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Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror

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Amanda Downum

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“One day we strolled down the Philosopher's Path, which proved as enchanting as I had hoped in the fragrant pink bloom of spring. Since ancient times, the Japanese have heralded the arrival of the cherry blossoms because they symbolize the ephemeral beauty of life. But it isn't just the three or four days of open flowers that stirs the senses. It is their arrival and departure. Looking at a bud about to burst open offers the pleasurable anticipation of rebirth, while the soft scattering of petals on the ground is often considered the most beautiful stage of all because it represents the death of the flowers. Another day I took John to one of my tea kaiseki classes to watch the making of a traditional picnic to celebrate the arrival of the cherry blossoms. While he sat on a stool near my cooking station, Stephen and I cooked rice in water flavored with kelp, sake, and light soy, then packed it into a wooden mold shaped like a chrysanthemum. After tapping out the compact white flower, we decorated it with two salted cherry blossoms. We wrapped chunks of salted Spanish mackerel in brined cherry leaves and steamed the packets until the fatty fish turned milky in parts. We also made cold seafood salad, pea custard, and chewy millet dumplings, which we grilled over a charcoal burner until brown and sticky enough to hold a coating of ivory Japanese poppy seeds.”

SpringSymbolicJapanese CookingCherry Blossoms
Book:Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
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“While Mrs. Hisa steeped fresh fava beans in sugar syrup, Stephen dry-fried baby chartreuse peppers. I made a salad of crunchy green algae and meaty bonito fish cubes tossed with a bracing blend of soy and ginger juice. Mrs. Hisa created a tiny tumble of Japanese fiddleheads mixed with soy, rice vinegar, and salted baby fish. For the horse mackerel sushi, Stephen skinned and boned several large sardine-like fillets and cut them into thick slices along the bias. I made the vinegared rice and then we all made the nigiri sushi. After forming the rice into triangles, we topped each one with a slice of bamboo grass, as if folding a flag. Last, we made the wanmori, the heart of the tenshin. In the center of a black lacquer bowl we placed a succulent chunk of salmon trout and skinned kabocha pumpkin, both of which we had braised in an aromatic blend of dashi, sake, and sweet cooking wine. Then we slipped in two blanched snow peas and surrounded the ingredients with a bit of dashi, which we had seasoned with soy to attain the perfect whiskey color, then lightly salted to round out the flavor. Using our teacher's finished tenshin as a model, we arranged most of the dishes on three polished black lacquer rectangles, first lightly spraying them with water to suggest spring rain. Then we actually sat down and ate the meal. To my surprise, the leaf-wrapped sushi, the silky charred peppers, candied fava beans, and slippery algae did taste cool and green.”

PresentationSeafoodSushiJapanese Cooking
Book:Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
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“You and I “It should be filtered”, said she, Every feeling that you wish to share with me, “It should be just for me”, said she, Every kiss and every sweet memory, “It should always be near and never too far”, said she, Every echo of your heart beat, that only beats for me, “It should never end once it begins”, said she, Every moment of romance between you and me, “It should not conceal me”, said she, Every shadow of your love, your veil of feelings that falls over me, “It should brighten me to create a happy me”, said she, Every breath of yours should only sing of me and confess about me, “It should remind you how much I need you”, said she, Every day, every night, every lifetime, it has to be just me, only me, “It shall be so, my love!” , said I, Every moment, every day, and always just you and I, “It is a feeling I felt when I first realised how endless the sky is”, said I, And ever since then I have longed to tell you, it is forever you and I, “It is only then I like the stars and the beautiful blue sky”, said I, Now every day, she holds my hand and we witness the endless beauty of the endless sky!”

