Yakitori

Feeling sort of chatty lately about my little Japanese home ground of Kugayama. There are probably all sorts of conveniences and comforts lacking in the daily life of this wee town, but there are as well more than enough special qualities and advantages that we enjoy. I have mentioned in earlier blog posts that the area has many trees and abundant greenery. It’s also an express stop on the Inokashira train line, which means the center of Tokyo is no more than twelve minutes away. Overall, it is a desirable residential area for many people. But for a long time I have felt the one thing missing is a choice of good restaurants.

Tokyo in recent years has become a city where food or cuisine of all kinds can be found without much difficulty. Whatever your craving, be it Greek, Mexican, North African or American, you will find it somewhere in this great city. Unfortunately, none of those restaurants have made their way to Kugayama.

Not exactly a listing in the Michelin Guide, but Kugayama does have a splendid yakitori shop. For those unfamiliar with this traditional Japanese dish, yakitori is basically grilled chicken, but prepared and cooked in a variety of ways. Imagine slivers of chicken on wooden sticks or skewers cooking on an open grill—that’s what yakitori is.

Yakitori Ishii is situated near the train tracks on a busy street in Kugayama. It has no more than four employees, who work in the tiny shop Tuesday through Sunday. Eight years ago the small building housing the restaurant was a near-abandoned property before a local woman decided to renovate the building and open a yakitori shop. From the start it was a popular spot, and the owner never had to struggle to attract customers. With its tiny size, Yakitori Ishii is not a place where you can sit down for dinner; everything is made right in front of you, but for take-out only. But that has in no way stopped customers from lining up for the different types of yakitori on the menu. The end of the year is the busiest time because many people like to serve yakitori at parties.

I myself like this traditional Japanese dish and go to Yakitori Ishii fairly often, but I have to admit that my taste for it is somewhat picky. For me, the liver and chicken skin are not too appealing. Below is a list of the basic items on their menu.

tsukune — seasoned balls of chicken grilled on a skewer

negima — chunks of lean chicken and leek on a skewer

chicken livers — skewered and grilled

tebasaki — grilled chicken wings

roasted chicken thighs

deep fried chicken nuggets

kawa — roasted chicken skin

roasted sweet potato

Usually we can find several kinds of Japanese pickles on the menu, some of which are in the bottom photo.

As I said earlier, Kugayama is short of good restaurants, but we at least have Yakitori Ishii. Should you find yourself in the neighborhood one of these days, don’t pass it by.

Snake in the Grass

The neighborhood I live in is pretty enough to occasionally inspire a flowery description of one thing or another, and there are even times when you wonder if words can meet the task. The last week of March and first two weeks of April bring hundreds of people to Kugayama, all eager to walk among, admire and photograph the cherry trees which are at the peak of bloom and paint much of the town in the pale pink wash of spring. The Kanda River flows for a good distance through overhanging cherry trees, and wind-scattered blossoms fall to float on its surface, turning the water into a giant squiggle of pink ribbon.

But such is not my story this time. The seasons regularly redraw the neighborhood and the Kanda, and what’s pretty in pink one month will show a different face, put up a different picture the next. So, let me try to convey the scene when nature and people are not in a lyrical mood.

The Kanda River is one of those odd canyon-like city waterways trapped on both sides by high walls serving as flood barriers. Parts of the river are home to dingy gray carp, great fat things that eat almost anything. Mixed in with them are some brown ducks and turtles. More than a few times I have stood leaning over the railing looking down, marveling at the indifference the fish and ducks pay to the litter which decorates and clogs their unnatural habitat. One day I stood gazing into the grainy, half clear water, watching the ducks quack about, splashing and hopping from the water onto a grassy bank, where one or two old Coke or beer cans lay. Half submerged in the middle of the river was a bicycle someone had thrown over the railing and into the water. It was working as a partial dam in the current, and I could see a carp nosing about a plastic bag caught in the spokes.

After a few minutes I spotted a very large snake swimming downstream, headed straight into the schooled carp just below me. Three excited schoolboys on the opposite side ran up and down shouting, scrabbling in the dirt for rocks to throw at what looked like an aodaishô, or common Japanese rat snake.

“Hey, I almost hit ’im on the head!” the oldest of the three screamed with horrible glee.

“No fair! That’s too big. You can’t throw that.” One of the boys had found a stone the size of a brick, and was about to launch it at the snake.

“Oh, yeah? Watch this,” he said, hurling the stone with all his junior might, missing not only the snake, but the water as well.

