Room service

I am all about room service. The tray, the miniature salt-and-pepper shakers, the Barbie-sized bottles of ketchup, the cloth napkins. I like having my own pot of coffee and drinking every last drop. I especially like it when the dish comes covered with a chrome-colored plate cover. Lifting it off, I feel like I'm throwing a grown-up tea party.

It's a bit silly, I know. Room service is over-priced, the food arrives cold, those little bottles of ketchup make for nice little carbon footprints. Still, I can't help myself. My favorite room-service meal happened a few years ago while staying at the Holiday Inn in Natchez, Miss. It may not sound glamorous, but you try a plate full of fried oysters and a Budweiser while watching the sunset over the Mississippi. You'd remember it too.

Move over Mississippi. My new favorite happened earlier this month, when I had a kaiseki meal in a Japanese ryokan inn in Kyoto. Ryokans are Japanese inns, small hotels that usually have onsens, a bath or spa, tatami mats as beds and even rules about quiet time and curfew. Ryokans are seen as little retreats, quiet places to bathe and rest and rejuvenate.

They are also all about the food.

You can stay at a ryokan and skip the meals, dinner and breakfast. You might save a little money, but you would lose a chance to eat kaiseki. This multi-course meal is the star of many ryokans; some inns make more money on the meals than the overnight stays. And, most importantly, they serve this banquet right in your own room.

The dinner starts with some sake -- I think ours was plum-flavored shochu -- and a plate of bite-sized appetizers. My sister, her boyfriend and I were so excited about the offering, we forgot to take pictures. We recovered, somewhat, by the second course of sashimi.

















Next came soup, little dishes of vegetables and fried river fish,whose fins were dipped in salt.

















The fish, and everything else, came with its own special dipping sauce. For the fish, it was a bright-green sweetened vinegar, meant to balance the painful saltiness.

Did I mention we ordered extra sake?
















Onto the custard course, a soft egg mixed with mushroom and bits of fish.

















As you can imagine, we were getting a bit full. And, because the dinner is a set menu, we had no idea how much we had ahead of us. I was trying to pace myself. This was a marathon, not a sprint. I should have slowed down to a crawl, because then this beautiful eggplant arrived.
















"I'm going to eat this entire thing if it kills me," my sister said. She did, and was happier for it. It was perfectly roasted, with a sweet and salty miso glaze. I wished I had trained harder, because I could only make it through half of mine.

I knew the end was near when the rice arrived, steamy and simple and decorated with a confetti of ginger. Lastly came the pickles, lightly soured cabbage, cucumber and radish.
















We had made it, and soon after the plates were cleared and the tea was sipped, the staff came in to make our beds. We crawled under down comforters laid on the floor, cushioned by a thin futon mattress, and fell asleep. The only thing better than having an endless dinner brought to your room is sleeping on a tatami mat. It all makes for sweet dreams indeed.

About that root

My last (and, let's face it, first) adventure with Japanese cooking was so successful I've just been lying about in my own brilliance and eating leftovers. As a result, I'm getting a bit full, so I thought I'd find out a little more about that root.

First of all, it really is as long as my leg. My legs are, by most standards, pretty short, but still. That makes for a long, spindly thing to be carried home from the market. Last Sunday when my grocery bags wandered into the near-sighted view of a fluffy Pekingese, she froze with legs splayed and eyes widened. I felt much the same. At least she didn't have to go home and cook the thing.

Burdock, or gobo in Japanese, is considered a herb, a strange thing to me because once in the grocery, it looks more like a dirty carrot stretched absurdly thin. When in the ground it's a thistle, growing wild in America and cultivated in parts of Europe and Asia. Its blooms look like mums or daisies. It has several aliases: personata, happy major, lappa, fox's clote, thorny burr, beggar's buttons, cockle buttons and philanthropium. Why we settled on burdock -- which sounds like a grumpy butler with the sniffles -- is beyond me. I'd much rather chop up some happy major or beggar's buttons and throw them in the pot.