LoveLifeInspirational QuotesLife QuotesLove QuotesLife Lessons QuotesLife QuotationsBest Quotes EverLove Poems
Book:They Loved in 2075!
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“I can tell right away by looking at you what you want to eat," he says. "I can tell how many brothers and sisters you have." After divining my favorite color (blue) and my astrological sign (Aquarius), Nakamura pulls out an ivory stalk of takenoko, fresh young bamboo ubiquitous in Japan during the spring. "This came in this morning from Kagumi. It's so sweet that you can eat it raw." He peels off the outer layer, cuts a thin slice, and passes it across the counter. First, he scores an inch-thick bamboo steak with a ferocious santoku blade. Then he sears it in a dry sauté pan until the flesh softens and the natural sugars form a dark crust on the surface. While the bamboo cooks, he places two sacks of shirako, cod milt, under the broiler. ("Milt," by the way, is a euphemism for sperm. Cod sperm is everywhere in Japan in the winter and early spring, and despite the challenges its name might create for some, it's one of the most delicious things you can eat.) Nakamura brings it all together on a Meiji-era ceramic plate: caramelized bamboo brushed with soy, broiled cod milt topped with miso made from foraged mountain vegetables, and, for good measure, two lightly boiled fava beans. An edible postcard of spring. I take a bite, drop my chopsticks, and look up to find Nakamura staring right at me. "See, I told you I know what you want to eat." The rest of the dinner unfolds in a similar fashion: a little counter banter, a little product display, then back to transform my tastes and his ingredients into a cohesive unit. The hits keep coming: a staggering plate of sashimi filled with charbroiled tuna, surgically scored squid, thick circles of scallop, and tiny white shrimp blanketed in sea urchin: a lesson in the power of perfect product. A sparkling crab dashi topped with yuzu flowers: a meditation on the power of restraint. Warm mochi infused with cherry blossoms and topped with a crispy plank of broiled eel: a seasonal invention so delicious it defies explanation.”

SeafoodBambooJapanese CookingSashimiOsakaCohesive
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“You're going to make the broth for the ramen with katsuobushi?" "The chicken you used to make the broth for the ramen is a broiler, right? In that case, it's better to make it with katsuobushi." "But the ramen's going to end up smelling like fish." "Don't worry about it. I mince some garlic, chives, shiitake mushrooms, and onion... ... and fry them together with ground pork in sesame oil. Then I add some hatchō miso that's been mixed with sake... ... to make miso-flavored mince meat. I pour the katsuobushi dashi onto the noodles. I've given the dashi a light soy sauce flavor. Then I place the meat on top... ... and sprinkle a lot of chopped green onion on it... ... and you've got Oishinbo-style miso ramen!" "Wow! It really does go well with the katsuobushi! It doesn't smell fishy at all!" "The scents of the sesame oil, garlic and miso... ... complement the scent of the katsuobushi nicely! Ramen broth is usually made from chicken and pork bones. I never thought of using fish!”

IngredientsRamenJapanese CookingBonito
Book:Ramen and Gyoza
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“Ah! Green asparagus, my favorite! " "I stir-fried it with crab meat. I quickly stir-fried the green asparagus and mixed the crab guts with dashi and put that in there as well... ... and finally seasoned it with salt and pepper and thickened the sauce slightly with starch." "I love its fresh spring vegetable-like flavor!" "I stir-fried it in a very mild soy oil... ... and I didn't use any Chinese broth made from chicken bones and Chinese ham. I used dashi taken from katsuobushi and konbu.”

AsparagusJapanese CookingCrabStirfry
Book:Vegetables
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“It has such a warm and gentle flavor." "The rice has soaked up the rich flavor of the scallops. Could you teach me how to make it?" "Of course. You mix soy sauce with sake and boil it, then place the scallops in it and cook it for about a minute. After that, you take the scallops out, place them on a different plate, and start cooking the rice. And when cooking the rice, you pour the broth you used to cook the scallop into the rice. You won't get the full flavor if you don't cook the black area called the midgut gland together with the scallop. Once the rice is cooked, you put it on a plate and place the scallops on top. That's when you take the midgut gland off." "Keep the midgut gland on when cooking the scallops, and take it off when mixing them into the rice. That must be the secret.”

