Seasonal Stories
from
MIRUKASHI

Summer

Enchanted evenings

Summer evenings stretch long and languorous. As the blue sky fades dusty and pink, songbirds chatter, cicadas whir, frogs chirp, and crickets chant. The air is balmy, On nights like these, summer begs us to sip something sultry. With so many herbs to muddle and flowers to garnish with, summer cocktails are the most delightful medley […]

Summer

Wild craft

On a clear April day, Miho Sasaki and I meandered around Mirukashi to see what wild plants we could find to brew into a hyper-local blend of tea. It was a highly anticipated excursion, three years in the waiting. We had started chatting on Instagram in the early months of 2020 and had only just […]

Summer

On the wilder side

I absolutely love the season of ume shigoto, plum work. It grounds me at a time when I start to feel untethered. You see, I’m a homebody with a serious case of wanderlust. So living in two places suits me. I get to take a long trip, wake up in a completely different environment, speak […]

Summer

Where it grows

June is an odd month in Mirukashi. It runs hot then cold, bright then gloomy, and my mood swings with the weather. One day I think summer is here! only to wonder a few rainy days later, will summer ever come? That’s the nature of June in Mirukashi. It’s a joyful month because it’s plum […]

Summer

Grounding into summer

Bountiful sun and rain has sent the flora into overdrive. Grain Full is the name of this season when all things flourish, including the weeds that turn my tidy hillside into a jungle. It’s all I can do to keep everything just under control. But like a diamond in the rough, plump, dense, fruity, and […]

Summer

Purple days of May

We can feel a shift out of spring and into early summer. In t-shirts and bare feet, with our lunches out on a sunny deck, we utter words not spoken for so many months, it’s hot! The cat takes refuge in the garden, a shady patch of grass cooler than the baking wooden planks.  There […]

Spring

The mountains are laughing

The hillsides are a melange of every shade of green. Purple wisteria drapes from the canopy, a pastel shawl thrown around verdant shoulders. I’m just home from 10 days on the road. While I revel in tracking the minute shifts from micro-season to micro-season, a stretch of time away reveals the speed with which the […]

Spring

A season of abundance

Years ago I stumbled upon a box of embroidered orbs in Kuniko’s attic. They were temari, I was told, vintage playthings from a time before children had rubber balls to bounce and leather balls to bat. I found them so intriguing that I did what I always do when fascinated by a new object or […]

Postcards

A new view

The salon began as a concept, an idea for an uncommon and intimate experience I could offer here in the countryside of Japan to connect guests to the landscape in which Japan’s flavors and food culture originate. Once the concept was fully realized, I myself realized that such an experience deserves a dedicated space, a […]

Spring

Drawing dashi

“Making good dashi is the first secret of the simple art of Japanese cooking.” Shizuo Tsuji Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art As the sun rises I wake, make a cup of coffee, and prepare to draw the day’s dashi. I place a large square of konbu, dried giant kelp, in fresh water and let it […]

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