A shapeless season It was a restless night, storms rolling through one after another, lightning flashing bright enough to penetrate closed eyelids and wake me. Rain poured down, its low roar on the roof perforated by the slap of water pelting pebbles outside the bedroom window. It finally calmed just before dawn and I slipped […]

A harmonious table setting An August storm charges in with a battle cry. Lightening fractures a thick sky and thunder roars. I hear the sirens on the hilltop golf course behind the house shrieking for all to take cover. The wind whips the trees as a downpour begins. I stand at the door as heavy […]

Spent ume and red shiso sorbet We sleep with every window thrown open wide in hopes that the cool evening air will fill the house by morning. The nights are quiet but for a few crickets and the occasional owl hooting into a dark sky. But come daybreak the cicadas fire up and scream at […]

A red shiso tonic for summer The windows are thrown wide open. A thick, endless quilt of clouds rolls by. A strong evening breeze blows through chasing away the heavy humidity. Higurashi cicadas call from every direction, singing the soundtrack to another hot summer in Japan. Another hot summer I didn’t expect to spend here. […]

The perfect ume jam A basket of ripe ume perfumes the house with the scent of apricots. Their soft fuzzy skins a shade of sunny yellow flushed pink at the shoulders like fair skin that’s been in the sun too long. Ume, the fruits of the Prunus mume tree, are known in English as Chinese […]

Salty, sweet, or spiked When Kuniko moved from Ryutagama to Mirukashi, on the other side of the same hill, she took her ume plum trees with her. Two would be sufficient. She was 67, retired, and years beyond her former life as career homemaker feeding three children plus numerous guests packed around a 10-foot long table each night. She […]

Barracuda, big leaf magnolia, & sansho I am often asked what my favorite Japanese food is. I couldn’t possibly answer adequately. There are too many wonderful dishes. But I could say, without hesitation, that my favorite flavor is sansho. Be it kinome, the leaves, or sansho berries, the Japanese prickly ash tree produces flesh of primal […]

Treasures of mountain and sea There is fullness, a slowing down and settling in as spring gives way to summer. The frenzied pace of growth relaxes and days linger with us later. A keyhole through the black pines, mountain cherries, and angelica trees that grow behind the house allows a few piercing rays of the […]

An album of food memories Spring erupted prematurely with a vigor that felt almost desperate, as though the earth were breaking from the shackles of winter and running for its life. But it’s been said that perceptions reveal more about the observer than the observed. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling bound, shackled by […]

A prayer to humbly receive Each day dawns a bit warmer, burns a bit brighter, and lasts a bit longer than the one that came before. How grateful we are to be tilted towards the sun again. Spring sprints forward and she waits for no one. She’s on a mission to plaster the hillsides in […]