a beautiful month of the mountains

a few of my favorites during my stay up in the mountainous Nagano for the month of May, after the fun camping out:

A patch of rice field, filled with water getting ready for planting


Layers and layers of pale yellowish green leaves, just for a short while before turning all into darker green


Apple blossoms, among hundreds of other flowers - those are on trees of edible apples, for which Nagano is one of nations' biggest producers


Lots of mountain vegetables - many of them I don't particularly fancy, but some I do; these curly fellows are called kogomi, a milder sorts among the typically bitter mountain vegetables


Pasta with kogomi and baby scallops; butter-sauteed scallops and blanched vegetable together with heavy cream make a quick but flavorful fare


Sansai ten-don or a rice bowl with mountain vegetable tempura; topped with tempura of tender mountain vegetable shoots, this seasonal delicacy must be the most exquisite ten-don you could ever have - much, much better than a more common, so-called premium-grade ten-don that would typically have large shrimp tempuras on top.


Rice field, right after the seedlings were planted


Mountain trees, still in layers of nuanced green, which however is definitely a notch bolder than a week before


Green trees, mountains and rice fields - but all in pink


Another seasonal green - first-flash green tea, accompanied by kinako (ground roasted soybeans) "snowball" cookies that I made (I know they aren't snowballs, but I tried to reproduce my favorite shop's kinako cookies, which come in bricks like these!)


A folk that has the green of trees reflected on it; and oh yes, the cheesecake as well! (I'm hoping to do another post for this and several other cheesecakes I made last months...)


Orange-nut chocolate mousse cake, made proudly by my cousin who once was a professional baker and still makes us some occasionally.. yum!


Berry Linzer Torte (recipe here); Linzer Torte was one of the two all-time favorites of my mother, among a countless good and not-so-good sweets I'd make for my families as a teenager, and I thought to give this fresh-berry version a try for my mom's birthday at the end of May. Some changes to the recipe I made here and there (using strawberries only, replacing hazelnuts with half almonds and half walnuts, etc.) aside, the lattice top didn't turn out very well, and the tart got quickly soggy before we were able to eat it - not a greatest birthday cake you can make for your mother's big day, but as they say it's the thought that counts, right?


A soba lunch; soba, or buckwheat noodle dishes, can be had throughout the nation, but are one of Nagano's specialties. My mom took me to an old, small soba restaurant that's attached to an old inn, and just being there gave us a feeling as if we had been back in '50s or so (I wasn't born then, but you get the picture).


A turbid pond; a quick glance of it took my mom by a little surprise, as she went like "oh they say when the Turbid Pond is not turbid, someone will die..." - oh no! thankfully, the pond was turbid, more or less, but she said it's normally a lot murkier; if the Turbid Pond is not turbid enough, what would that indicate? never mind...


A sake brewery; Nagano may not be Japan's leading sake producing areas, but with the plentiful pure mountain water available and the large amount of rice production, they apparently have quite a few good ones on offer (well I don't drink sake myself and thus can't tell good ones from the mediocre, but I've been told so)


Rhubarb!; they are something that catches my eye whenever I find them on the store shelves, especially when I'm abroad - they are fairly expensive in Japan, or at least in Tokyo. Nagano produces rhubarb from a long time ago, yet this was my first time actually seeing them in store. What a pleasure of being able to afford a large bunch without being worried by their price tag.


My mom and I got a two large bunches, my mom for making jam, and me for some sweet treats to myself - crumble to begin with. I've been more or less using a Delia Smith recipe for the crumble dough (recipe here), but this time replaced half the flour with buckwheat flour; like I mentioned, buckwheat is a big produce of Nagano, and so is rhubarb (compared to other regions in Japan, anyway), so pairing them seemed to be quite reasonable to me. Besides, buckwheat and rhubarb, as it turned, belong to the same plant family (polygonaceous), which should make this combination of local specialities even more natural. Served with some fresh strawberry chunks lightly tossed with sugar and drops of rose water, the crumble made a casual but superb breakfast.


Another thing made from our rhubarb - rhubarb strawberry pudding cake (recipe here). Aptly named "pudding cake", the cake was a dense, steam-cake like, well compensated by the light and sour rhubarb-strawberry mix, although I personally found it on a bit too chewy side.