Before that, however, there is the scrubbing. There's no sense in peeling a burdock. You'd be left with a cartoonish pile of shavings and no vegetable to cook. So, an impressive amount of scrubbing, and sink space, is needed to get this thing clean. Once that's done, the root must be quickly cut (in the Japanese kitchen, cut on the bias, like prettily sliced green onions) and soaked in cold water to avoid discoloration.

So why all this trouble? I've been asking myself the same question, and I've come up with two answers. It's relatively cheap (which probably translates into easy to grow) and it's nutritional value is right up there with leafy greens. And when your climate or pocketbook can't produce leafy greens, it makes sense you'd want a little burdock in your family's diet. Officially, it has iron, vitamins B and E, and it is particularly sought after in health food stores as a blood and body purifier. I'll let you figure out what that means on your own.

In the pot, once cooked, it tastes like a combination of asparagus and celery, crunchy and watery without being pushy or bitter. I've had it floating in a few miso soups, and it worked well in gomoku meshi. The problem is the recipe called for only one root, and the package at the grocery store offered two. Perhaps I could cut it in quarters and hope that Pekingese wanders by. She might like it better if it were more her size.

Following a leader

It's a rare thing for me to follow a recipe. With the exception of my grandmother Ruth's cornbread recipe, I gave up following cooking instructions to the letter long ago. When tackling a roast, I want to know what both Julia and Jacques have to say. If I want to make chocolate chip cookies, I'll refer to four or five recipes, including the one on the back of that yellow package. In need of the correct proportions for vegetable stock or spicy squid salad or jambalaya? I can spend half a morning consulting my favorite websites and books -- from A to at least R, a collection that doesn't quite complete the alphabet but gives me reliable and delicious ideas. (Like many cooks, I'm in complete denial that I own anything having to do with S.)

I compare ingredients, ponder techniques, make notes. Then I take that advice and dump it into the mixing bowl. Sometimes, I overestimate my ability to edit carefully tested recipes. Mostly I like what comes out of my melting pot.

This habit must be put aside, however, with the introduction of Shizuo Tsuji into my kitchen. I'm treading on new ground with this attempt to learn more about Japanese food, and it's an understatement to say I don't know what I'm doing. Guess at the proportions of soy sauce to mirin? I might as well figure out how to read blogger's computer code. It's not that Tsuji's recipes and instructions are terribly difficult. There's a thorough glossary, helpful sketches, menus for beginners. Still, it took me a few days to select a place to start. On Sunday I finally settled on two dishes -- spinach with sesame dressing and mixed rice, gomoku meshi, a one-pot dish with five main ingredients.

I followed the instructions verbatim. It nearly killed me. I ground the sesame seeds. I scrubbed, rather than peeled, a dirty burdock root as long as my leg. I poured boiling water over fried tofu to wash out the excess oil. I wrung kitchen towels around spinach. I washed rice and let it drain for an hour. None of this was arduous or complicated, and other than planning for the rice-draining time, it didn't take that long. But mentally it was exhausting. I had conceded control, something I never do in the kitchen. Worse, I was getting hungry.

Then came the final instruction -- put all the mixed rice ingredients, including raw chicken and the konnyaku, into my American-made, $25, thin-as-tin rice cooker. In everything went. I was nervous, not just because I own a cheap rice cooker. I had decided to cheat and made one major adjustment to the recipe. I used the rice to broth proportions suggested by my machine, rather than by Tsuji-san. He called for 3 1/2 cups of uncooked short-grained rice to 4 cups broth; the proportions are right, but that seemed like too big a feast for a Sunday dinner for one. I cut the amounts by about one-third, pointed the contraption's one lever toward the word "cook," and escaped to a shower.

