Uiro at “Time Corridors”

Time Corridors 

¥ 1500 for tea service and admission

Opened in 2022, artist Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “Time Corridors” museum is one of the newest attractions on Naoshima, the “art island” in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea. Getting tickets is a little tricky—they’re timed and limited in number and the website is not especially user-friendly—so I was lucky to stumble right in just as they opened for the morning. The galleries house many iconic examples of Sugimoto’s work in a custom-built setting that manages to be both brutalist and emotionally sensitive. 

The admission fee includes tea and a sweet served in the Lounge. One room has tables made from the trunks of ancient holy trees, while the other has less exciting furniture but a better view of the glass tea room installed in a kind of moat outside the building (the tea room is mesmerizing even when empty and I can only imagine that I saw it in use I’d be speechless for days!).  

I ordered matcha and the sweet of the day, a serviceable uiro. On the spectrum of rice-based treat textures, uiro tends to be on the stodgier end—imagine mochi mixed with Big League Chew. I ate my way through it carefully and savored having a little extra time to look out at the tea house and the view of the island. 

Noshi Ume

Noshi Ume, 乃し梅 

from ¥ 648 for 5 pieces

Like many things that we now enjoy as treats (soda, hard candy, mints…), noshi ume started life as medicine. The recipe for a plum-based throat soother may have originated in Nagasaki, but then travelled to Yamagata Prefecture in the 1600s. In the 1800s, a gelatinizer of powdered seaweed (kanten or agar) was added to improve and stabilize the texture. 

Today the 5th generation owners of Satoya make noshi ume using sour, aromatic plums from Yamagata. Thick slices of the chewy, sticky gel are packaged as they have been for over a hundred years, between dried bamboo leaves; simply peel back the leaves to nibble away without dirtying your hands (and then toss the “wrapper” in the compost!). Nostalgic, portable, and delicous, noshi ume can be found in the souvenir section of many department store food halls throughout Japan. 

If you like fruit roll-ups, membrillo, or even gummi bears, this is a treat to seek out. Satoya also sells shigure, strips of noshi ume rolled in sugar, for those who prefer their plum goo a little chewier and crunchier. 

 

Coffee Karintō

Coffee Karintō

コヒーカリン糖

¥100

Karintō are crunchy, bite-sized batons of yeasted wheat dough that is deep fried and coated, most often with a sweet glaze. 

Like most wheat-based treats, karintō were originally brought to Japan from another country, but it’s uncertain whether they were introduced by the Chinese in the 700s or the Portuguese in the 1500s. At any time during that span, both wheat and sugar were so expensive that karintō would have been a luxury food. As the availability of these ingredients increased and prices came down, karintō would have become more common; street vendors began selling them by the mid-1800s. 

Traditionally glazed with either white or brown sugar, modern karintō are available in a wide variety of flavors such as ginger and coffee. I purchased these from a Tokyo branch of Daiso, the   Japanese version of a dollar store. 

Matsukaze

Matsukaze

¥970 / box of 10 pieces 

On my first morning in Kyoto and I headed out early enough to see tiny school children delightedly greeting their classmates and elderly joggers charging up miniature Mt. Funaoka. As I wandered east past the Daitokuji complex, I spotted a building across the street with all the classic indicators (weatherbeaten wooden sign, sliding doors, minimalist display window, verdigris lamp) that something inside is both edible and old-fashioned. 

Approaching the window I saw a hanging scroll, a single peony, and a plate with two slices of cake and a hand-painted label. Among the jumble of kanji were two that I could make out: “pine” and “wind.” And just then, through the fabric of my mask, I caught a whiff of something rich, sweet, and a little funky! 

The 250-year-old confectionery Matsuya Tobei is famed for matsukaze (“wind in the pines”) an unusually savory cake made from flour, sugar, malt, white miso, salted soybeans, and sesame seeds. The miso already nudges this moist, dense cake in a distinctly umami direction, but then it’s topped with fermented, salted black soybeans called Daitokuji natto (a “dry” natto, so no slime in sight). As an emotional eater, I am not unfamiliar with the taste of tear-soaked cake, and that’s the closest comparison I can offer. 

