Category Archives: cooking

Drying Mushrooms

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We spend the day with our students, who have returned to unpack the firing that we fired together last weekend. We unpack the kiln slowly and methodically, recording everything as we go. Everyone gets a chance to handle the pots as they come from the kiln. Passed down the chain and then placed on the benches in the order that they were stacked in the kiln. Everyone can see what went where and which effects are gained in different places in the kiln.

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After the kiln is unpacked and the pots all cleaned and safely stored in their cars for return travel. We have a quick lunch and then spend the afternoon cutting, splitting and stacking wood for the next firing. It’s great to be part of a team and a lot gets done in a short time with so many hands on deck.

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In the evening, I clear the table and start to sort and clean my haul of mushrooms. It takes a bit of time to clean them thoroughly.

Mushrooms are quite fragile and easily damaged and because I have collected so many in this latest haul. I decide that the best way to deal with them is to slice them and dry them in the oven using all the waste heat from the fire that has cooked our dinner and heated the hot water. It has also warmed the oven as well as the room all evening. I stoke it up again a couple of times during the evening to keep the warmth coming.

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I only want to dry the mushrooms. I don’t want to cook them. So, I stack them on wire racks and place them in the oven with the door ajar to get a good circulation of heat and fresh air to carry the moisture away as well as keeping the oven temperature from rising to high.

I work through half of my haul before its time for bed. I leave them all in the oven over-night, as the fire has died down and I’m confident that the heat is not going to be strong enough to burn them.

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In the morning they are all shrunk and don’t they shrink down a lot in volume as they dry. I had them closely stacked on the wire racks and now they are fairly sparsely laid out on the trays. They are pretty much dry, but not crisp yet. I don’t want them to go mouldy on me in the pantry cupboard, so I place them in the kitchen window to get a bit more heat during this sunny warm day, before storing them in glass jars for later use.

My hard-working girl and I spend the day, cutting and splitting more of our pine logs, to get the wood stacked indoors in the wood shed before the rain comes. It is slated to rain for the rest of the week, so there is some urgency in the matter. I have a kiln job to finish off as well, but I can work on that tomorrow in the kiln factory while it is raining. Today it is time to be flexible, change plans and store firewood while the sun shines.

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We are both fasting today, as we always do on Mondays, unless there is a good reason not too. Cutting wood really takes it out of us in this state. We have finished burning all our carbs and are now burning fat. Maybe it’s good for us? Only time will tell.

In the afternoon, all the mushrooms are toasty dry and snappy crisp sitting in the warmth of the north facing window. They snap when bent and so are ready to bottle. I will get stuck into the other half of the harvest tonight instead of watching the idiot box.

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I remember a few years ago, paying $14 for 10g of dried mushrooms from Italy. I suddenly realise that I have just made a few hundred dollars overnight.

 

A Basket full of Fungi

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We have been very busy all week. The mornings are cold and a bit misty. We have been having frosts on most mornings. I have to go into town to get some parts for a kiln job, so I take the truck and make the trip pay, by returning with a ute-load of mushroom compost as a bonus. I get stuck into it in the afternoon and unload it into the wheel barrow to spread it around the vegetables. I pull out a lot of spent plants that have been killed off by the frost. Plants like basil are all dried out and dead sticks now. I pull the plants out and weed the patch, then cover it with compost to stop weeds taking advantage of the increased sunlight.

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Today has been the first time that I could get out and search for some more mushrooms. Since the tremendous rains of last month, then the few hot and dry days that followed, allowed the fungal spores to force their way up and into the light. This harvest is very late in the season. We usually get mushrooms from late summer/autumn through to early winter. It’s now mid winter and I wouldn’t be expecting too many more mushrooms here now. But here they are. Every year is different. The weather determine everything.

Last weekend the kiln firing crew all decamped en-mass, mid firing, to go and hunt for fungi and came home after 30 mins with half a basket-full of their hard-earned bounty. Three orange fungal heads appeared in our lawn during the week. This led me to think that there may be more around.

I decided to go for a walk this afternoon to try my luck along the fire trail. next to the train line. There are quite a few pines growing along there. We have pines in our garden and that is the source of our mushrooms. So find the pines and then look for mushrooms.

There are loads of mushrooms and toadstools that grow in this area, nearly all of them are not edible. There are two easily recognised species that are edible here. The most common edible wild mushrooms here are the saffron milkcap and the slippery jack. They are symbiotic with pines and seem to prefer it best on the north side of trees where there is open ground with some sunlight penetration and sparse grasses.

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The mushies seem to grow under the dense dried grasses that felt the ground at this cool, frosty, end of the year. Mushrooms are some times hard to spot in the undergrowth, but after a while you get good at spotting them, even though they are often a similar colour.

I look hard in the most likely places and suddenly a few things snap into place. I bend down and scrape away the dried grass and there they are.