RiceJapanese CookingScallops
Book:The Joy of Rice
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“The first one is red bean rice ball. Red beans and sticky rice were often steamed together to create red bean rice on celebratory occasions. It was considered to be a feast in the olden days. Many areas in Japan still carry on the tradition of making red bean rice whenever there is something to celebrate. In that sense, I think you can say red bean rice is deeply rooted in the Japanese soul." "That's right. I made red bean rice along with other foods when the framework of my house was completed." "It feels very festive for some reason." "I like the salt and sesame seasoning on it." "The next is a hijiki rice ball. You cook the rice together with the hijiki, thin fried tofu and carrots... ...flavor it with soy sauce and make a rice ball with it. The hijiki rice is the typical Japanese commoners' food that mixes riches from the sea and the soil together. A rice ball made of hijiki rice is one of the original Japanese foods with a long continuing history." "Aaah. This brings back memories." "It makes us realize that we're Japanese. It's a flavor we must not lose." "The last rice ball of the past is dried seaweed. Dried seaweed is one of the most familiar seaweeds to the Japanese, apart from konbu, wakame and hijiki. And the way to fully enjoy the taste of the dried seaweed... ... is to make seaweed tsukudani and use that as the filling for the rice ball. For the tsukudani, you simmer top-quality dried seaweed in sake and soy sauce. Once you learn its taste, you will never be satisfied with eating the dried seaweed tsukudani that's commercially available." "It tastes nothing like that one we can buy at the market." "It's refreshing, yet has a very strong scent of seaweed." "It's interesting to see the difference in flavor of the tsukudani filling and the seaweed wrapping the rice ball." "Red bean rice, hijiki rice and dried seaweed tsukudani rice balls... These are flavors that will never fade away as long as the Japanese are around.”

PastTraditionalSeaweedJapanese CultureAlgaeJapanese CookingRice BallsRed Beans And Rice
Book:The Joy of Rice
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“There's caviar inside the prawn dumpling!" "I used fresh live Japanese tiger prawns and minced the meat, then mixed it with an egg. I wrapped the caviar with it and fried it in peanut oil." "The sweetness of the prawn and the rich taste of the caviar complement each other! Nice work, Yuichi!" "Ah, no..." "There are various kinds of fried prawn dumpling dishes, but it was Yuichi's idea to wrap caviar in it. He got all the ingredients and made it himself on his day off." "Tayama senpai created this?" "Yuichi, make something else for us." "Please let me off the hook now." "Yuichi, make the scallop rice." "Master!" "Just do it." "The rice has been steamed and lightly flavored with dashi and soy sauce. I basted the scallop with a mop sauce made from sake and soy sauce, and grilled the outside but left the meat half-cooked. Then I placed the scallop onto the rice just before it finished steaming--- steam it for a moment, and it's done." "Aah! The flavor of the scallop has seeped into the rice, but the scallop itself still retains its flavor too. This only works if you perfectly calculate how long to grill the scallop and how long to steam it on the rice." "He saw me making steamed clam rice... ... and that's where he got the idea to place the teriyaki scallop instead of the clams on top of the rice." "The fact that you made the scallop into a teriyaki was a nice touch." "This is great ." "One more dish, Yuichi!" "Oh, please..." "Yuichi, I've got some engawa. You want me to help?" "No way. I'll do it myself! I wrapped young spring onions with the engawa of a left-eyed flounder, brushed on a mop sauce made from soy sauce and sake, and grilled it lightly. Please sprinkle some powdered Chinese pepper or shichimi onto this, if you want to." "Yum! The scent of the grilled spring onion and engawa draws out my appetite." "I took Yuichi to a restaurant that cooked garlic chives wrapped with eel dorsal fins... ...and Yuichi said he wanted to try it with left-eyed flounder engawa and young spring onions." "I thought it would be a waste to grill the engawa, but it turned out surprisingly good when he made it that way.”

CreativityJapanese CookingFood Combining
Book:Izakaya: Pub Food
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