Matsukaze is used in autumn for tea ceremony but is very nice with coffee at any time of the year—and thank goodness! As it’s only sold by the box, I had a little more than I could handle and was able to distribute the excess at breakfast at my guest house. People from 5 different countries agreed: matsukaze was unlike any cake they’d ever had before. 

Matsuya Tobei 

Daitokuji Kitaoji, Kita-ku (in front of Daitokuji-mae bus stop) 

075-492-2850

Goshiki-mame

Goshiki-mame 五色豆
Sohonten Funabashi Mamecho Shoten, from ¥270 for 100g

Goshiki-mame, or five-color beans, have been popular Kyoto souvenir since the Taisho era more than a century ago. At the core of each crunchy little pebble is a roasted bean; as with konpeito, the core is repeatedly tumbled in a vat of melted sugar until a substantial candy coating builds up. The colors represent the north, south, east, and west districts of Kyoto, with the fifth color (brown) representing the Imperial Palace. Brown definitely tastes of cinnamon (an appropriately elite flavoring back in the day) and yellow is ginger, but the others…?  

I found these in a little shop next to the Nishijin Textile Center. I was temped by the wooden gift boxes of goshiki-mame and candied sweet potato, but already weighed down by more sweets that I could safely consume. Luckily, they also sell loose mame in smaller quantities from boxes so I got a small handful bundled up in the shop’s wrapping paper.

Sohonten Funabashi Mamecho Shoten 総本家 船橋豆長

396 Tatemonzencho

Kamigyo Ward 

Kyoto 602-8434

Japan

Karume

Karume
Daiso Japan, $1.50

Thanks to Daiso, the Japanese "dollar" store, you can try a treat that would have been familiar to children living in Japanese cities more than 100 years ago.  

Karume are feather-light hard brown lumps with hexagonal sides and ravaged-looking tops.  Pop one in your mouth for a rather straightforward brown sugar flavor and a comparatively intricate textural experience:  the porous sweet slowly erodes from the inside out and collapses in on itself in a jumble of shards and syrup.  

Karume are a kind of dagashi, a category of "cheap sweets" that became popular among urban children during Japan's Meiji period, when increased foreign trade made sugar affordable for the masses. 

According to Eric Rath in Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan, the historic precursor to our modern factory-formed karume was called karumeyaki, and it was then as much as taste of the future as karume is now a taste of the past.  Although the -yaki suffix is more usually attached to something that has been cooked or grilled, these candies get their bubbled appearance and hard shell from a chemical reaction caused by the addition of baking soda--an ingredient first introduced to Japan in the Meiji period.

This reaction is so spectacular that a university handout I found characterizes karume-making as a science experiment rather than a recipe.  In essence, you beat egg whites to a soft froth, stir in baking soda, then combine the egg with melted brown sugar.  The mixture foams furiously, and the bubbles can be hardened by cooking over a gentle flame. 

Behind the Museum Cafe

Omanju
Behind the Museum Cafe, $2.75

Certain things about the Pacific Northwest have helped generations of homesick Japanese visitors and settlers to feel more at home:  the stands of tall, dark cedars, the intricate coastlines with little islands emerging from blankets of haze, the familiar grandeur of Mt. Rainier or Mt. Hood.  

Now add to that Portland's Behind the Museum Café. 

In the neighborhoods where I lived and worked in Tokyo there was almost always at least one gem of a coffeeshop.  While they varied wildly in style and size, all tended to be tricky to find and strongly atmospheric, with an unusual selection of carefully prepared drinks and food. 

Behind the Museum fits that description--except for it's relatively prominent location in back of the Portland Art Museum.  It's a narrow, high-ceilinged room in a modern glass highrise; a selection of Japanese antiques and contemporary crafts adds warmth to all that chrome. 