“What an idiot!” the one in a Metallica T-shirt jeered.

With that they seemed to give up on throwing rocks and contented themselves with merely watching the snake.

It was fast approaching the carp, making a straight line for them, but they ignored the snake as it swam among them, then the snake turned for another of the grass banks coming out from the stone walls. It finally slid out of the oily water and approached a drainage pipe in the wall. Finding that blocked, it settled somewhere in the deep grass, disappearing from sight. I noticed a man opposite me on the other side of the river gripping the rail, knuckles strained white, and a look of pure horror on his face. He stretched out over the water, body bent, his arms fixed in stiff angles to the railing while his eyes bulged and strained to find the vanished snake.

A moment passed, and maintaining his posture over the railing, the man shouted across to me and laughed. “Did you see the snake? It was a snake. He’s down there in the grass.”

“Yeah. I hope he doesn’t decide to climb up here.”

“Yiiiiiiiii! Don’t say that. Don’t say that!” and he laughed again.

When Blue Is Not Just Blue

With Florida still lingering in my thoughts, it seems like a good time to stop and give some consideration to the Waterman ink, Florida Blue. Not the first mention of that particular ink here, as it was included in a list of basic favorites at the end of last year. As a schoolboy, I remember only one ink, and that was the old Sheaffer Skrip blue. Blue has for so long been the fall back choice of ink, it is by now taken for granted. Most people probably expect to see blue ink in a letter, so don’t give it too much thought when they see it. It’s expected, common, universal. On the other hand, for some of us blue is not always just blue.

There is a good choice of blue inks available these days, and the makers and mixologists have come a long way since those old fifty-cent bottles of blue Skrip down at the corner drugstore. Personally, with everything out there today, I almost have a hard time settling on the standard blue I like best. Montblanc Royal Blue is a splendid ink; who would doubt it? Sailor and Pelikan both make a handsome blue ink. And how could anyone leave out either J. Herbin or De Atramentis?

I have long liked Waterman’s Florida Blue, first attracted by the name, and later by its freshness and by its clean look. Yes, the name was appealing to me, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the ink is a match for the ocean blue that all but surrounds the state. Waterman’s ink is not that kind of blue, and that isn’t a criticism. To my eye it has the look of Montblanc’s Royal Blue, but with the addition of sunlight, as though they were somehow able to stir in a jolt of Florida sunlight. I think that’s what I mean when I describe it as having a clean look.

The ink always works well in my pens, be it a Pelikan, Sailor or Bexley. My choice is usually an M or B sized nib, because I prefer a generous flow of ink onto the paper. I have no reason to think it wouldn’t satisfy those who prefer an F nib. I would have liked to try the ink on Clairefontaine paper, but I don’t have any of that, so had to settle for two kinds of Japanese paper for the samples in the photos. The ink review form was printed on thick, heavy paper made for postcards, and the other was done on a good, heavy paper I don’t have the details on—an unused page from an old journal.

In making the samples for the scan and the photo here, I found that my bottle of Florida Blue is verging on empty. You can be sure I will buy a new bottle soon.

I should also mention that the color on the scan (ink review form) is not accurate, and looks much too dark.

Riding the Wind

Thoughts on a cold winter day…

Each year during the summer months a need arises to get out of Japan for a while, and probably more than anything else, a desire to distance myself from the everyday colors and textures of life here. Definitely an expatriate sense of longing, but I hesitate to call it a longing for home. The years in Japan have been enough to qualify Tokyo for that label more convincingly than any other place. But despite my years here, and the long list of things I love about it, the things I don’t love about it compel me to leave for a period of weeks each summer.

I am fortunate enough to have a place on Florida’s east coast not far from Daytona Beach. The description ‘on the beach’ in this case is about twenty-five yards short of literal. Walk out the door to find yourself on sand in half a minute, and up to the knees in surf only moments later. And so for obvious reasons I enjoy long hours on the beach, either floating on waves, walking for long stretches, or parked under a big umbrella with a book. Though I do swim fairly well and am not at all afraid of the water, even when the waves are big, romping all day in the surf is not what excites me. Neither do I enjoy stretching out in the blazing sun working on the perfect tan. With sun so hot and abundant, you learn quickly when the best hours are on the beach. Early morning before 8:00 is good, but the later hours from 5:00 to 7:00 are also an especially fine time.