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I manage to completely fill my basket without too much trouble. As I walk down the road, I come across a bloke on a big motorbike sitting by the edge. He is staring out into the distance. He isn’t near anywhere at all, just sitting there. I’m zig-zagging across the street from one side to the other, examining the ground under every pine tree as it comes along. He is aware of me and my erratic movements. I walk towards him and ask if he is OK? Does he need help? To use a phone? No! Apparently he is fine. He has a phone, no problems at all, nothing wrong, just waiting to meet someone!?

Weird! In the middle of nowhere? Still he seems happy enough. He asks me if I’m out collecting mushrooms. “Are you out to collect some mushrooms?” Which is not an entirely unreasonable suggestion, as I’m wearing my Basque beret and carrying a wicker basket full of them. Perhaps he thinks that I’m a french peasant that has got lost and walked all the way from Provence without noticing?

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“Yes I am!” I say, as I walk toward him to show him my basket. It’s chockers! He leans forward to see as I lift the basket for him to see in. He has a look and exclaims. “Wow” then he looks closer and focusses in and repeats. “WOW”, then does a double-take at the full to over-flowing basket and reiterates, “WOW!!!” He is visibly shocked. I realise that he wasn’t really expecting to see so many mushrooms.

He asks me if they are all edible. And I tell that they are. He responds, “are you sure?” I tell that I have eaten them many times. I’ve lived in the village for over 40 years and if they are a slow acting poison, then it must be very slow indeed! He responds with another  quieter “wow!”. As I walk on he calls out. “Thanks for your concern.” I nod and lift my hand in recognition.

I double back along the other side of the train line and find some more rich pickings. Mostly slippery Jacks on this side. A third of my haul are slippery Jacks, which are sometime called ‘sticky buns’ I guess because of their domed shape and brown sticky/slimey feel, depending on wether they are wet or dry when you find them. The other 2/3 of my basket are the red pine mushrooms that we have learnt to call ‘saffron milk caps’.

I stop looking as I pick up my pace and head for home. I can’t fit anymore mushrooms in the basket. They are starting to be flicked out of the basket by passing branches, sticky shrubs and twigs. I put my beret on top go them to hold them all in. I’m proud of my haul. I feel like a real Post-Modern Peasant.

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When I get home, Janine spreads out my bounty on a towel on the kitchen floor to stop them going mouldy. I need to peel and de-stem the slippery Jacks and slice them to aid the drying. The milk-caps will need some careful cleaning to remove all the grass and leaf-matter that is stuck to their tops. Luckily there has been no rain since they have emerged, so there is no splashed up dirt and sand stuck to their underside gills. That is always hard to spot and remove and results in  some rather gritty and crunchy meals.

I cook a 3 mushroom risotto for dinner with some of our truffle infused rice.

Bon appetito!

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Mushrooming

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The weather has been quite wet for the past month, but with a few warm, still days. The warmth seems to have brought on a last, end of season, flush of mushrooms. Usually the mushroom season here is from late summer through autumn into the beginning of winter, but this is a very late-blooming of fungal trove.

We have 10 potters here with us to pack and fire the wood fired kiln. Rochelle, one of our guests, decides to take a walk among the pines and comes back to ask for a knife to cut some mushrooms that she has found. Half the team suddenly take off. Janine tells them that she not only has a dedicated mushroom knife, but also a mushroom collecting basket. They’re all off and gone, returning half an hour later with the basket half full of fungi.

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Around here we get edible mushrooms growing on the pine tree roots. We have saffron milk caps and slippery jacks. There are lots of other fungi growing here, but these are the only ones that we know are edible and safe.

The fun-guys set to work cleaning and peeling the fungi. We cook up a couple of dishes for lunch. The saffron milk caps with olive oil and garlic. Then the peeled slippery Jacks tossed in butter with white wine and blue cheese. They are both pretty amazing dishes and couldn’t be fresher or more delicious.

Mushrooms are best cut from the stipe or stem, so as not to damage the rest of the ectomycorrhizal underground structure of the fungus. The less damage done, the better chance of a good crop next season – or so I’m told. Better safe than sorry. So much better to tread softly on the earth where ever possible, it costs us nothing and can reap great rewards.

This is self-reliance.

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Truffled eggs, a once a year special treat

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Take two eggs stored in a sealed container of carnaroli risotto rice with a big fat truffle. Wait a few days.

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I made risotto out of some of the rice for last nights dinner. served with a good sprinkling of truffle and a side of steamed broccoli.

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When the time is right for a special breakfast. Crack the truffle infused eggs into a bowl with a good dollop of fresh cream, add some real salt and freshly ground pepper. Then grate a generous amount of truffle into the bowl, whisk it all up and pour it into a moderately hot pan greased with a knob of butter and keep it all moving gently until it starts to firm up a little. Pour it over toast and take the time to savour it all in its sinful richness and mouthwatering flavour and aroma.

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For a second course, we had freshly home made seville marmalade and a bowl of hot milky coffee.

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We might just want to go back to bed. but we have 10 potters coming to pack and fire our wood kiln for a weekend workshop. So there is no time to dally.