Owner Tomoe Horibuchi was a cafe manager and culinary instructor in San Francisco before feeling the pull of the Pacific Northwest.  She's dedicated to cultivating a space that's more than just a cafe, offering exhibition opportunities to artists, tables large enough to accommodate small group meetings, and regular demonstrations of Japanese traditions such as the incense ceremony and calligraphy.  

The cafe serves tea, locally-roasted coffee, Japanese beer and sake.  Appetizers and small meals are made in house, with organic ingredients wherever possible.  In addition to cookies and pastries, Horibuchi handmakes fresh Japanese confections such as the manju of the day above:  a small, soft bird filled with smooth red bean paste and flavored with toasted soybean powder.  

Behind the Museum Cafe 
1229 SW 10th Ave
Portland, OR
503/477-6625

Warabi Mochi

Warabi Mochi
Tokara, $4

Mochi is one of Japan's staple foods, a rice-based dough that can be eaten sweet or savory.  While most mochi is made from mochigome, a short-grained glutinous rice, other foods that share mochi's characteristic chewiness are sometimes also known as "mochi".  Warabi mochi gets its springy texture not from rice, but from the starch of bracken ferns.  Translucent and slightly slippery, warabi mochi is a classic Japanese summer sweet, the mere sight of which gives some relief from heat and humidity.  Tokara's version is served with molasses syrup and a dusting of kinako, a powder made from toasted soybeans. 

Shave Ice

Shave Ice
Shabu Chic, $3

Come summer, communities throughout Asia and the Asian diaspora keep their cool by eating man-made snow piled with with their favorite toppings.  In Hawaii, "shave ice" is drenched in neon-colored syrups, while the Japanese cover their kakigori with stewed fruit, rice dumplings, beans, or green tea, the Chinese eat their baobing snowballs with "eight treasures" such as grass jelly or peanuts, and Filipino halo-halo features bright purple ube and decadent flan.  In almost every case, condensed milk is the favored final touch.  

At Seattle's Little Saigon Fest, restaurant Shabu Chic was offering its own take on the pan-Asian treat:  shaved green tea ice with strawberries, mango, and red beans, glazed with a touch of the ubiquitous condensed milk. 

Seabell Bakery

Seabell Roll
Seabell Bakery, $2

Seabell is a small strip-mall bakery specializing in "Japanese style" breads.  While the Japanese make and enjoy many types of bread, "Japanese style" usually indicates a matrix so light and fluffy that just looking at it makes you want to take a nap.  

Seabell's eponymous roll is an exemplar of its type:  the freshest, finest-grained hot dog bun imaginable, coiled around a core of real whipped cream and lightly sweetened red bean paste.   Astringent matcha tea sprinkled on top and stirred into the cream gives the Seabell a little bite and backbone. 

Seabell Bakery
12816 SE 38th St Ste F
Bellevue, WA 
425 / 644-2616 

Bon Odori Kori

Kori
Seattle Bon Odori, $3 

Obon is a Japanese summer-season holiday that sees droves of city-dwellers returning to their hometowns to gather in appreciation of their ancestors; it's a homecoming for both the living and the dead.  The traditional Obon activities range from temple ceremonies to the cleaning of graves to the festive group dances known as Bon Odori.  

In Seattle, Bon Odori takes place in the street outside the Japanese Buddhist Temple.  There are displays, speeches, performances, souvenirs, dozens of dances, and--for those who've worked up an appetite or a sweat--plenty of festival foods.  

On hot days the demand for kori shaved ice cups keeps Temple volunteers on the hop.  The huge blocks of ice (below, left) have to be sawn down to the right size to fit in the ice shaving machine, then the piles of snow are rapidly packed into paper cups (below, right) and decked out with the buyer's choice of syrups (top), condensed milk, or soupy red beans. 

Sakuramochi

Sakuramochi
Tokara (above)
Umai-do (below)

Sakuramochi is named for the pale pink blossoms of the cherry tree, and like those blossoms is only around for a short time each spring.

