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Join me on a pastoral, a gastronomic journey through the seasonal rhythms of the kitchen and the table in the heart of rural Japan. Take a seat and read along.

72 Seasons of eating

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Mirukashi is a pastoral, a gastronomic journey through the seasonal rhythms of the kitchen and the table in the heart of rural Japan. Take a seat and read along.

mirukashi

spring

summer

autumn

winter

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The days are growing longer and two doves coo in the evening air as I make my way down to gather a few fragrant fronds from our sansho tree. I fell in love with sansho on my first day in Japan, long before I knew I would come to call this place home. For years I have been dreaming of a little sansho orchard. Back in the kitchen I slap them between two palms to release the fragrance before laying them atop a steamed chawanmushi egg custard alongside preserved sakura buds.

on summer's eve

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I’m inclined towards a devotion to beauty and it’s encouraged in Japan. I’m granted permission to consider it essential. If elegance is the only beauty that never fades, as Audrey Hepburn said, then the fine crafts of Japan are elegance defined. Their beauty grows. 

small acts

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Working by Kuniko's side I scribbled notes on a piece of paper recording amounts, ratios, timing, and sequence. What spurred me to finally document the details of making umeboshi just months before a stroke would render those very details inaccessible in her mind?

a day's work

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There is perhaps nothing more simple and divine at the Japanese table than a pristine bowl of snow white shinmai, new rice, to close an autumn meal. Like the wafer at mass, newly harvested rice speaks to the Japanese soul of the divine, of things both eternal and ephemeral. 

what has been sown

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During a midsummer run of high heat in late July known as the doyo, the sun blazes and the cicadas roar. It’s a hot, dry (if you don’t count the humidity) interval between the tsuyu rainy season and stormy August skies seen when turbulent typhoons threaten to roll in. We rely on this clear stretch to set the salted ume out to dry, a process that tenderizes the flesh and softens the outer skins, improving the texture. 

the plum moon

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The fierce winds of a typhoon brought down a bounty of chestnuts and we gathered baskets full. Most were still green so we let them ripen for several days on the deck. As I waited for the urchin-like casings to crack I researched the many ways I could use such a large harvest and made a list of chestnut focused foods to try. We feasted on chestnuts for well over a week but one dish wowed more than all of the others, kuri no shibukawani, a very Japanese take on marron glacé.

a cultured confection

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Each day throughout the month of December, these citrus shells stuffed with miso and nuts have bathed in the winter sunlight, curing in the cold air until leather hard, ready to slice and eat. Yubeshi are prepared at the peak of the yuzu season, as November becomes December, to be ready in time for New Years. These savory citrus slices accompanied by celebratory sips of sake open the first meals of the New Year in the most fragrant, flavorful, and festive way. 

ON THE SAVORY SIDE

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As long as we’ve kept track of time, the day on which we reset the calendar has been celebrated as an occasion for reflection, for mental, physical, and spiritual renewal. Hemp fibers twisted into rope figures adorn the entryways to purify and protect the home. Inside decorations made of rice and boughs and bamboo, each with a meaning tied to agricultural rituals that pray for providence and abundance, are set out for display.

grtitude and devotion

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If Kuniko, my mother-in-law, were to write the story of her life it might read more as a menu than a memoir. 

if you ask her

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Drawing back a clump of desiccated fronds, I find an emerald trumpet of delicate leaves cradling a cluster of quilted button like buds. I raise the dirty, wet stem to my nose and drink in the earthy, pungent aroma of spring breaking from winter. This is fukinoto. 

An auspicious day

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Filed in: summer

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Bitter melon is an antidote to the ennui of high summer Goya’s green is as thick and dark and endless as the suffocating green of summer. The bitter melon is fat like a overgrown zucchini with knurled skin and bitter flesh. I haven’t always loved goya, but when I met Tsutomu Sasaki, who grows exquisite […]

Filed in: summer

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Ice Brewed Shincha from Cultivated Days

Beauty must grow from the realities of life I scoop a pile of tea leaves the shape and color of delicate evergreen needles into a glass katakuchi and cover them in ice. Only the rich and clear flavor of ice-drawn green tea can pierce the heat and humidity of high summer. My beloved tools of […]

Filed in: summer

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Finding my way to Washoku The ume have been salted and pressed and sit marinating in their own juice when the heavy rains began. It is the season of tsuyu, the plum rains named for their timing that coincides with ume work. Cold air from the north and warm air from the south lock horns […]

Filed in: summer

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Lining the larder with umeboshi I had only just learned to make umeboshi the year before. Working by Kuniko’s side I scribbled notes on a piece of paper, recording amounts, ratios, timing, and sequence. After so many years, what spark was it that spurred me to finally set myself to this task a mere four […]

Filed in: summer

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Brining and pickling fresh new ginger Walking into Kuniko’s pantry is like entering a laboratory. Under the bright glare of florescent lights shelves rise from floor to ceiling all around. They moan under the weight of bins and boxes and jars of every size containing edible specimens preserved in variously colored brines. There are a […]

Filed in: summer

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Sweetened Fresh Peas

Sweet, tender peas served cold in syrup Midway between the spring equinox and the following solstice, summer begins. From a small patio beside Kuniko’s garage I can survey the orchard. Daidai blossoms broadcast a sweet fragrance into the air. The ground between the citrus and plums has grown unruly, a minefield of azami, thorny wild […]

Filed in: summer

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Spent ume and red shiso sorbet We sleep with every window thrown open wide in hopes that the cool evening air will fill the house by morning. The nights are quiet but for a few crickets and the occasional owl hooting into a dark sky. But come daybreak the cicadas fire up and scream at […]

Filed in: summer

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A red shiso tonic for summer The windows are thrown wide open. A thick, endless quilt of clouds rolls by. A strong evening breeze blows through chasing away the heavy humidity. Higurashi cicadas call from every direction, singing the soundtrack to another hot summer in Japan. Another hot summer I didn’t expect to spend here. […]

Filed in: summer

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The perfect ume jam A basket of ripe ume perfumes the house with the scent of apricots. Their soft fuzzy skins a shade of sunny yellow flushed pink at the shoulders like fair skin that’s been in the sun too long. Ume, the fruits of the Prunus mume tree, are known in English as Chinese […]

Filed in: summer

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Salty, sweet, or spiked When Kuniko moved from Ryutagama to Mirukashi, on the other side of the same hill, she took her ume plum trees with her. Two would be sufficient. She was 67, retired, and years beyond her former life as career homemaker feeding three children plus numerous guests packed around a 10-foot long table each night. She […]

PRAIRIE’S POETIC AND PEACEFUL VOICE NEVER FAILS TO TRANSPORT ME TO THE MAGICAL FARAWAY PLACES I HAVE ONLY EVER DREAMT ABOUT

kind words

Her calm and vivid visions of the world around her and descriptions of Japanese foods and traditions are an absolute joy to follow, and even more pleasurable alongside her stunning and crisp photography. I continually enjoy living vicariously though Prairie’s luscious storytelling and am always left craving the dishes and more of her thoughtful, soothing and honest words.