Japan / part 4

Some final, overall thoughts on my trip to Japan.

What I did not mention in this blog was that I was invited there to help celebrate a big birthday for a dear friend and Chicago chef, Rick Bayless. It was a surprise so I did not tell many people of my plans to travel there. The trip had a very strong food component.

The Tokyo portion of the trip was very carefully crafted by Deann Bayless and chef, sommelier, journalist, restaurant consultant and author of Food Sake Tokyo, Karla Yukari Sakamoto, who accompanied us thru out the trip. She was FABULOUS in her knowledge, grace, and guiding abilities.

THE ESSENCE OF THE TRIP...for me, was experienced  in a ryokan (guest house) in Kyoto and at the final lunch at Ginza Kyubey in Tokyo (see earlier post of my visual journey thru Wabi Sabi Japan).

There was a NYT article on the ryokan we stayed at, Japanese Traditions Ancient Kyoto. The moment I walked in I felt a calm state of peace and harmony wash over me. EVERYTHING from that experience was like a perfectly orchestrated ballet. I took a few photographs from the kaiseki dinner and other meals that were served in the room. Every course was exquisite in its presentation and tastiness. Many "firsts" were had at the dining table.

 

the most delicious sukiyaki EVER!

" If you don't speak the language of the country you are visiting, a good way to access its culture is thru the food and the music." Rick Bayless 

Melons sell for hundreds of dollars...the entire plant is sacrificed for the one promising melon which is nurtured over many months...the skin of these melons is unlike anything I have ever seen in the states.

 We experienced traditional Japanese meals, including .......

A Yakitori dinner, a Tempura lunch,  Unagi lunch, a Tonkatsu dinner, Kaiseki dinner (please purchase Yukari's book for more information, like what the 5 elements are of EVERY MEAL).

 Unagi lunch

Unagi (Anguilla japonica) is freshwater eel and a traditional cuisine of Tokyo. It is butterflied, steamed, and then grilled over charcoal and served over a bed of rice. 

 Soba Dinner

The soba master at Nigyō is highly respected for his handmade soba noodles.

A visit  to Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s farm. Nancy is the author of Japanese Farm Food. 

barrels of miso being cured in her backyard....

 vinegar tasting

 wasabi being prepared for the salmon roe dish

  Ginza Kyubey 

 the city’s celebrated sushi restaurant that exemplified the Japanese aesthetic in every detail of the experience

The decor was drop dead beautiful, exquisite sushi, service...all 5 senses were covered. 

This meal / experience was not just spectacular, it was heavenly. 

I just finished watching several episodes of The Mind of the Chef, with David Chang traveling to Japan to learn more about food.  The following  quote sums up the experience for all visitors, not just chefs.... "It's impossible for any cook, any chef to visit Japan, be exposed to the impossibly fetishistic appreciation of the ingredients, the perfectionist approach to technique, the mind boggling sheer volume of good stuff to eat, without being changed forever---- You leave Japan a better cook or you give up cooking altogether. Japan tends to focus the mind in wonderful new ways, refining, stripping away what is unnecessary."

The Great Adventure / Japan Part 1

Having just returned from a great adventure, I decided that this blog would be a great place to share some of the inspiration that I received from my latest trip to Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan. I am short on time but keep thinking about all the amazing experiences I had so will try to share....

Not sure if you are familiar with term Wabi Sabi, but there is a wonderful book, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers that you can find on Amazon.

WHAT IS WABI-SABI?

The Japanese view of life embraced a simple aesthetic
that grew stronger as inessentials were eliminated
and trimmed away.

-architect Tadao Ando

"Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent."

Here are a few visuals that I found really inspiring. Not sure how they will be incorporated into my work...will need to wait and see.

The Patra Passage ~ Art at its Best!

Linda Lowe has created an art based experiment that explores the act of giving and receiving. It is a truly inspired project.  

108 Vessel ~ The Patra Passage

“The gift finds the man attractive who stands with an empty bowl he does not own.”

LEWIS HYDE, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

"The Patra Passage is an art-based project that experiments with a cycle of giving and receiving. The passage centers on the gifting of 108 hand-built ceramic vessels to participants who will re-gift them to others. The giftism cycle will continue for one year until each bowl has been presented and received at least three times, creating a community of over 324 participants. At the end of their circulation, the Patra will be returned and exhibited at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA, sold, and all proceeds given to charity."

 I encourage you to learn more about The Patra Passage HERE.

on Balance

Deborah Luster ~ Tooth for an Eye

One of the many pleasures of New Orleans is the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The photography curator and artist in his own right , Richard McCabe, has produced some stunning shows in the last few years. Most recently is the Tooth for an Eye : A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish by Deborah Luster. The exhibit took my breath away in its depth and breadth of handling the difficult and painful issue of violence in our cities. This is very important work and incredibly well done. 

Grid of Deborah's photographs at the Ogden

Gun violence is a subject that I once entertained exploring but did not have the stomach for it. As an alternative  I decided to start a blog to document daily shootings "In My Backyard."  After two days I had to stop as it was too disturbing to start my day knowing who died and where the most recent act of violence occurred. I am deeply grateful to Deborah for creating this body of work that so eloquently discusses a very dark side of the human condition.

In Deborah's words...

"With a homicide rate nearly ten times 

the national average, New Orleans stands today, as it did as far back as the 1850"s as the homicide capital of the United States." 

"TOOTH FOR AN EYE:A CHOROGRAPHY OF VIOLENCE IN ORLEANS PARISH is a project that attempts to take a very close look at something that no longer exists - an invisible population - in the only way in which one can approach such things, obliquely and through reference. The result is a photographic archive documenting contemporary and historical homicide sites in the city of New Orleans and is as well, an exploration of the empty, dizzying space at the core of violence."

"The images that populate the archive were collected with an 8x10 Deardorff field camera. The exposures in these photographs are long, and much of the action-mechanical, botanical, and human -is rendered as spectral blur, a physical representation of time like some isotropic fog, depth without defined dimension."

"Chorogrpahy is a form of geography that describes the inherent attributes of a place. These attributes may be physical, sociological, conceptual, metaphysical, or sensory. Tooth for an Eye not only documents sites where violence has occurred, it also finds itself documenting the city's physical loss as her unique material culture crumbles and transforms following generations of political failure. Many buildings that served as backgrounds for violent death have disappeared since they were photographed for this project."

 "In the atavistic culture of New Orleans, so alive with the historic, symbolic, and sensual, there exists a porousness between the worlds of the living and the dead, where time bends and flows, and neither world lives or dies free of the other's space or influence."

 These portholes have color video, one for family and one for friends...underlining the fact that many lives are at stake here,  not just those of the victims or the perpetrator.


You can check Deborah's website to see where else the work has been exhibited.
Deborah's book, Tooth for an Eye, is available on Amazon.