！オムレッツはいかがですか。

And the eggs here in Japan are so very yellow and seductive.Whisked with a little bit of miso and mirin, they are irresistible.
それとも、日本の卵は特に魅力的です。ほら、みそとみりんと混ぜって：

It is a sunny-side-up universe.
太陽の色。

I decided to make a whole brunch out of it, a meal that I've missed for the past few months. Still a little wary of bloody mary, I stuck to the basics: eggs, starch, some greens.
このオムレッツ懐かしいニューヨーク式のブランチを作ろうと思った。

For the starch, I turned to these happy little fellows who found me on one of my local wanderings:
ポテトのためにこの子を：

They are wee little yamaimo sprouts. Yamaimo is a monster of a root vegetable when it reaches full-size, and is most commonly grated into a lusciously slimy goo called tororo.

山芋の芽だ！






These little guys resembled a gang of starchy insects (hard to see how to make this posting less appetizing). Each was quite small on its own:
ちょっと虫の群れのようだ（本当にだんだん気持ち悪くなっているね）。一匹ずつは可愛い。

So, I threw the whole gang in a hot frying pan with oil. In the meantime, I put some sliced up eringi mushroom in the toaster oven.
群れをフライパンに。そうして、エリンギをトースターに。

Eringi mushrooms are incredibly fragrant and meaty.You would be doing yourself no disservice to just grill and devour them.
エリンギの焼くとものすごく味を生かす。。。

But we have an omelet in the works. So: potatoes pan fried, eggs beaten, mushrooms toasted. I also fried some tomatoes for good measure, and made a side salad with a prominent dose of shiso, Japanese mint-basil leaf. Shiso makes a mean cocktail ingredient, too (as bartenders at NYC's bozu and Angel's Share know), but my liver remains a bit shy.
そのオムレッツにフライトマト、しそ入りサラダ。しそといろいろなおいしいカクテルが作れるけれども、肝臓はまだ「酒なんかイヤ」っと強く主張している。

 

Brunch, a New York institution! ブランチができたよ！

I suppose some institutions can be imported after all. But even so, there is a twist.

クローズアップ！

The mini yamaimo turned out to be little treasures. Although they still vaguely (or clearly) resembled buggy bugs.

山芋の芽もこの食通の卵の口に合った。

Well, their buggy marching across my plate can't deter me. Not in the face of such deliciousness. A little ugly root vegetables, or even a little chicken sashimi, can't stop the adventurous palate. Yet.

やはり虫と似てるね。でも虫の形の芋も、ちょっとした食あたりも、この冒険的な食通を止められません！

まだ。

Autumn #11: Going Underground with Wasabi / 秋＃１１：地下に潜る、わさびと

As autumn evenings get colder and colder, and we edge into the winter months, root vegetables really shine. There are lots of radical roots, of course. But nothing quite as extreme as the infamous wasabi.
だんだん秋の夕方は寒くなって、もうそろそろ根菜類の季節だな。地下からいろんなおいしさもらえるけど、過激さで言えばわさびが一番でしょう。

This was the line-up facing me on my recent visit to the farmers' market. The farmer himself was grating a stick of wasabi at the stand and offered me a smudge. "Go ahead, it won't kill you," were his words of encouragement.
市場で容疑者の列。農業さんにおろしたばかりわさびをもらちゃって。口を入れたら、「大丈夫よ。死なないよ。」っという励まし。

I liked the bite, and the very green flavor of an absolutely fresh wasabi. It was exciting.
緑の味！鼻に来るぴりぴり。

I decided to take one into my home.　一個を持ち帰り。

Cut in half...半分にしたら。。。

I decided that I would grate up some wasabi meat and make a dressing: a radical use for a radical root, with which I could very lightly dress some naked veggies. Kind of a return to my own California roots...
わさびおろしでドレッシングを！

Fresh wasabi renders a much softer kick than the tube kind, and the color is also more delicate.チューブで買うわさびより味も色も穏やか。

I added some lemon juice, salt, sugar, and olive oil.
これにレモン、塩、砂糖、オリーブオイル。

Totally radical. 過激な緑！

As a side dish to the salad, I made a little flavored rice, based on the recipe found here. サラダに合わせるご飯でキノコご飯を作った。

More than once, I've been captivated watching a Japanese friend wield a knife to render slices of carrots into sakura blossoms. My own efforts were less fluent.
何回も日本人の友達が人参を桜形に切ることを見るだけで夢中という体験あり。自分の手際は。。。

Maybe if I sent it home to my parents, they'd put it on the fridge. Only after asking me if it was supposed to be a fat man running to catch the bus, however. A crowd of these fat men would put anyone off of their meal. So I went abstract.
桜より走っているデブさん？やだね。それで、さくらを抽象的なチェル的なように。。。

Not my proudest moment, but I did manage some kind of flower-like shapes. 何となく。


These went into my rice cooker with some soy sauce, konbu, sake, mirin. Also I included some lovely fall mushrooms.
この曖昧に花のような形の人参と醤油、昆布、酒、みりん。キノコも。

The result was a happy little side bowl of rice. It was content to play the silent support to my more outspoken salad.
これでぴりぴりわさびサラダぴったり。

意義なし！