So It's the Week after Christmas, and What Have You Done?

“Are you absolutely sure?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we talk about it?”

“No, no,” JP said, shaking his head and gently waving his hand, as though brushing sediment from a windowpane. “It’ll be better this way. Trust me.”

“You’re right, everything will be fine…” My voice trailed off, and then I caught myself. “You do realize that we’re talking about taking our laundry to the drier.”

JP clutched his left side and collapsed in a slow, silent wheeze.

“A momentous decision!” I guffawed.

Such was the extent of our holiday-induced laziness. The two days leading up to Christmas -- and the five days after it -- had stretched out in honey-toned languor, a legato adagio of leisurely meals accented by the tinkle of toasting glasses and trills of laughter. Work was routinely and summarily ignored; chores were left flagrantly half-finished.

Though I felt guilty for indulging in that dangerous cocktail of gluttony and sloth, I reminded myself that Christmas and New Year’s only come around once a year and, if you’re lucky enough to be able to celebrate for eight days, there’s no reason not to.

We’ve been doubly lucky. Every day has been a veritable fruit day, starting with a trip to Tsukishima for monjayaki -- gooey, savory pancakes fried on a hot plate at your table. I can’t remember if it was my first or second encounter with monjayaki, but it was certainly the tastiest. I’ll admit that I was wary of the combination of mentaiko fish roe, chewy mochi rice cakes and (of all things) cheese, but it was actually pretty good. From Tsukishima we wandered through Tsukada, the birthplace of the sugary, soy-steeped morsels of fish called Tsukuda-ni that JP loves to eat with plain white rice. On the tenth night of Christmas, we ended up having sweet, creamy Nagasaki oysters on the half-shell with a crisp glass of Fallen Angel Sauvignon Blanc, followed by two decadent glasses of Charles Melton Nine Popes, a voluptuous blend of Shiraz, Grenache, and Mouvedre.

Our Christmas Eve dinner at Gilio was one of the best yet -- a fluffy pillow of fresh Hokkaido crab salad, simple sea bass carpaccio, pasta with eggplant and homemade sausage, a rare filet of venison smothered with oyster mushrooms. Lots of wine. Multiple desserts. You could practically taste the chef’s good mood in every bite.

Christmas was spent opening presents, sipping Clicquot with caviar, and munching on potato chips all day. At night, we had a quiet family dinner at home. I’m not a big fan of turkey, so we made a lean beef tenderloin roast with all quartet of proper sides -- creamed spinach, maple-roasted carrots, black-eyed peas cooked with bacon and anise, and crunchy seared nagaimo (to add a touch of Japanese flavor)-- and washed it all down with a seductively perfumed Lawson’s Dry Hills 2006 Pinot Noir that reminded me of cherry pie and a warm place in front of the fire. Misha celebrated with a surf n’ turf plate of boiled chicken and tuna sashimi.

The festivities continued down in Hayama, where our friends Mark and Miki treated us to a grand British feast. I had more than my fair share of his wickedly rich lemon pie, and the smoky Talisker scotch he brings out on special occasions.

On we roll, like stuffed pork dumplings, toward the New Year and a new decade. The one productive result of so much lazing about has been re-evaluation of my goals. Perhaps to the surprise of several friends and family members, I have a few, among them finally cracking the writing markets I’ve been daydreaming about for the past year. Writing daily and keeping up the blog. I’m also thinking that it’s time to start working toward a higher WSET certificate and visiting more sake breweries.

I hope your holidays have been as delicious, if not as lazy, as mine. Happy New Year to everyone, may 2010 bring you all the best!

Breakfast of Champions

It was a whimsically warm autumn morning. The sky was the placid blue of a Magritte painting, and the leaves were flecked with rust. Even at 8am, the park near my house was abuzz with activity. A group of senior citizens marched in place and drew giant circles in the air with their hands. School children hunting butterflies wielded their nets unsteadily as they tottered across the grass. Families strolled beneath the trees. I was out for a jog and, as I finished my sixth lap around the field, I heard the unmistakable sound of a beer can being popped open.

In Tokyo, it can be hard to know whether someone is homeless or just badly dressed. This was a familiarly ambiguous situation. Beneath a gazebo sat two older men, similarly clad in sneakers and blue windbreakers, clinking cans of happo-shu.

“Kanpai!” they chuckled, slapping each other on the back.

I noticed that one of them was missing a front tooth.

Trying not to stare, I jogged on and said to myself, “There but for the grace of God…go I.”

The following morning, it happened again. I headed to the park for my run at 7:30 sharp, and there, in the middle of the field, were three college-aged kids on their hands and knees, digging through the grass. They were searching for four-leafed clovers and stopped at intervals to light a cigarette or take a swig from one of the open cans of chu-hai near their bags.

I told JP about it when I got home.

“Oh dear,” he said, “they’ve confused Halloween with St. Patrick’s Day.”

“But don’t you think it’s strange that so many people are drinking in the park? In the morning, I mean?”

JP raised his eyebrows like a librarian and looked at me.

I crossed my left arm in front of my chest and massaged my temples with my right hand. “Good lord,” I sighed, “did somebody snatch my soul and turn me into a prude?”

For some reason, the idea of drinking in the morning just doesn’t have the same appeal that it did when I was, say, nineteen. Sure, I like a mimosa with brunch on the weekends, but I hardly ever hit the sauce before noon (tastings don’t count). Fondly though I recall Decatur Street at dawn and tumbling out of the Dragon’s Den, with its bordello-red walls and ceiling-high gothic mirrors, in a black-and-white vintage mini-dress and crimson Converse hi-tops, with my tattered crew of high school friends intent on locating another round of Bloody Marys; I am more than content to put those days behind me.


That’s not to say that my breakfast choices these days are strictly conventional. I’ve become quite the fan of raw fish in its various incarnations - sushi, sashimi, and donburi - and the best place for this morning treat is without a doubt Tsukiji.

While exploring the Tsukiji Outer Market earlier this fall, a couple of friends and I stumbled upon an attractive little sushi nook called Uogashi Senryo, a hole-in-the-wall hidden behind a dried fish store, where I ordered the special of the day: Kaisen Hitsumabushi. The dish, a kind of chirashizushi, tossed with various morsels of raw fish, topped with creamy uni sea urchin and a scatter of ruby red ikura salmon roe, was too beautiful to resist. The friendly sushi chef informed us that there is a particular way to eat hitsumabushi. Let’s hope I can remember the what’s involved…

1. Mix your wasabi with soy sauce and pour it over the entire dish.
2. Gently mix the rice, and place 1/3 in your bowl.
3. Eat, and then fold the accompanying pickled vegetables into the remaining rice. Mix vigorously, and separate the rice into 2 unequal halves.
4. Eat the large half. Savor each bite, and taunt tablemates who have opted not to order the hitsumabushi.
5. When the sushi chef brings out a pot of hot dashi, pour it over the last portion of your rice and eat it like a soup.


The dish was not only delicious, it was also great fun to eat. I loved the sense of process approaching ritual that goes into consuming it.

As it was still only 10am, I had tea with my hitsumabushi but I couldn’t help thinking that it would have gone nicely with a clean, dry sake like Jozen Mizunogotoshi Junmai Ginjo Hiyaoroshi. This subtle brew from Niigata has solid structure and a lively freshness. Even though I said that I’m off drinking in the AM, perhaps I could be persuaded to bend the rules every now and again, under the right circumstances.