And it was right before the day I was to leave Nagano, after a month-and-half stay up in the mountain, getting lots of fresh mountain air and spectacular views, doing a lot of cooking, baking and eating using local ingredients in season, and spending some time with my mom.


There are quite a few small farm-fresh green markets alongside major roads, and it is always fun to pop in and have a peek. We dropped by one on my way to the train station, as I was after a super-fresh asparagus bunch to take with me back to Tokyo. Tragically, asparagus was all gone for the day, yet we found some pretty plants in addition to a blueberry tree; I trusted it to my mom, hoping to have ripe, plump berries next time I'm back.


A random rice field patch, also hoping to come back to have fresh crops of rice; rice seedlings grow taller day by day, literally!




So I said good-byes and thank-yous to my mom and the glorious mountain nature that gave me such a fun- and fresh air-filled month and a half - I will come back, yes, soon.

During that month and half, I've shot thousands of photos of the mountains, flowers and food, as I often would. I couldn't quite have them all make it to here, but I've managed to put together a set of selected shots that I hope will give you a sense and air of the mountain life from spring to early summer, here.



So the good-byes to Nagano meant hellos to Tokyo, which were quickly followed by hurried good-byes as I rushed around and packed, however.


Then again, good-byes always come with new hellos... to and from old friends and favorites. And new ones to come, hopefully.

So here I say good-bye to the month of May and hello to June, in hope of spending a yet another wonderful month not in the mountains hundreds of miles away from Tokyo, but in busier, yet equally charming cities thousands of miles away from Japan.

a mostly indoor outdoor life

The first weekend of May, there was definitely summer in the air.

It was a four-day weekend for many of us in Japan, and I managed to have the last three days off. I happened to be up in the mountainous Nagano staying with my mom, and some of my relatives were over on a camping trip and invited me to join in, which I did. For me, it must have been the first time to camp out in many years - definitely first time since I got back from Hawaii about three years ago, and one of the very few in the last ten years or so. My relatives on the other hand are a bunch of well-experienced, frequent camp-goers, and my family would actually go camping with them when my sister and I were kids. A couple of decades later, their son who didn't even exist when we'd camped together now is a freshman at college, might even be up for an occasional few with us... which simply is amazing for me and another one of my cousins, who's the same age as me and was also joining the gang over the weekend.

When I was camping with them as a kid, we'd often end up setting up our camp by a mountain stream, as both of my aunt and uncle as well as my dad loved fishing. Nowadays, my aunt isn't really into fishing as she used to, and they now seem to be just chilling and not doing too much when out camping, although my uncle may still be walking into a stream on his own.

So for the four days we were there (me, three days as I joined them on their second day), we basically just sat around and ate, chatted, and napped, generally taking it easy and lazing away. As I go over the photos I took while there, I'm a little put off myself by the sheer amount of food we seemed to have consumed - but I'm sharing some of them with you anyways. Nothing too fancy or fussy, but just simple and good food that tasted even better when shared together - over hot charcoal, under the sun (or the ceiling of the tent, when some rain poured down).

First we set up a barbecue, and thereafter pretty much everything we ate would have spent some time over it....

For our dinner in my first (and their second) evening, we started with some splendid beef kebabs, or barbecued hamburger on a skewer...

...And went on to Vietnamese-style salad rolls. Also called summer rolls, these are rice paper rolls and uncooked, as opposed to more commonly known spring rolls that are rolled in wheat flour-based wrapper and deep-fried. Rolling up sashimi crabmeat and shiso (a Japanese herb that may be described as a cross between mint and basil with a hint of anise) leaves, and dipped into soy sauce-based sauce spiced up with Chinese hot chili oil, these were not exactly Vietnamese you might guess, but lip-smacking (and a bit tongue-numbing) good, we thought, fresh and light. We liked them so much - or perhaps more like my cousin who took charge of summer roll-rolling was hooked on the job -, we even had them again the next day evening.

As we gobbled down the rolls, our dessert was being cooked...