About 20 minutes later I ventured back into the kitchen and lifted the rice cooker's lid. I'll be damned if dinner wasn't waiting for me. The rice was perfectly steamed, infused with the richness of chicken and tang of soy. The carrots were soft, not mushy. The bits of meat were tender and juicy. Only one part turned out less than perfect. The burdock was a little too crunchy, and I consulted the recipe again. It was my fault, of course. I hadn't cut it thinly enough.

Next time I'll be more careful. Or maybe I'll parboil it. And perhaps add an extra slug of mirin. I wonder if broccoli stems would hold up? How about a finger of ginger? Like that second bowl of gomoku meshi, I really just can't help myself.


Here's the recipe as it appears on page 278 of "Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art." If you don't have a rice cooker, you can make it with a large pot with a tight lid. The recipe is for four people.

Ingredients:
2 ounces boned chicken meat (I used two boneless thighs)
1 small burdock root, well scrubbed with a stiff brush*
1/2 small carrot
1/2 cake think deep-fried tofu
1/3 cake konnyaku
3 1/3 cups short-grain rice, washed
4 cups dashi (japanese broth, or chicken broth)
4 tablespoons mirin
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce

Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces, with or without the skin, as preferred, but do not use bones.

Cut burdock using the pencil-shaving technique (very thin, slanted pieces, as it the vegetable is being whittled). Place in cold water immediately to prevent discoloration.

Finely dice carrot.

Remove excess oil from fried tofu cake by pouring on scalding water. Drain, wrap in a kitchen towel or strong paper toweling, and gently squeeze out excess oil. Cut both fried tofu and konnyaku into julienne stripes.

To assemble and cook: Use an earthenware casserole, a heavy-lidded pot, or an electric or gas rice cooker. Place washed rice and solid ingredients into casserole or pot.

In a bowl, mix the ingredients for cooking rice (dashi, salt, mirin, soy sauces). Check and correct seasoning. Pour over rice and vegetables in casserole. Do not stir. Cover casserole or pot. Cook, simmering carefully without lifting the lid, as the mixture can scorch easily.

*According to the recipe, you can use shredded shiitake mushrooms instead of burdock.

Yuzu, I zu

This is what happens to a person who never buys juice but has house guests who do and so, with good intentions but little experience involving liquified food -- I mean, outside of a lime, I always thought fruit should be savored not sipped, but I have been wrong before -- brings home a bottle of unsweetened yuzu juice. She makes a cocktail.

If you've ever mistakenly taken a swig of unsweetened yuzu, you'd need a drink too. Yuzu is a citris fruit, first from China but now also popular in Japan. Unsqueezed, I'm told, it looks like a rather sad grapefruit. Squeezed and straight, it tastes like the sourest Sour Patch Kid you ever met without that much-needed sugar coating.

Yet mixed with equal parts basil-infused simple syrup and vodka, it tastes exactly like what I need at the end of a day that started with work e-mails at 5 a.m. -- a dream.

Syrup
Combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water into a saucepan. Heat until dissolved. Add about 1/2 cup loosely packed basil leaves. Let steep for 15 minutes. Pour through a sieve, reserving syrup. Chill.

When thirsty, mix equal parts syrup, yuzu and vodka. Pour over ice. You could get fancy and get out the cocktail shaker, or you could invite a slurp of club soda along. And if there's no yuzu at your house, a mix of grapefruit and lime juice would be splendid. Enjoy with a squeeze of lime.

Cuts like a knife

So I've gone and done it -- I bought a Japanese knife. It's a deba bocho, to be exact, a knife carefully angled to cut fish, chicken and meat. I've been using it for the last week to slice leeks alarmingly thinly and sprinkle them on cold tofu. It's not the most inventive arrangement, I know, and probably insults the butcher. But work has been creeping into my kitchen time so it's the best I can do for the moment. This weekend, I'm planning to maul a chicken, so perhaps I'll be back in your good graces.

