Entangled in Chopsticks for Cook the Books Club

 For this edition of Cook the Books Club, we are reading, reviewing and getting inspired to cook, by Victoria Abbott Riccardi's Untangling My Chopsticks.  The book is a Memoir of her adventures in Kyoto learning the art of Tea Kaiseki, the culinary component of Tea Ceremony - a formal, ritualized specialty form of food preparation and presentation.  But her book is much more than that, encompassing history of the art of Tea Ceremony, as well as her careful and very beautifully evocative, personal observations of modern Japanese culture and life, as encountered during two stays there.  I especially enjoyed this read, as it brought back many wonderful memories of my trips to that country.

 On my first trip to Japan, the idea was to study with a Japanese potter.  I had been working at the University of Hawaii on a Fine Arts degree, with a major in ceramics.  Another area of commonality with the author, we (Bob and I) also taught English in Kyoto, living upstairs in a small apartment at the English school (a part of the owners' home), where we crazy Americans used the little electric heater too much.  Well, hey those windows are paper.  Thin .... and it was cold.  Bob also left the furo go to boiling our first night, and very nearly cooked himself.  Okay, if he'd gotten in. We were also able to get Japanese language lessons from the proprietor. I especially enjoyed my class of little kindergartners.  So delightful and cute.

Years later, during a second trip to Japan, with my friend, and both our daughters, we stopped briefly at this tea pavilion, where we were able to participate in a demonstration of the traditional Ceremony.  You see where I left my high tops, outside the raised tatami area.  Socks only allowed up there or indoor slippers (as in Japanese homes). I can't say that I was particularly impressed with the intense tea itself, but the ritual was intriguing, with an appealing spiritual, meditative component.

As soon as I saw the word Okonomiyaki in Riccardi's book, I knew that was what I wanted to make, due to our fun experience of it in Osaka, and wanting a repeat.  For years.  I really don't know what has stopped me.  On that first trip,  Bob and I went to an Okonomiyakiya, (say that three times, quickly) a specialty restaurant, with a long grill, sort of  like a bar, with shortish stools pulled up to it. There we had this uniquely Japanese dish, a cross between an omelet and a pancake, prepared in front of us.