Truffle Season is Here Again

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Now we have past the solstice, we are in the coldest part of the year and that means that the French Perigord black truffles will be ready for harvest from our local truffière. Janine and I planted 8 inoculated truffle trees 2 years ago, one, a holly oak, didn’t like it here and turned up its toes pretty quickly, but the other 7 have survived for two years now. The 2 stone pines inoculated with Italian white truffles are growing strongly. As are the hazelnuts carrying the black Perigord truffle spores. The remaining holly oak is not too happy, but the English oaks are doing OK.

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3 Perigord Hazels, A very tiny holly oak, a thriving Italian stone pine and an English oak that has trippled its height and is growing very well..

We don’t expect much from any of these trees, It’s just a fun project on the side. If one day we find a truffle, say in 5 to 10 years time, then it will be a bonus. Growing truffle trees is quite a bit of work and to achieve success, you have to take it quite seriously. I don’t, so our chances of success are greatly diminished.

We live in a suitable climate here, with just the right conditions of light winter frosts and hot summer days, but our rainfall, especially in the hotter summer  months is rather on the low side in most years. Although who can say what will happen in the future, as the climate seems to be changing quite a lot for us here. We are stating to get less winter frosts and more summer rainfall.

Rainfall is not a problem for the serious grower, as piped irrigation is cheap and easy to install. We have dams and pumps and could do this, but for a marginal hobby activity like this it’s still a lot of extra work, not just to install, but to maintain and to remember to put it on when it’s required. I have enough to think about already.

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So, all in all, it’s somewhat easier to go and visit the local truffière and buy a nice plump, black, fragrant truffle right now while they are in season. Geordie is going out to pick up the order for the restaurant and he takes us along. It’s a beautiful place. The trees are young and only just coming into harvest in the last few years. Each year the harvest is doubling. I’m a bit dismayed to hear that the holly oaks are the best producers in this area. Regrettably, it is the hollyoaks that are doing the poorest for us in our garden. Not an auspicious sign for us. One dead and the other not even able to grow up to the level of the rabit proof tree guard.

It turns out that we have met the truffle grower many time before in another place. He picks me out. “I know you”. At least he knows my hat. It’s a cold wintery day with light showers blowing in and we are all rugged up. I have on my distinctive large Basque beret. He says “I know that hat. You are a regular at The Royal Society Meetings!”

It’s true, I am. I suddenly recognise Ted, It’s one of those occasions when a face is out of place and suddenly snaps into cognition at the mention of a key word. Ted is on the door at the meetings and we speak regularly, if only superficially. I often wear my Basque beret to the Royal Society meetings on the cold winter nights.

Ted has the record for the biggest truffle ever grown in Australia. 1.173 kgs! The world record is around 1.3+kg for a truffle found in Croatia. The French record is also around 1.3 kg.

He has just harvested and there a quite a few nicely sized truffles to choose from. They don’t do retail sales, so we are lucky to be tagging along with Geordie. However, they do take booked, guided tours on selected weekends through the harvest season.

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I pick a nice lumpy, mid-sized one that smalls exotic and deliciously fragrant. What is the aroma of a truffle? I can’t define it. I’ve seen it written that it is like “Old socks and sex. Open the spice cupboard and take a deep sniff. Crush an unpeeled clove of garlic. Find some damp leaves and dig your fingers into the earth underneath (oak leaves are best). Then go for something floral, lilies for penetration, roses for sweetness.”(Australian Truffle Growers Assn.)

Now, I didn’t write that, I lifted it from the Australian Truffle Growers Assn. Website, but I can see what they are getting at. I get the old sox and sex bit. Forrest floor compost and some higher floral notes. I can’t come up with a better description, so this will have to do.

We get our precious truffle home and store it in the fridge in a bed of rice along with 2 eggs. The rice will absorb the flavour of the truffle as will the eggs. We’ll be having lightly scrambled eggs for lunch with a little bit of truffle grated on top. Simple, elegant and amazingly flavoursome. The rice will be used to make a truffle risotto for dinner. That’ll be half of our truffle gone. We’ll replace the rice and eggs while we consider our other possible menu options.

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I opened the fridge this morning and the even though the truffle is buried in rice in a sealed container. I can smell that distinctive aroma as soon as I open the door. it’s fabulous!

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We decide on the simplest of scrambled eggs for lunch and I grate a load of truffle onto them. I feel generous now while the truffle is still so large. In the past when we have bought a very small 20mm, thimble sized truffle, we have used it all in one meal. No reason to be mean with it. Grate it on and really enjoy it. This is the first time that we have had the luxury to think about other meals to follow.

It is fantastic. This winter treat has been a long time coming. The only thing that can improve on this very basic recipe is a little butter to grease the pan and some real salt to help bring out the flavour.

Truffles really make the winter worth waiting for. One of the great joys of seasonal local cuisine.

 

Midwinter days – & Nights

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It’s quite frosty these midwinter mornings, now that the rain has cleared. I wander out in the frost to see how the gardening is faring. Especially the small new seedlings and emerging seeds. Everything looks pristine and bright. The frost crystals fringe the leaves and make the foliage look so delicate. My fingers are cold, but I go back and get the camera to take a few images.