Even more scary than the knife is the stone that I'm supposed to use for sharpening. It looks innocent enough, a 1,000-grade rectangle, brick-like and sandy. The knife-selling man near Kappabashi Dori gave plain instructions. Soak the block for 10 minutes in water. Then take it out, place longways in front of you, and hold the knife at a 45-degree angle against the stone. Then push the knife away from you, one section at a time, until you're satisfied with the results. It's this last part that has me worried. I'm afraid I'm going to shave the thing down to a toothpick.

If I did it would be a one-sided toothpick. The thing is, this is a left-handed knife, so that the edge falls only on the left edge. The right side looks as plan as a sheet pan. Finally, after all these wooden spoons and butter knives crafted exclusively for the right-handed, I have a not-to-be-trifled-with tool that dresses left. It's about time.

But time has been my problem for the past few days, so I haven't had the chance to take the knife for a true plunge or to get the stone wet. Instead, I worked up a recipe that combines ideas from two of my favorite food-blog writers, Clotilde and Molly (or perhaps I should say, Brandon). Here's lunch, which takes as long to make as it takes to shred a carrot, and is a good midday break when you have to eat at your desk.
















2 to 3 carrots (I use one huge Asian carrot; sorry I don't have a scale), grated
1 can chick peas, rinsed
1/4 to 1/3 cup sliced green onion or young leek

For dressing, combine:
1 heaping soup-spoonful of good quality, natural peanut butter
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sushi rice vinegar (I believe in the states they call this 'seasoned,' which means it has some sugar in it)
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
3 to 4 tablespoons warm water

Mix all dressing ingredients save for the water; use the water to thin out the dressing to your desired consistency. Combine all. Makes two servings.

Avocado and shredded cabbage would be wonderful additions; my cupboard was just a little bare. Still, it's nice to know you can make a healthy lunch with only two main ingredients and a left-handed knife.

Lunch at 185 mph

Something exciting is happening. I tried to capture it but failed, so you'll have to take my word for it. Maybe you'll cut me some slack. After all, I was skipping away at 300 kilometers an hour.

The rice is beginning to glow. The dull green stalks are waking up, brightening as if they're sipping light and it's trickling up their insides. By the time it gets to their tops, the green has turned into gold flecks, like lightening bugs buzzing about during the day. Yes, green is going yellow in a luminous way, and it all means that fall is just around the corner.

Fall in a great big city in a foreign land, isn't quite the same as home. Yes, leaves rustle and blow. Dogs and their keepers step lively through parks. Street lights dangle merrily in the wind. Still, it isn't the same as a walk through Green Lakes, where the fall makes leaves turn lavender and persimmon and dozens of colors in between. But Tokyo ain't central New York, where I lived for eight years, so we must move on. Plus, what does any of this have to do with food?

Enter the shinkansen, or bullet train to you and me. I love the shinkansen and would rather ride it than board a plane just about any day of the year. If I could figure out how to ride it from Tokyo to Seoul, a route I travel quite often, I would. There are big seats, big views and bento boxes. That, and a good book, are just about all I need.

Eki bento lunches began popping up at the turn of the century as trains began tracing the lands. Bento boxes had come into their own beginning in the 17th century when the merchant class began to grow. People would carry rice wrapped in leaves or placed in a box -- what we call onigiri -- and do to work, the theater, the outdoor mall. With trains, food sellers eschewed the fancy lacquered boxes and invented the perfect picnic lunch.

A bento usually follows certain proportions -- more parts rice to less parts protein to even lesser parts salads and pickles. It should involve many little tastes and a fair amount of vinegar to help keep the food fresh. I picked up one I thought contained maguro, raw tuna. It turns out it was something quite different, salty and slightly slimy in texture, but I managed to get it down. I was told later it might have been stomach or bladder. I didn't ask whose stomach or bladder. Once you pick your bento box, you've got to eat it or go hungry. The train goes fast, but it still takes a while to get home. And meanwhile, you've got the glowing rice outside to keep you happy.