In Japan, there are two regional variations on sakuramochi. Both types have a core of smooth koshian red bean paste and are wrapped in a brined cherry leaf, but the middle layer differs. In the Kanto region around Tokyo, the bean paste is rolled in a tiny pancake made from pink-tinted rice flour. In the Kansai region (which includes Kyoto), the bean paste is enveloped in a ball of mochi rice dough, often made from dōmyōji-ko a "chunky" glutinous rice flour that originated at Osaka's Dōmyōji Temple; the dōmyōji-ko gives the mochi the ruffled appearance of a cluster of breeze-tossed petals.

Our Seattle wagashi makers are hewing more closely to the Kansai style. Tokara (above) makes a classic sakuramochi, with meltingly smooth koshian encased in a chewy dōmyōji pillow and jacketed in a zingy, tender leaf. At Umai-do (below), there's a homier version, with the shop's own flavorful bean paste and smooth, elastic mochi made from more widely available mochiko glutinous rice flour rather than dōmyōji-ko: a new "Seattle" style?

Umai-do Grand Opening

Umai-do

If you're in the ID or the CD today, be sure to stop by and try some fresh manju at the grand opening of Umai-do, Seattle's newest purveyor of Japanese sweets. Want the backstory on the shop or owner, Art Oki? Check out my article, "The Japanese Snickerdoodle", published last year in Edible Seattle Magazine.

Umai-do
1825 S Jackson
206/325-7888
Wednesday - Saturday: 9am-6pm
Sunday: 9am-4pm

Coffee Daifuku

Coffee Daifuku

Two days ago my beloved family dog died; today I made coffee daifuku. It was the most fitting tribute I could come up with. (If you want to skip the backstory and head straight to the recipe, it's at the bottom of the post.)

Tucker was a rescue who ended up at the Nashville Humane Society after his previous "family" moved out their apartment in the middle of summer and left him locked up inside with no food or water. When the landlord found him three days later he was in pretty bad shape, and when my mom and I spotted him at the shelter he was about as energetic and engaged as a wet rag; all the other dogs jumped and wriggled and twinkled, but Tucker just laid in the corner of his cage, avoiding eye contact. The same impulse that compels Mom and me to buy stained, one-eyed stuffed animals and spindly Christmas trees led us to take the world's most depressed dog home for a trial adoption.

It was awkward from the get-go. Tucker was ferocious towards strangers, but a whiny crybaby around us, so fearful of separation he'd keen and jam his front paws under the closed bathroom door if you just wanted to pee in private. Neither extreme was attractive. Eventually we had a dog therapist come in, and she said some things that made sense. We humans changed our ways and gradually Tucker transitioned from impossible to merely difficult to, finally, an awesomely affectionate little dog with some residual quirks. He was devoted to my dad and the two of them developed a program of entertainingly elaborate rituals; here's what would happen every morning when Tucker saw Dad for the first time:



One problem that we never really sorted out: Tucker was a binge eater. Our previous family dog, Mac, was a classic Westie, with stumpy legs, a pig body, and a piggish attitude towards food; he'd eat almost anything, but given his limited vertical range, it was usually easy to keep him out of trouble. Tucker, in comparison, could practically levitate. He was roughly the same size as Mac, but leggier by inches.

The first weekend we had Tucker we briefly left him alone in the kitchen; first, he climbed onto the counter and took a polite but dismissive nibble out of every item in the fruit bowl before discovering the real prize, a boxed Derby pie (pecan with chocolate chips), bought at a church sale that morning. When I wandered into the kitchen a little later, hankering for a slice of pie, I was confused to see a brand-new empty pie pan shining in a patch of sun on the floor: no dents, no marks, not a single crumb. The solution to the mystery was around the corner; our catatonic 15-pound dog lying on his side with his emaciated legs stuck straight out and an entire Derby pie swelling his belly like a cow inside a cobra.

On the vet's advice, I took Tucker outside and proceeded to funnel hydrogen peroxide into him at 10-minute intervals until the pie reappeared. If I thought he'd looked dejected at the pound, I hadn't seen anything yet. That pie was probably the best thing that had happened to him in years, and it had gone horribly wrong. He was stoic about the treatment but the look on his face could have been used to solicit charitable donations.