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These cold winter days are so appropriate for minestrone. The Lovely picks carrots, cabbage, leeks and celery from the garden and browns an onion in good olive oil. She gas to climb up onto of the kitchen table to reach for another plait of our garlic that is hanging high in the kitchen ceiling curing. We are more or less half way through the garlic year and a bit more than half way through our supply of last years garlic.

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I pick the last of the summers dried beans, still in their pods, shell them and soak them overnight. They make a great start to a wholesome soup base. With the Lady’s magic touch, it all comes together into a warming and nourishing couple of meals.

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We are enjoying all the usual winter greens. The Brassicas are doing well just now in this cold weather. We have broccoli, cabbage, Brussel Sprouts and cauliflowers all on the go. A typical meals just now might be fish with 3 veg, but otherwise it’s just 3 or 4 veg.

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Tonight we have a piece of fish with twice cooked home-grown dutch cream potatoes. Twice cooking starches converts the starch from instantly available high GI starch and sugar, into slowly digested resistant starch, which is very low GI. I Serve this with Brussel sprouts and kale.

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I’ve been trying to find a way to enjoy kale, but it is rather limited in what can be done with it. I persist because kale and all the other older fashioned brassicas. The ones that still have their bitterness still in them, The ones where it hasn’t been bred out yet. These are thought to be very good for you.

Prof. Mark Mattson, of Johns Hopkins University has written a few articles about this. I read one in New Scientist magazine last year. “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. To summarise. The bitter principal in these veggies stimulates your immune system and tones you up.  So, I keep trying to make it more enjoyable. I’ve decided that the best that I can do is to slice the leafy material away from the stem, slice it finely and simmer it in it’s rinse water and a little olive oil with loads of garlic. Then serve with a squeeze of lemon and some fresh ground pepper and a little of my fake salt substitute. It’s almost enjoyable. Once I mixed in some Ethiopian Cabbage and red mustard leaves with the kale. It must have been very good for me, because I could only just eat it. It was so bitter.

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The best way that I have settled into wit kale now, is to simmer the peeled leaves as above and mix in 100g of diced feta , before serving with the seasoning and lemon juice. Have no more fear of kale. This is lovely. The feta makes it all the more delicious and balanced. The fat content dramatically improves the balance, mouth feel and taste.

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Home Again

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We haven’t been home long and we are able to get most of our meals from the garden. We start with a very fresh and crisp green garden salad. IMG_3713

We find that there are a few ripe avocados still on the tree, so we pick one and add it to the salad. It’s a special bonus. We wouldn’t have any left at all due to the birds and possums if it weren’t for Janine getting out there and bagging the last of the fruit before we left.

I manage to find some time to get out into the garden and pull out all the spent corn stalks and dead tomatoes vines. I have a few goes at it over a couple of days and eventually make a bit of a difference. I lime the soil with dolomite. A natural mixture of calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate in about a 50/50 ratio. It sweetens the soil and negates some of the natural buildup of acidity through our use of a wide range of organic composts. We make compost from everything that we have on our place here, including pine needles and gum leaves. Everything that is organic and can rot is composted down to a black/brown peaty compost and used as mulch somewhere on the block. Pine needles and gum leaves tend to be acid, so are good for strawberries and blue berries, but bad for other plants that like a more neutral or alkaline pH.

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We also add a layer of composted chicken manure on top of the freshly exposed, weeded soil, then cover it all with more compost. I try not to dig unless I have to. The worms seem to do that for us, If left to their own devices.

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I pick a cabbage and make our first home made okonomiyaki at home here after our return. The cabbage is a whopper. It has grown well while we have been away. I only use a 1/4 for 4 pancakes. I add in some other vegetables that we have including a grated carrot and a finely sliced red capsicum;. These wouldn’t usually be included in such a dish in Japan, but we aren’t in Japan anymore. We are home and this is what we have. And after all, okonomiyaki actually translates as something like ‘add what you like’. So I do!

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The washing machine decides that it will only do one more wash and then burns out. It stops mid-wash and goes no-more. We have to drain out the water from the unit before we can open the door of the front loader. This machine has done well. Over twenty four years of continuous service. I can thoroughly recommend the ASCO ASEA brand for a quality, reliable, long lasting product. All you have to do is find a brand new and unused model from 20 years ago and you’ll have a good quality machine. God only knows what the current products are like in terms of long lasting quality. Anyway, I’m very pleased with our choice from two and a half decades ago. There is a lot of embodied energy in a thing like this and it really needs to have a long life to justify its existence, otherwise it just becomes more of the same old land fill junk that the big companies want us to cycle through endlessly at great expanse to the planet. Built in obsolescence is a crime against society. So good on you ASCO, for still stocking spare parts for this old model.

I knew that the water pump in the washing machine was wearing out for some time and I ordered a new one a few months ago. It took a couple of months to get here, as it had to come from Sweden. The new pump arrived just before we left on our travels, so we were lucky that it didn’t fail while we were away and cause Annabelle, our house-sitter, any problems. The local agent doesn’t carry spares for 24 year old products. I can understand. I’m pleased to get one at all after all this time.

