Chef Savant

During the summer time, it is nearly impossible to escape the fact that I do indeed live in an inaka, countryside, area. The bugs double to the size of mice, the rice fields grow thick and plentiful, and the vegetable gardens on every block are in full bloom. Periodically over the summer, one or two of the school staff would bring in bags vegetables grown in their own garden, primarily potatoes, cucumbers, [the occasional] baby tomatoes, and eggplants. They'd set them up in a little blue box on the table in the back of the teachers' room and leave an empty tin can so the teachers could buy a bag for 100 yen. I almost always buy something.

However, recently, perhaps because they might have come from the school garden, the bags of vegetables have been free. I snatched one immediately when I saw this, and by the end of the day, all the bags were gone. A single bag of eggplants is enough for a week of snacking for me, so the next day, when another free bag was pressed on me, I suddenly found myself with two bags of quickly expiring vegetables.

As my thoughts are want to do when looking for solutions, I thought of Yuki. It would be easy enough to simply give her the extra bag of vegetables, as I usually did. However, I wanted to do something a little more special. Every once and I while she would invite me in for a drink that would turn into dinner. This time I wanted to return the favor and cook for her, as I have a couple of times in the past.

That evening I sent her a text message warning her not to eat, and started cooking. I had gathered some culinary advice

from my teachers on what to cook and took that advice with me to the farmer's market where I bought the rest of my vegetables. I was going to endeavor to make a Japanese style dinner. First I made a sort of stir fry, with small brown mushrooms they are so fond of, as well as tofu, green onion, and, of course, eggplant, with plenty of soy sauce and mirin. Then I peeled the rest of the eggplant, chopped them up with some carrots, chives, and more green onions, and made miso soup. For Yuki, I made sure to also make a bowl of rice for, as I have so often been reminded, no Japanese person can stand to eat any meal without bread or rice. To complete the feast, I made some banana bread, although the only thing Japanese about it was that it was molded in the shape of Rilakkuma.

By the time I was hurriedly shoveling rice into a bowl, Yuki had already arrived. I arranged everything out on the table with chopsticks and even some chopstick rests I had found buried in my kitchen cabinet. She endured with good humor my usual requirement of pre-dinner pictures:

The meal was an unqualified success. Yuki expressed much pleasure and surprise at how well I had prepared an authentic Japanese meal. I blushed and preened and lent my success mostly to the good advice of my teachers and the magic that is soy sauce and mirin. Although it is the Japanese custom (and just general good manners) to call any gift of food "delicious," she seemed quite sincere, if evident only because of her surprise.

Of course after all this praise, I gave her most of the left-overs to take home for Masa, so he could enjoy it too. However, this had less to do with altruism than my desire to spread the news of my culinary success... so that maybe they would remember it next time I failed horribly.

Cheers,

chef Baer