That was only the first of many crises stemming from Tucker indulging in too much of a bad thing. I know this makes me and my parents sound horribly irresponsible, but Tucker was devilishly quick, silent, and so dexterous you'd swear he had thumbs.

Once when he was accompanying my dad on a car trip, they made a few stops on the way out of town: first at Starbucks, where Dad bought an enormous latte for the drive, and then to drop something in the mail slot outside the post office. In the seconds it took for my dad to walk from the car to the building and turn around, Tucker had lifted the venti cup out of the console between the seats, flipped off the lid, and commenced slurping. Dad didn't make a sound ("I knew if I startled him he'd spill the whole thing"), just walked calmly back to the car as Tucker watched him over the rim of the cup, lapping for dear life. By the time Dad reached down and took the cup from between Tucker's paws he'd drunk about half--but hadn't spilled a drop. As they drove off, Tucker curled into a little ball on the passenger-side floor and went to sleep. My dad finished the coffee.

So there's something right about the fact that I was at a chocolate and coffee tasting when Tucker had a stroke. When my parents called with the news, there was sadness but no shock. Over the last couple of years, Tucker's much-abused body had begun to shut down. When I last saw him, about a week before he died, he was totally deaf and blind, his bony little frame studded with lumps and growths, his smile gummy, his coat--to quote my dad--"moth-eaten".

And yet he was still so cute people in cars would slow down and grin out their windows as we jaunted around the block, me as "seeing eye person" trying to keep him from running into trees or spilling off curbs as he clipped along. Even more impressive, he was seemed happier than he had been in his anxiety-riddled prime; sure, he slept 23 hours a day, but every single time you roused him he'd deliver an abbreviated version of the joyful dance in the above video.

The first stage of mourning a rescue dog is raw sadness, and the second is this: "At least I gave him/her a better life than he/she would have had." But that's where my mourning process derailed. Tucker was certainly better off with us than with his first owners, and probably better off than with many other potential adoptive families. So he had a better life--but I didn't really give it to him.

About four months after I incited my family to adopt Tucker, I packed up and moved to Tokyo. As an irresponsible act it wasn't perhaps on par with leaving behind a baby or even a horse, but it wasn't particularly fair to either parents or dog. Tucker's death got me thinking about that stage in my life, about the fine line I walked between adventure and escape, about the things that helped me to adjust to my new life just as Tucker was adjusting to his.

Which is where coffee daifuku finally comes in. Daifuku are basic Japanese sweets, balls of bean paste skinned in fresh rice dough. As an illiterate vegetarian, I was initially drawn to the rack of daifuku at my neighborhood grocery store on the assumption that I could expect them not to contain meat. I visited more regularly when I realized that just around the time I got off work, the day's unsold daifuku were marked down to half-price. And then, eating my way through the rainbow of options, I got to the brown one: it was coffee and it was delicious.

After that I ate them every time I got the chance, sometimes even paying full price. My habit ran for months, until one day, the coffee daifuku were gone. The next day, none again. And the next.

Emboldened by my addiction, I cornered a clerk and in shaky Japanese asked about my treat. He said there were none, which of course I already knew.

"Tomorrow?" I pleaded.

He responded with a clear shake of the head and a well-enunciated "No" (rare in Japan). I never saw those daifuku again.

So today I was feeling sad about Tucker and thinking about Japan and the fact that I hadn't eaten coffee daifuku in almost exactly eleven years when I suddenly realized that I had all the ingredients to make them sitting in my kitchen. And whereas I would normally mull and research and make lists until the impulse passed, today, in Tucker's honor, I made them right away.

I've learned a lot of things from dogs in general and from Tucker in particular: the importance of a good stretch, the need to trust one's instincts, the nobility of expressing unrestrained affection. And whether because of their short lives or their tiny bladders, dogs are also masters of the immediate: they don't make to-do lists, and they don't let things drag on. So with that I headed into the kitchen for a date with coffee daifuku, feeling the ghostly touch of a wet black nose goading the back of my leg.