I set to work to replace it, but like all these jobs, it turns out to be a bigger, longer, more complex job than I imagined. Firstly, the new pump isn’t complete, I have to take some parts off the old one to make it fit. Second, the old parts are quite well settled into place after 24 years in wet, humid conditions and take quite a bit of un-doing. I am forced to retreat from the laundry and go down to the workshop to get my hands on some serious tools. The Swiss army knife isn’t going to cut it on this job on its own.

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I manage to get all the parts swapped over including the fan on the pump motor. I’m amazed that this isn’t included. It’s only a simple plastic part worth just a few cents. it has the be prised off the old shaft and it’s a tight press-fit on the new one. I had to pay $250 for this little pump. I’m amazed that they can’t supply a mounting plate and plastic fan for that money!

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The electrical cable is just long enough for the factory technician to fit the pump, while it is up-side-down in the factory, in good light and with the correct tools, and plenty of practice. When I’m working down in a dark corner, on my back, in a confined space, holding a torch in one hand, a pair of pliers in the other and then with my other 2 free hands I am able to manipulate the electrical clips in the correct order, otherwise the last one won’t fit!!!!! I question the logic of this thriftiness. This all has to be accomplished in just 100 x 300 mm. of access space. I’m finding it quite difficult to get both my arms in there at the same time, never mind to be able to see what I’m doing and work accurately.

The last minor annoyance is that the rubber hoses are all crimped on with single-use metal clamps that need to be broken to get them off. Luckily, I keep a lot of different sizes of adjustable hose clamps in stock here for other uses. Fortunately I have 50mm, 35mm and 25mm dia clamps in my tool box. Eventually it’s all done. The only real joy that I can take from this is that I didn’t have to pay a technician another $250 to come out here and do it for me and most importantly, I have forestalled waste by keeping this old appliance going for another few years. So this is self reliance.

While I’m in maintenance mode, I set about rebuilding a Venco potters wheel destined for an aid project in Cambodia. It arrived here completely disassembled and in a few different cardboard boxes of loose parts. it has a reconditioned motor and all new grommets as well as a new rubber drive wheel. Everything reconditioned for a long life ahead.

It takes me an hour or two just to figure out the order in which I must do the job to get it all to work out. I have one false start and then it goes smoothly. If I had taken it apart myself. I would have remembered the sequence, but as it has all been completely disassembled by someone else, I have no memories to call on. I have to work it out using only logic.

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It goes and it works OK, so I am happy with that. This old wheel will now have a new life ahead if it in Cambodia in a village pottery workshop for many years to come. More waste forestalled.

 

Tomatoes for 5 Months

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We are now just back from our 5 weeks in Japan continuing our research into single stone porcelain. We were lucky enough to get to many more sites on this visit, where porcelain stone is, or has been mined. See my earlier posts below.

I have been able to make a few nice pots while I’ve been here. Actually, I made a lot of pots, but destroyed all of inferior work that wasn’t up to scratch and didn’t make the cut.  I’m not here to make rubbish. I want to make things that I can be proud of, nothing less. My rejected pots have all been crushed up to dry powder, packed into boxes and shipped back home for a possible 2nd life. My best work was glazed and fired onsite and also shipped home. All my efforts are currently in containers at the port or on the high seas. I will see them again in 2 months. Hopefully they will still look as good when we are reunited.

This work is all a part of my 10 year project to go to all the places in the world where single stone porcelain has been made and then make some work at each of these places, out of the material that is to be found there. These works will then be shipped back here to Australia, where I will exhibit the whole body of work from all the sites along-side my own single stone porcelain pots, that I have made here, in one big show. I’m rather hoping that it will look good when all amassed together in one show. Only time will tell. I’m almost finished. Next year should see the end of it.

As soon as we are back home and settled in. We unpack our bags and put on a load of our soiled clothes into the washing machine, which grumbles and squeeks as it grinds along. I can’t complain, this machine is over twenty years old and still going – just. I think that it is the leaking water pump that is the problem. I have a new one in stock. I ordered it months ago when I noticed the water starting to leak from underneath. It took months to get here. It arrived just a week before we left on our long trip. I didn’t have time to install it before we left. Now that I’m back, I will have to make time.

After the basics are dealt with, then it’s straight out into the garden to check out how all the plants have fared while we have been away. Apparently it has been very dry for most of the time, with just one proper fall of rain. Annabelle Slougetté has been living here in our absence and has kept everything alive for us.

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The first thing that I notice when I get into the garden, is how dead so much of the garden is. The last of the summer corn, has finished, dried out and turned up its fibrous toes. We made an effort to mulch as much of it as we could in the week before we left and this has really paid off for us. There are so few weeds now. A couple of days of intensive work will bring it all back into healthy production again, as there are loads of winter vegetables coming on. I made an effort to get all these planted early in the season, at the end of summer/early autumn. So, now we have broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage and spinach ready to pick.