Despite the accumulated weeks at the beach each year, I don’t know very much about boats. I don’t fish, have only been out on boats three or four times, and surely can’t handle a boat by myself. Catamarans sailing up and down the coast are not an unusual sight in Florida, and hardly a day passes when you don't see several sail past. Last August I had an eye-opening experience at the beach, one that left me almost intoxicated for the next several days.

Walking along the beach, late afternoon, doing nothing special, but perfectly content in my solitary stroll, almost unaware of others around me, I came across some people dragging a catamaran down to the surf line. In my ignorance it never occurred to me that the number of people was too small to sail the catamaran safely, and it surprised me when one of them asked me if I would like to go out for a sail, that they needed one more person. I said, “Sure, but you will have to teach me what to do.” Apparently that was no problem, so I joined them in hauling the catamaran out into the water. The ‘captain’ told me right off that balance is very important on a catamaran, and that everyone must sit along the edge, on either side of the boat. It took a little clumsy wrestling, but we got the catamaran out a ways and all piled on, half on one side, half on the other. In just a few moments wind caught the sail and the catamaran went flying over the water like a bird on high-octane.

I suddenly found myself in a magical world I had never imagined. Apart from the captain’s orders to shift position or look out for the swinging spar, the only sounds were the wind beating against the sail, and the catamaran bouncing and skimming over the blue ocean. The water sprayed or exploded in my face as I hung leaning backward over the side, lost in the thrall of wind and water borne excitement. We were on the water for about twenty minutes, all of it racing in perfect harmony with wind and ocean. My thought on returning to land was that this was an experience too short by far.

Thanks offered and heading back home, still feeling the lift of wind and the splash of water on my face, I began thinking about taking up the sport of catamaran sailing. Reality took the wind out of that thought when I discovered that owning and sailing a catamaran is not only a very expensive hobby, but one that requires a long period of learning how to handle a sailboat. But oh, what a thrill!

The Big Boy

With its thirty-four grams of brass mechanism, acrylic resin and gold plating, you have a lot of fountain pen in hand with the Pelikan Souverän M1000. This is the whopper of fountain pens, first produced in 1998 to compete with high end pens such as the Montblanc 149. There’s little doubt that Pelikan was successful in challenging Montblanc and others, as the M1000 has come to be regarded by some as a pen of the gods. I have used one for three years, and don’t for a moment hesitate to add my voice to that praise.

In terms of size, this fountain pen is a brute of a writing instrument, and I have to wonder how many fans it has among women, or anyone with less than big hands. Surely there are women who enjoy using a pen of this size, but I imagine the number must be negligible. This is a pen that measures practically 6 inches (14.6 cm) capped and very close to 7 inches (17.8 cm) posted, with a diameter of nine-sixteenths of an inch (1.42 cm). And as noted above, weighing in at a hefty 34 grams. The 18k gold nib with a rhodium tip measures a full inch (2.5 cm) in length. It has a solid brass differential piston filling mechanism, and the barrel and cap are made of diamond ground acrylic resin. It comes in either black with green stripes, or classic black. The beak-shaped clip on the cap is gold plated as are the double rings at the top, and at the bottom of the cap. And of course, the cap bears the traditional company trademark of nest, pelican and chick. There is a wide range of nib sizes to choose from, starting with F and moving up to O3B.

My M1000 is the classic black, with a B nib, and can only be described as a wet pen; the ink flows copiously from this big boy, and if I’m not careful will fill the page in the space of a few lines. This is not a pen you want to use for taking notes, or writing in a small space. On rare occasions I write a line or two in Japanese, and for that the 1000 is unsuitable, or at least one with a B nib. But I can’t imagine using even an F nib for small work. This is a pen that makes a bold statement, and it isn’t of a delicate nature. Having said that, let me coax you away from thinking this pen leaves a messy sprawl of words and puddles of ink. Once you get the feel of this pen and know what it will do, lines and pages are enhanced by its elegant flow of ink.

I would like to say that the Pelikan M1000 is suited to everyone, but I doubt even a hard up pen salesman could make that claim. It’s a good choice if you aren’t afraid of its size and boldness, and a pen that the writer must take firm control of.

I wouldn’t trade my Pelikan M1000 for two Montblanc 149 fountain pens, and that should be an indication of how much I like and enjoy using this classy giant of a pen. If you’re curious, by all means give one a whirl, but hold on to your hat.