Pineapple cake; bread cubes and pineapple pieces soaked in a sweetened egg-yogurt-cream mixture, and baked in Dutch oven. This versatile cast iron pot can cook food with the heat from hot coals under the grill as well as on top in its rimmed lid, creating a regular oven-like cooking environment inside the pot. Our cake got a little overcooked and burned on the surface, but nevertheless tasty.

Dessert would be followed by coffee, you reckon?

I wish. Well, actually not. I am proud to confess that we, after all these beers and food and even dessert on top, somehow got craving for more after a while, and turned out we put some more over the grill. This time it was a sweet potato roasting in the pot, and a squad of soy sauce-daubed rice balls sizzling alongside. There is something about these broiled rice balls, something that you just can't say no to. Maybe it is the smell of soy sauce (or miso paste in some cases) slightly burnt, or the crisped up sides (both sides!), I don't know. But I do know we all love these, and while you can get them even at a convenience store in Japan, they can't possibly compare to ones freshly off the grill. As for the roasted potato, it didn't even make it to appearing in front of camera, hence the lack of a photo. But you can bet it was good, oh yes.

So that was it for that evening, we called it a night, our mind and stomach utterly satisfied, off to bed already thinking about what to have for breakfast tomorrow... well maybe it was just me.

The next day brought more clouds and a little chill, with rain forcasted on its way.

Following what I'd say is a simplest form of the most authentic, traditional Japanese breakfast (a bowl of freshly-cooked rice with a bowl of hot miso soup alonside), we had a mid-morning tea break... or coffee in my case.

The first thing that warmed up the grill for the day was a scone that I'd baked and brought over the day before. What you see in the picture may not appear to be a scone, but they were; it was the result of my attempt to make my batch of these mega scones created by Heidi of 101 Cookbooks, looking yummy just like everything else is on her blog site.

I didn't have time to go shopping to get all the ingredients I needed, but I went with it anyways, using homemade marmalade and a homegrown (!) apple as the filling. I also used milk instead of half-and-half and regular flour rather than wholewheat, and omitted graze altogether.

When I decided that it was done, my scone was still slightly underbaked and somehow lacking that jiggy, rustic touch, possibly because of the dough overworking and/or underbaking, or the omission of wholewheat flour and/or lemon zest-flecked graze, or all of the above... but despite all that, having warmed up on the grill it still tasted fairly good and went down well, to my great relief. Next time I make these, I'll definitely use wholewheat flour and do the lemon graze, and perhaps try something else for the filling. I also baked some choc-chip cookies by the way, but let's just say they weren't really worth a mention or a photo.

Then I took a little walk around the campsite, only to get caught in a rain shortly after. As the light drizzle gradually turned into downpours, we dropped any idea at all of going out and doing something, and instead decided to be even less active and be slackers, with beers and snacks on the table. After all, this is what a holiday is all about, I said to myself... I'm sure we were all united in the same spirit.

Once we had all resolved to stay in for the remainder of the day, the entire afternoon was spent cooking, eating, drinking, chatting, snoozing, and then more eating and drinking. We didn't even play cards; we did have some video games on the cell phone, but we mostly spent our time talking, sometimes serious stuff and other times all nonsense and silly.

Throughout the time, we kept the campfire going, both to crematecook food and warm the room inside the tent.



We must have been eating like bears getting ready to go into hibernation, but we actually felt like we could almost go hibernating; it was really cold. The rain that was supposed to be stopping by 9pm was still going on at midnight, and as we hit the rack we just crossed our fingers so we wouldn't wake up in the next morning to find the tent washed away. (Thankfully, I was one of the lucky ones who got to sleep in the campervan, so no need to worry about potential rain water leaks or bear attacks. Extremely thankful, yes I am.)

And the next morning, the tent was still there (phew).

And so was the blue sky and sunshine once again. It was the last day of the long weekend, and the day for us to pack up.

Our last breakfast of the camping holiday was cooked rice with peas, tomato omelet, and tomato-mozzarella salad. Topping it off was yogurt with homemade strawberry sauce, which was as sweet and fresh as the mountain air on that day.

After breakfast, we all cleared up the site, packing everything away, and started homeward. For the folks it was the first camp round of the year, and there are more to come I am sure. For me, well, I don't know if or how may more times I will get to join them, yet it was like stumbling upon forgotten childhood fun... I only hope I won't have to forget it again.