Surprisingly, many of the late summer plants are still lingering on and still producing food. Others, their time being up, have gone to the big veggie patch in the sky. They will soon be headed into the compost bin, where they will rot down and be fertiliser for next seasons crop of summer vegetables.

As I look around, I see that there are still some little yellow tomatoes ripening on the old, almost dead, vines. We have been picking tomatoes now for 5 months, pretty amazing for us. So this is global warming?

This will likely be the last pick, as the plants have lost all their leaves and are pretty much dead now. Interestingly though, there are still some small new tomato plants germinating and growing up. One is even flowering, but I can’t believe that this will amount to anything, as the first day of winter is only 2 days away. The first frosts can’t be too long after that.

We  used to get our first frosts at the beginning of May, now its the end of May or early June and possibly later? A couple of years ago, we went right through winter with only minimal frosts, to the point that we didn’t get any apples on any of the trees the following summer. Apples need a minimum number of frosts (or winter chilling hours) to develop the hormones that are necessary to make the flowers fertile.

I go straight back out into the garden with my basket and fill it with little yellow tomatoes, the last of the lingering sweet basil and a load of capsicums and chillis.

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I set about making a tomato/caps/chilli salsa by browning a few onions in good olive oil and adding 6 small knobs of garlic. The ones that are so small at 20 to 30mm. dia. that it really isn’t worth peeling them. They will add heaps of flavour to this mix and the small amount of skins and paper will be removed when I strain the whole batch. I let them softening down along with all the diced fruit over a long time at low heat on the wood fired kitchen stove.

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I will  pass it all through the kitchen mouli sieve to take out all the tomato and capsicum  skins and seeds, then reheat it to sterilise it and bottle it in heated glass jars. It will keep for a year or so, but probably won’t last that long. It’s too delicious, although very ‘hot’ with chilli flavour. It will make a great addition to winter stocks and sauces over the coming cooler months.

This little effort marks the end of our summer preserving for this year. I’m very pleased, as I wasn’t expecting there to be any fruit left to preserve. This simple garden-to-kitchen-to-pantry excercise grounds me and resets my emotional and spirituual compass to ‘home’ after being away. This is what I do. This is what I live for. This is me. The self-reliant potter/gardener.

A close inspection of the garden beds reveals a lot of little germinating seedlings of onions, carrots, beetroot and rocket. I planted these seeds just the week before we left. I also planted a few hundred cloves of garlic. Most of which have now germinated and are showing their green shoots. Peas are also up and growing quite strongly, I hope to see them flowering soon.

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There are a lot of capsicums ready to pick, so I decide to stuff them with ricotta and bake them in the oven, as the stove is lit, we are making hot water and warming the house up as well, seeing that we are now home and the weather is so windy and cold. Such a change from the weather in southern Japan, where it was almost summer and the weather was balmy to hot.

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I make a stuffing out of whatever we have at hand in the fridge. Before we left I had bottled some little cucumbers and some dried tomatoes. I add these into a lump of fresh ricotta. I add a few cloves of our garlic, along with a few capers and an anchovy or two, a few olives, a shallot and some parsley. I dice it all up and mash it together with some veggie and herb salt substitute. I would like to add a little bit of finely diced feta cheese to give it a little bit of chewy texture to the cheesey mix, but I don’t have any at this time. I’ll add to my shopping list for next trip into town. There are plenty of capsicums left to pick, so we will be having a meal, not unlike this one again in the coming days or weeks. I like to use what I have in the garden and pantry. Our main food expense these days since we lost our chickens and ducks is protein, which these days consists mostly of fish.

The fresh fish truck is up from the coast today, so I buy a small piece of super-fresh sashimi grade kingfish, we have a small fillet for lunch. I skin it and slice it up and we have it with a little soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger in vinegar. Yum. Itadakimas!

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Teppanyaki

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On our way home, we let our hair down and go out for dinner a few times. Just cheap places, mostly okonomiyaki. We get three different meals in 3 different cities. We get to try okonomiyaki in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo.

Although the technique varies from city to city, from restaurant to restaurant. The general taste is pretty much the same, because most of the ingredients are the same. The overriding flavour is that of the brown okonomiyaki sauce and cabbage. The sauce, which is not unlike brown BBQ sauce and the smothering of kewpie mayonnaise add a very distinctive character. These tend to be the dominant flavours.

There is however, a noticeable variation in texture from place to place. In Osaka the texture of the batter is a little bit creamier. In Tokyo, it was a bit more dense and solid in texture. In Kyoto we saw one place where so little batter was used, that it was mostly the egg holding the whole thing  together. Yet in another, there was plenty of flour in the mix.

Of course, I realise that you can’t just eat half a dozen meals and say that these represent the whole of each locality. We were eating at the markets and in cheap cafes and restaurants while in transit around the country. So what I write has to be taken with a sprinkle of bonito flakes and a pinch of salt!