The Unfinished Line

Maybe I shouldn’t have used the haiku opening in yesterday’s post. Since then it has rattled around in my head all day like one of those unnameable tunes you half hear on the radio. Oh, I don’t mean that specific haiku quoted yesterday, but the form in general, that short, sketchy kind of observation that works its way into a one-breath expression of a momentary image or occurrence. It is a type of poetry I have been interested in for a long time and have to say that it is a form of writing that requires time, patience and willingness to be an active reader. For my part, the number of times I’ve read a haiku poem and instantly gotten from it something more than a pretty picture or simple image is rare. I just don’t think it’s that easy, or if it is, then I venture to say that the ‘haiku’ is not really haiku.

Many of us have seen in picture books, if not museums, examples of Japanese brush painting where the composition is full of empty space and unfinished lines. Those spaces and dwindling lines are meant to be there for the purpose of giving the viewer an opportunity to participate actively in the painting, to fill out lines and spaces with not brush, but imagination. That in turn gives the painting greater potential for moving or affecting the viewer. The same is true of the haiku poem’s brevity and unfinished thoughts. The individual reader can make of those short lines something more specific, filled out through active imagination. Therein lies the dynamic of the haiku.

‘old pond • a frog jumps in • splash!’ is one of Japan’s most famous haiku poems, and is taught to grade school children for reasons I have never understood. Not that the poem is lacking in anything, but just the opposite in that it is especially difficult to extract meaning from. I doubt that the poet had children in mind when he sketched out these brief lines. I have thought about this particular poem for years and am still not certain I understand what the writer was expressing.

I have tried my hand at writing haiku, though never in English. I am more attracted to the original length of seventeen Japanese syllables. As an example, the frog haiku above is a total of seventeen syllables in Japanese. For me that is part of the puzzle, though exceptions to this count are not especially rare. Real masters of the form can twist this rule on occasion without detraction.

Without any pretense at skill or deep meaning, three of my own haiku in English translation are below. To be quite honest, the English presented difficulties equal to the Japanese.

In New Year’s chill Gazing at a hazy moon

the quince tree shivers I listen to snores

her leaves bleeding red from the next room

In cold winter wind

leaves dance and whirl

on the road home

Cicadas and Salad

Into the silence

sound pierces the rock—

a cicada shrills

Matsuo Bashô, 17th century Japanese haiku poet, wrote these lines about his visit to Yamadera, a mountain temple in Yamagata Prefecture, northern Japan. He might just as easily have written about the cicadas on the island of Crete. I visited Yamadera some years back and listened to Bashô’s cicadas and I know now they can never surpass the incredible shrilling of their distant cousins at the site of Knossos. Entering the compound of this old city site on Crete, I am almost swept off my feet by a harmonious and gathering surge of sound coming from the pine trees around me. Hundreds of insects sing in absolutely perfect synchrony and pitch, with undulating waves and stops altering and breaking the rush of sound. I am thrilled, but afraid to look over my shoulder for fear of seeing someone behind glass manipulating dials in a sound studio.

Some hours later, walking along a road the air still ringing with the sound of cicadas, I stop to look carefully into the branches of a roadside tree, thinking I can spy one of them up close. At the moment I stare into the tree the sound abruptly stops, almost as if the insect were looking back at me and halted its rasping out of shyness. As soon as I move off down the path the cicada’s song picks up again just where it left off.

Lunchtime and I stop at a sidewalk cafe, a tabepna in Greek. A tavern. Here I have the first of many Greek salads which I will eat over the next two weeks. The menu lists it as a ‘country salad.’ This isn’t the elaborate Greek salad we often see in places other than Greece, but simply tomato, cucumber, a few leaves of lettuce, red onion, green pepper, a couple of Greek olives, a slice of feta cheese, a sprinkle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

………………

Salads are a favorite I enjoy in all varieties, preferring most often the standard Italian green salad. Over the years I have learned how to make what I believe is a flavorful salad. Greece turned out to be a Utopia for the kind of salads I enjoy. It was also a modest salad-classroom, each restaurant offering a tip, simplifying some of my ideas on mixture. The variety of salad made depends upon where you are, what is in season and to some degree a knowledge of, or feel for what goes well with what. I discovered anew the true Greek salad, and learned that it differs greatly from other so-called ‘Greek salads’ I have eaten outside of Greece.

Recipe for a simple but delicious salad:

Ripe tomatoes cut into pieces

Cucumber sliced

Red onion sliced or roughly chopped

Green pepper sliced

5 or 6 Greek olives

Feta cheese sliced or cubed

A handful of fresh basil, or some lettuce (a small amount)

Salt, pepper, lemon, olive oil