By the way, what do you think the best part of this grown-ups' camping weekend was?

Well, as I was (and still am) staying at my mom's in Nagano quite close to the campsite, getting there and coming back was both in a matter of half an hour or so. What a bliss!! As a kid, as much as I would look forward to our camping trip of the summer, I would feel blue just by thinking about the drive to and from the mountains; I used to always get terrible carsick, and those typically winding, rough mountain paths didn't help at all. Heavy traffic jam would be another issue, since many people, especially families with young kids, would hit the road more or less the same time, making a massive amount of traffic both ways. None this time. As I grew older I came to mostly outgrow the carsick, and this time around I didn't even have a slow traffic. What could I possible ask for?

Well maybe a little less (or no) rain, and more exercising next time, perhaps. For now, I have my photos from the camping tip up on my flickr album, which you can find here (in slideshow), for some more photos of food and a bit of campsite views.

sakura, at home and afar

It's never spring until you've seen cherry blossoms come... and go.

Every year as we start seeing the end of the winter, there is one thing for many of us in Japan to fret over: when are the cherry trees blossoming this year? The nation are so obsessed with it, in fact, our meteorogical agency makes pinpoint "forecasts" of the timing for the flowers to blossom, and makes official "announcements" once the cherries have finally come to blossom.

And while they are in bloom, people are now busy goint out to cherish the flowers that typically last for only about a week or so, partying to celebrate the arrival of the new season and the start of a brand new school/business year (which in Japan is the beginning of April, more or less about the time for the cherry blossoms are around in Tokyo).

Being a Japanese, I find myself always looking for them at this time of the year, no matter where I am - it's almost an instinctive thing, must be in my genes. These photos are the results of such an ingrained habit exhibited while I was on my travels in the US for the past few weeks or so. Somehow, I didn't really get to see them in full bloom anywhere I went, but I was still thrilled everytime I found the flowers - whether they were cherry blossoms or those that resembled cherry, or something completely different, even.

Now I know some of the flowers here aren't sakura, or cherry blossoms (even I can tell... well, some of them at least), but well, all very easy on the eye and just as springy as far as I am concerned.

Other than those photos, here's another cherry blossom that I brought back from my trip:

White chocolate truffle with matcha green tea and cherry blossom petal called Kayoko, from Vosges. Named after "the first woman appointed to the Grand Master of Tea Ceremonies outside the Sen Family" as explained on the website of the Chicago-based chocolatier, the milk-white morsels looked every inch pretty and dainty when I found them in the showcase at their SoHo boutique in New York. Tragically, however, during its long journey from New York to the left coast to Tokyo, mine got tumbled upside down inside the box and got dents all over with the petal torn apart (sigh). For honor of Kayoko, I suggest you check here to see how it ought to look - the site is in Japanese, but as you scroll down you'll see stunning shots of cherry blossoms from San Francisco Bay Area and Atlanta, GA., complete with an image of the chocolate.

Meanwhile, although we had a relatively cold winter this year, we had the blossoms coming quite early for this spring; by the time I got bach in Tokyo last week, they were nearly gone. Still, I managed to get a quick sight of them last weekend.

These are all of one single tree - the same one I shot for the
last year's post of cherry blossoms. It was another warm, sunny springy day, perfect for cherry blossom viewing, except maybe, well, there were few blossoms left. I was still lucky to get to see them, though, as the stormy rains poured down to wash away any remaining blossoms over the week.

As I took these photos, I picked up one blossom that had fallen to the ground, and took it home with me.

If anything, cherry blossoms must be one such flower that really is meant to be appreciated while on the tree - real trees outdoors. That is when their beauty really comes through, I think. Even so, sometimes a little make-do does wonders; the tiny flower floaing in water fed our eyes for days, if not weeks... almost good enough to slake my thirst for sakura that I have missed this spring.

In the meantime, I have a bit more than just flowers in my image folders for my US trip this time; I am still in the middle of attempting to organize them, but here is the first set of photos to go over my time on the road, if any one of you is interested or in need of killing time: click here to launch a slideshow.