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It was an amazing series of taste and textural experiences in a short period of time. The  Tokyo version was quite firm with what seemed like a lot of flour in the batter. I noticed that when the chef flipped it over to cook on the other side, the thing bounced a bit like rubber! Very dense indeed. I watched the other chefs cooking other varieties for other customers at the long teppanyaki grill table, and they were all of the same dense texture.

I Kyoto, the batter was a lot thinner and the resulting texture was a lot more fibrous with the cabbage showing a major influence on the finished dish. There is a very slim layer of batter applied to the hot plate first. Then a big pile of cabbage is placed on top. a dressing of some sort of liquid is ladled onto it and after some time a little hole is made in the pile and an egg is cracked into it.

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Some more batter is ladled onto the cabbage pile and then the whole thing is flipped over and the other side is cooked. If bacon is to be included, it is added on top just before flipping over.

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While in Osaka, the texture was soft and creamy. I’m told that they use a local mountain potato or yam, that when it is grated, it turns directly into a thick, sticky liquid and it is this that defines the taste and texture. I don’t know, so I can’t say. This is just what I was told, so I’m repeating it.

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At the Toji markets in Kyoto we make a point of always having the okonomiyaki from the same stall. It’s a hot day this time around and the pancake goes down very well with a chilled beer. It’s a filling cheap and cheerful respite from the crowds and all the hussle and bussle and delicious with it.

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In Arita, down in Kyushu, we were served a special okonomiyaki, made at the table of our friend, for a dinner party of mixed international visitors. This was the most rewarding to eat, because of the circumstances and company. We are very fond of the friends that we have made here in Japan and we value their friendship highly.

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I get it!

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The only bad thing about travel is the travelling! We have got used to traveling light. we can both pack bags that are under weight at 12  to 14 kgs. This is quite enough to sustain us for the 5 weeks that we will be away. Some of the extra weight that I carry above Janine’s slim baggage, is all the electronic garbage that we tote along to ‘keep in touch’. Taking all the necessary electronic chargers and adaptors to be able to keep more or less in touch while we travel is an extra few kilos that aren’t really essential, but optional. We travel  prepared for all situations, communications wise.

Of course, we could just travel ultra-light with no ‘telecoms’, but I do like to upload our on-going adventures to our blog as we go and to do that we need cameras, phones and a lap top. This is of course showing our age. If I were a young person, I’d just have a modern phone and that would do all of that in one go. I must think seriously about updating and get with the light-weight modern option.

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Janine has a rather more capable phone than I do. Hers is an iphone4 and it has a remarkably good camera on it. As good as my small pocket-sized Canon handy cam.

Another important thing that I have learnt to take on a long trip is a comfortable pair of shoes. I can’t go past these old leather ‘Walking shoes’ from Adelaide company ‘Slatters’. They are very comfortable for walking around in, something that we do a lot of when we are away. Slatters don’t make this model of shoe any more. They are now a discontinued line and this is very sad. They are not good-looking at all, but by gee, they are comfy!  These are my second pair and have lasted quite a few years. The new range that replace them are not as good for me. They don’t suit me or fit as well, nor are they as soft and snug fitting. From now on, I will be looking out for some other solution for the comfortable footwear conundrum.

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While we have been in Japan, we have been renting some studio space and making some work. This is all part of my 10 year long project to go to each place in the world where they make single stone porcelain and make some work there in each of those places. I want to have a show of this collected work next year at Watters Gallery in Sydney. I only have one more place to go now, so I’m getting quite excited at the prospect of seeing such a long term project mature to some kind of completion.

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Some of my work, before and after glaze firing.

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Outside the studio, the bamboo is putting up new shoots. Its spring time here and everything is so green and luscious. The bamboo grows about a foot or 300mm. per day, so in a few days, it’s as high as Janine. We consider collecting some of the new small shoots, while they are still just 100mm. high, but there just isn’t enough time if we want to get our ceramic work done. And after all, this is what we have come all this way for. We see some fresh picked bamboo shoots in the local organic farmers market and this is excellent, as it is just as good and saves us so much time. It’s delicious added to a simple stir-fry/steamed mix of vegetables and brown rice.

Just finding brown rice at all in the supermarket here is such a breakthrough. I’ve never seen it for sale before. It’s a sign! However, it is only available in little slim 500 gram packs for extremists and health food weirdos, whereas white rice still comes in bags and sacks of 5 and 10kgs, up to 20kgs!

The next night I find some sole in the fresh fish mongers little shop, just down the road from our lodgings. He’s a lovely guy, so helpful and sweet. His wife is so lovely too. They operate this little business 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Nothing is too much trouble. They tell all about the days best choices and possibly all about how to cook it too, but I don’t speak any Arita dialect and very little Japanese, so little, that I can only just pick out a few words. This couple are so patient with me though, I can’t help being totally grateful to them for persevering with me.

