“He knew the time for burning and plowing had ended the day before, but there still lingered in the warm March air something of the new season. The smell of freshly turned earth and the odor of pine and sedge-smoke hovered over the land even after burning and plowing was done. He breathed deeply of it, filling his body with the invigorating aroma.”
Source: Tobacco Road
“The peace within and flowing from sacred spaces and architecture places is clothed in forgiveness, renunciation, and reconciliation.”
Source: Tenryu-ji: Life and Spirit of a Kyoto Garden
“Peace is not just a desired state of being for people, but also enables the flourishing of nature as well as human-created landscapes.”
Source: Tenryu-ji: Life and Spirit of a Kyoto Garden
“Stop making excuses for your lack of action or results by focusing on what other people have done to you, how life is not fair, or how the world has wronged you.”
Source: Suck Less, Do Better: The End of Excuses & the Rise of the Unstoppable You
“Integrating the beauty of seasonal change into the residence was a concept that remains true even today even in the more cramped, inner city machiya.”
Source: Kyoto Machiya Restaurant Guide: Affordable Dining in Traditional Townhouse Spaces
“I celebrated my arrival in Kyoto with a dinner of grilled eel, a sublime delicacy in Japan. In the water the fish resembles a ferocious jagged-toothed snake. But when sizzled over hot charcoal it looks like a fillet of sole that has spent the winter in Palm Beach. The skin turns crisp and smoky and the fatty white flesh, basted with a sweet soy syrup, becomes deeply tanned and as succulent as foie gras.”
Source: Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
“For [Stephen] Harper, a national daycare plan bordered on being a socialist scheme, a phrase he had once used to describe the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. For [Paul] Martin, whose plan would have transferred to the provinces $5 billion over five years, the national program was what Canadianism was all about. "Think about it this way," [Martin] said. "What if, decades ago, Tommy Douglas and my father and Lester Pearson had considered the idea of medicare and then said, 'Forget it! Let's just give people twenty-five dollars a week.' You want a fundamental difference between Mr. Harper and myself? Well, this is it.”
Source: Harperland: The Politics Of Control
“The culture's reverence for nature accentuates Kyoto's innate beauty. Designs on fabric, pottery, lacquer, and folding screens depict swirling water, budding branches, and birds in flight. Delicate woodcuts and scrolls celebrate the moonlight, rain, and snow. Elegant restaurant dishes arrive with edible garnishes of seasonal flora.”
Source: Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
“If you blink, you might miss it. You might miss the wet floor at the threshold, symbolically cleansing you before the meal begins. You might overlook the flower arrangement in the corner, a spare expression of the passing season. You might miss the scroll on the wall drawn with a single unbroken line, signaling the infinite continuity of nature. You might not detect the gentle current of young ginger rippling through the dashi, the extra sheet of Hokkaido kelp in the soup, the mochi that is made to look like a cherry blossom at midnight.
You might miss the water.”
Source: Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
“Rice is sacred to the Japanese people," he says. "We eat it at every meal, yet we never get tired of it." He points out that the word for rice in Japanese, gohan, is the same as the word for meal.
When he finally lifts the lid of the first rice cooker, releasing a dramatic gasp of starchy steam, the entire restaurant looks ready to wave their white napkins in exuberant applause.
The rice is served with a single anchovy painstakingly smoked over a charcoal fire. Below the rice, a nest of lightly grilled matsutake mushrooms; on top, an orange slice of compressed fish roe. Together, an intense wave of umami to fortify the tender grains of rice.
Next comes okoge, the crispy rice from the bottom of the pan, served with crunchy flakes of sea salt and oil made from the outside kernel of the rice, spiked with spicy sansho pepper. For the finale, an island of crisp rice with wild herbs and broth from the cooked rice, a moving rendition of chazuke, Japanese rice-and-tea soup. It's a husk-to-heart exposé on rice, striking in both its simplicity and its soul-warming deliciousness- the standard by which all rice I ever eat will be judged.”
Source: Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture