{"id":14319,"date":"2010-10-26T21:15:58","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T01:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=14319"},"modified":"2010-12-10T14:36:46","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T18:36:46","slug":"wit-life-134-versatile-veggies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/26\/wit-life-134-versatile-veggies\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #134: Versatile veggies"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITLife<\/a><\/strong><\/em> is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shar<\/strong><\/em>es s<\/strong><\/em>ome of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.\"\"<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Last night I was happy to be able to attend an event at Japan Society called Field to Table: The Role of Vegetables in the Japanese Diet<\/a>.\u00a0 The featured speakers were Japanese food culture expert Elizabeth Andoh and Masato Nishihara, executive chef at\u00a0Kajitsu, the only restaurant in NYC to feature\u00a0\u7cbe\u9032\u6599\u7406 (shouijn ryouri<\/em>), a vegetarian cuisine\u00a0introduced to Japan from China in the 13th century by Zen monks who had returned from studying Buddhism there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I had met both of the speakers before, Elizabeth when I lived in Tokyo where she resides, and Nishihara-san when I interpreted for him at a food event last year.\u00a0 They offered their expertise regarding how to create\u00a0both nutritionally sound and aesthetically satisfying meals, as well as avoid waste and preserve the earth’s natural resources.\u00a0 Elizabeth shared some of the key terms for understanding the context for Japanese cooking such as \u611f\u8b1d (kansha<\/em>) or appreciation and \u3082\u3063\u305f\u3044\u306a\u3044 (mottainai<\/em>) or wasteful.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nishihara-san gave his insight\u00a0into cooking\u00a0vegetables,\u00a0namely\u00a0to believe in their possibility\u00a0and to prepare\u00a0each one in the style that enhances its respective qualities, meaning some are better\u00a0boiled, others stewed and others as is.<\/p>\n

Nishihara-san put his advice into practice when he\u00a0enraptured the audience\u00a0by working on a daikon<\/em> in a style called \u6842\u5265\u304d (katsuramuki).\u00a0 <\/em>This involved using a knife to cut off a very thin layer of the skin and then furling it.\u00a0 What he ended up creating\u00a0was \u98a8\u5442\u5439\u304d\u5927\u6839 (furofuki daikon<\/em>), a typical Japanese winter simmered dish.\u00a0 He decorated it with hibiscus leaves that he had\u00a0gathered to\u00a0simulate the\u00a0famous Japanese image\u00a0of maple leaves floating down a river,\u00a0and the final product was a work of (delicious) art.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately there was no sampling for\u00a0the salivating audience, but Nishihara-san assured us that we could try\u00a0his furofuki daikon by going to Kajitsu.\u00a0 This month\u00a0he is featuring a\u00a0special $90 matsutake menu<\/a> highlighting “Japan\u2019s most highly regarded and sought after mushroom.”\u00a0 As they say, it’s\u00a0\u98df\u6b32\u306e\u79cb\u00a0(shokuyoku no aki<\/em>)\u00a0or\u00a0a season for strong appetites, so why not satisfy yours at Kajitsu which just received two Michelin stars?<\/p>\n

In other Japanese food\/drink news, check out this NYT\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0about Japanese winemaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. Last night I was happy to be able to attend an event at Japan Society […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[53,70,18,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-food-drink","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t