Each day they have something else different in their shop, whatever is the best option for the day, plus all the usual offerings. We get some super-fresh sashimi from them when-ever we pass the shop. One day, I call in a bit early in the afternoon and I suddenly get it. There is no sashimi in the ice tray display counter as yet. He hasn’t got around to it, too busy preparing all his other orders? He says to me a sentence that includes two words that I recognise. “sashimi” and “mata” and I get it!  “The sashimi will be ready later on in the afternoon. I haven’t had time to do it yet” at least that is what I take from it. I nod, “mata” I reply and sure enough it is all there to choose from 2 hours later. I’m a bit chuffed at this little exchange. I suddenly feel like I’m starting to fit in a bit. I have experienced this sense of being able to hear more than I can speak on other visits to Japan. After a few weeks, I start to get my memory cells activated and somehow, I seem to know what people are talking about, without knowing all of the words that they are speaking. Freaky, but it happens consistently on each of my 6 visits here over the years.

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I also choose some lovely lemon sole, or that is what I think that I am buying. I have no way of telling, but that is what it looks like. Mr Fish Monger San tells me a lot about it. I nod appreciatively, so then he cleans it and guts it, trims the fins, etc. His wife, Mrs Monger Okesama wraps it and then shows me the price on her calculator. I pay and then they pack some ice in a plastic bag for me to carry it with in my back pack, as they know all about me and where I am working and living. I haven’t told them a thing about me, but they know. The grapevine is working. They know that I’m walking, it’s a hot day and that I have a way to go. It’s all so civilised and pleasant and inclusive. I feel like a little part of me really belongs here. I serve the sole, steamed in a little olive oil, lemon juice and pepper with some steamed, fresh, hot, still crisp, broccoli on a bed of fresh finely shredded cabbage with some shiso dressing. Yum!

The next day at Mr Fish Monger San’s there are a dozen slim garfish sitting there on the ice. I buy them all, and cook them under the grill. They are so fresh that they don’t even smell of fish, just ocean!  I share them with the others in the kitchen.

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Now for something entirely different!

When I get a lift to go to the big supermarket in another town, I’m suddenly aware that there are pictures of whales on the freezer cabinet. I look closer and see lumps of frozen whale meat in vac-packs. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen whale for sale anywhere before, ever! I can’t resist taking a picture of it. So, this is where it eventually ends up. In little towns and villages, in the freezer section.

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Later, when we are about to leave the supermarket, someone says to me that they saw me taking pictures of the freezer section with the whale meat in it.

Why?

I say that whaling isn’t approved of in Australia. We stopped doing it 40 years ago. They know precisely what I’m saying and put their hands over their mouths in a shy embarrassed sort of way. Oh yes! Australia doesn’t like it. With that, they let it pass.

I’m pretty sure that they know that Australia took Japan to Court and won the case. A little bit embarrassing for them, but they brought up the subject not me. Japan then withdrew from the court and refused to recognise the decision.  They have been ostracised and have decided to go it alone. An environmental pariah. It was made clear in the legal case evidence, that there isn’t and never was, any scientific basis for killing hundreds of minke whales each year. It was just an embarrassing lie, and they have been caught out. Where does the conversation go from here? It doesn’t!

The Japanese government obviously decided that there was more political mileage to be made by going feral and pleasing its political backers with this unjustified whale slaughter circus, than there was in being a good global citizen. Even if it is all done at a loss and isn’t universally popular. We both probably know that there isn’t any profit in whaling. As I understand the situation, no company wants to fund it, to take the financial risk. It is entirely funded by the government, simply because it’s a loss-making operation. The decision is completely political. It’s desecration at a loss, funded by the political interests. We both decide to let it pass at that and we make our way out of the market. My own position on this is that Japan is an independent country and can probably do as it likes. As it is doing. However, they should be brave enough to tell the truth about it and not lie about the fake science.

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Our time is up now and we have finished our time here. I crush all of my pots that were not good enough make the cut. About 50% of what I have made here this time. I burn my poetry. I clean up my wheel. I dry all of my turnings. I pack them into strong plastic bags and pack them securely into strong cardboard boxes and post them back to Australia. I’ll see them again after 2 months spent at sea in the cheap surface to surface mail system. It’s so much cheaper to post dry turnings than fresh wet plastic clay with 30% water content. We have perfectly good water back home in Australia to make good clay from these dry fragments. They may yet have another life?

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As we catch the train out of Arita, I see the fields of over-winter barley are being harvested now. They were looking very ripe and going to head when we trained into here 5 weeks ago. The stubble is being ploughed in in preparation for the next crop. The other fallow fields are being flooded and ploughed ready for the next rice crop. The weeds and purple flowering, nitrogen-fixing ‘vetch’ that has been allowed to grow in the fallow period needs to be turned in as a green manure. It all looks good from the window of the train as we speed by.

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When I was here 8 months ago the rice was being harvested, now it’s the early, over-wintered’ barly coming in, with the summer rice being planted.

The circle of life turns. I suddenly feel the need to get back to my own garden and do all of the weeding and planting that I know will now be needing to be done. Annabelle Slougette has been working in our pottery and keeping the place under care-and-maintenance for the past 5 weeks.

I can hardly wait to get home, now that I’m starting on the way back. I’m consoled by the beautiful bento box lunch on the train. It helps!

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fond regards from Southern Japan