Akashimate Omedeto Goazaimasu -- Happy New Year

First photos are us going to the nearby Shrine at midnight and standing an hour in the freezing cold with 100,000 people to wait ourchance to bow twice, clap twice, then bow once again to give thanks and make prayes for the New Year. Following that a stop at the "sweet hot sake" stand (Ama Zake) and to peruse the shrine Korean dishes.

Stayed up till 3:15 drinking sake and Grey Goose, alternately, and celebrating being up past our bedtimes!
Traditional New Year's feast at the Mitsumatsu manse--preparedby Izumi, Mama, Kayoko. Closeup, left to right starting with the Ise Ebi(Japanese lobster, $40 each, a present from friends), Kamaboko(pink/white fish cake), 2-color Tamago (egg), Datemaki (egg
roll), Konyaku (jellied yam!), Gobo, Butterflied Yuba (Tofu skin), Roasted Shitake, Roasted Seaweed, Renkon (lotus root), Hamaguri (skewered cherrystones), and Kohada (vinegared bluefish) -- all drunk with Otoso,a lightly herbed form of New Year's sake, to promote digestion and generally underline "tradition." served in progressively smaller cups with I being honored with the first and largest. Side dishes include Kuromame (black beans, with gold & silver foil),

Mama's tori-yam-daikon-carrot-shitake stew, colorful carrot-
daikon salad with subtle vinaigrette, etc. Chicken soup included rice cake and tiny Mitsuba individually tied into bows. Kayo and I took the train to Harajuku Station to see the teenagers, shrine-goers, and food merchants celebrating another perfectly clear day--with snowcapped Fuji-san perfectly visible. The 'emperor's platform' was open, this one day of the year, to give easier access to the shrine. Instead of the shrine, we worked the street market: My favorite were the potato twists on a sick and the dancing bananas--as well as a band of female drummers drumming up a storm. Today,--after a much needed one hour walk with Papa -- for the visit of Cousin Junko and her family I am improvising a gumbo with Japanese sausage and various other daring or dubious substitutes depending on how it turns out! Tabasco is, thank God, everywhere available. Yes, Fred, uokka and sake throughout!



Clouds over Tokyo Bay greeted us as the sun set. Bus ride to Shinjuku, then Papa-san picked us up for the last lap to Okigubo--where Mama and Izumi had a welcome feast prepared. Next night, the best sushi bar in Tokyo--Isohan with Mr. Ishi presiding. Japanese New Year starts 12/26 and is all about eating different 'traditional' meals every day! Fortunately the portions are perfectly manageable and we are working out every day! The city very orderly, the people happy, everything spic & span!

A rainy day in Ogikubo and the house filled with the aroma of a double pork roast. I'm cooking for tonight's feast--Yoshi to provide the vintage French wine. Meanwhile some dishes that slipped my mind (apologies!):
At Isohan: cod-sperm soup. Oh My God. Once you get over the thought, it's like drinking liquid pate.

At Ukai-Tori-Yama: minced quail cake soup. The area is famous for its quail. This dish is prepared by charcoaling whole quails then mincing them, bones included, to make a crabcake-like cake that has a pleasant light crunch to it along with the subtle flavors of quail, in scrumptious broth.


At Beijing-Park, Chinese-Japanese restaurant here in Ogikubo: kanage-daikon salad--jellyfish and radish. Absolutely unforgettable. Slightly better than the bes
t sizzling rice soup I've ever had--three weeks in the making. And my all-time favorite snack (from food courts at either Lumine or Takashimaya): flash-fried river shrimp--those tiny little shrimp, with a flavor twice their size. Try them sipping your favorite vodka (or, in fact, any vodka!). And, oddly enough, vodka is less expensive in the grocery stores here than it is in the duty free shop at LAX.

One of the most hilarious, and awful, experiences was seeing this huge line and discovering that it was the "around the corner line" for Crispy Crème (Ivonne--see photos), where the 'time to get in' is posted like a line at Disneyland: 1:00 hour, when we saw it! Can you imagine waiting an hour for a donut, when there's no wait at all at gorgeous little coffee shops filled with
pastry delicacies (see meringue photo).

One thing that's clear: this is a nation based on merchandising. Because almost everything here is imported except sake, things are more expensive (though the dollar's rise has helped us!) AND come in much smaller portions. To enhance the price, the packaging and merchandising are exquisite (see photos of Takashimaya and Lumine department stores). Buyers value what they get more because the actual opening of a food package turns it into a delicacy--so you feel more or less ok about a bag of 'Japanese pickles' that costs $30! And you open them with reverence, and gratitude for having this wonderful food at your disposal.


Some odd contrasts with U.S. and India: where at home and in India, ATMS are everywhere, here almost none of them work for US bank cards or cred
it cards--only for local banks. Getting cash is a real challenge, except at the airport where it's cash for cash. Although the streets and stores are spotless, it's very difficult to find a trash can! Recycling is so advanced here, that the cans that are available--very rarely--are super-sophisticated and divided into flammables, non-flammables, etc. Don't come to Tokyo looking for wireless cafes, either. Although folks have wi-fi at home, we haven't found a single coffee shop with one yet! And forget about decaf coffee. Here it's strictly the caf standard or nothing, the way it was in NY until a few years ago when Californication set in there as well.







No comments: