Dad in a Foreign Land

We’re heading back to Tokyo in a couple days and I’m going to miss the river and the mountains. Of course we live right next to the Arakawa River in Tokyo, but it’s not quite the same. My parents have been playing with the boy so much that I’ve had more time to relax and read than any time since I became a father. It’s been a nice vacation.

We also attended the yearly festival of the phallus-god Konsei-sama. We’re still very much wanting a second child, so we’ll see if the phallus-god’s power can help. (For more photos and a description of this Konsei Matsuri, see here and here.)

We’ve been eating mountain vegetables (sansai) at just about every meal. Above you can see the boy and his (maternal) grandfather picking warabi in the back yard.

Here is the warabi that we picked with a bit of mizu behind it. After boiling it we made two separate dishes, one Korean-style with sesame oil (imagine the namuru that comes on bi-bin-pa) and the other plain for serving with a soy sauce and spicy mustard (karashi) mix.

This is tara-no-me, which we ate as tempura. (My wife’s mom knows a way to make tempura without egg, so the boy could enjoy it as well.)

The leafy parts are just as good as the juicy bottom, which tastes almost like an artichoke, or so my parents said.

This week has been perfect for a number of types of mountain vegetables, which we basically had to pick and eat immediately. My wife’s family doesn’t have a vegetable garden, but the haul of fresh greens is easily equal to my parent’s garden in the States, and with no weeding!