Spur-of-the-Moment Coffee Daifuku

for filling:
250g (freezer-burned) shiroan white bean paste; you could also use store-bought red bean paste
1 tsp instant coffee

for mochi:
1 1/4 c water
1/4 c sugar
pinch salt
1/2 tsp instant coffee
1 1/2 c (not-too-expired) mochiko sweet rice flour
starch for dusting (eg cornstarch or more mochiko)

Let's say you had big plans to make fancy Japanese sweets last year so you spent a couple of days making a stockpile of white bean paste and that cured you of your urge to make wagashi; unearth a package of forgotten shiroan from the freezer and defrost. Mix the instant coffee with just enough water to make a smooth paste and blend into the shiroan (photo below).

You might also have some mochiko, with which you planned to make microwave mochi, but then the microwave died and you were intimidated by the idea of making stovetop mochi so you pushed the box of mochiko into a dark corner of the cupboard; dig it out and dust it off.

Combine the water, sugar, salt, and coffee over medium heat, stirring until everything has dissolved. Use a dampened wooden spoon to stir in the mochi about 1/3c at a time. Once it's all in, continue to stir the gluey mass vigorously for 2-3 more minutes.

Dump the mochi out onto a surface heavily dusted with cornstarch or more mochiko. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes, until you can handle it without wincing. Roll into a fat snake and divide into 10 pieces. Dust your hands well, then roll each piece into a ball and flatten into a small patty. Top that with about 1 Tbs of the bean paste, and stretch the edges of the mochi up until they meet and pinch them together to seal the shiroan inside. Set the daifuku seam-side down on the starched surface to cool.

You can tweak the daifuku to make them as round as possible but don't expect them to look like something a machine plopped onto a conveyor belt; you are not a machine. They will be lopsided and lumpy but you will enjoy the hell out of them anyway, as will the friends you share them with.

Dairy Free Mochi

Dairy Free Mochi
Trader Joe's, $3.49/6

It wasn't so long ago that mochi was unknown in most of the US. I was introduced to the pounded rice confection by an Asian friend in college and went to on eat my body weight in the stuff on trips to Japan. I was always surprised that Americans hadn't fallen hard for a treat that's delicious, relatively healthy, and not so far removed from rice cakes. Even as sushi mania swept the country and raw fish and seaweed became every 5-year-old's favorite food, mochi continued to lurk in the shadows. Some people have told me that it wasn't so much the mochi they couldn't stomach, but the sweetened bean paste that's a standard filling.

Then came ice cream mochi, nuggets of ice cream inside a puffy mochi jacket: red bean flavor for the traditionalist, a dozen choices for everyone else. Suddenly mochi was on everyone's lips--and mochi starch on everyone's faces.

The real irony of ice cream mochi hadn't occured to me until I saw the "Dairy Free Mochi" in the freezer at Trader Joe's: the vast majority of Asians are lactose intolerant. The TJ's treats are filled with a coconut-based ice cream and come in three flavors: coconut, mango, and chocolate. They're rich and creamy and more than tasty enough to induce the lactose-intolerant to join the eat-a-box-of-ice-cream-mochi-in-a-single-sitting club.

The faux ice cream was fine but what really struck me was the mochi: slippery and dense, it was unlike any mochi I'd ever eaten. A look at the ingredients revealed that what they're calling "mochi" isn't mochi at all: "mochi starch" is composed of tapioca starch, water, coconut milk, sugar, and flavoring. A little misleading, sure, but by genercizing the concept of "mochi" Trader Joe's is actually jumping on a very Japanese bandwagon.

Mochi, the doughy confection, takes its name from mochigome, the glutinous "sweet" rice that is traditionally steamed and pounded to produce it. Other starches have since been used to produce non-rice variations on mochi, such as fern-based warabi mochi and kudzu-based kuzu mochi. One thing that these and many other foods have in common is a particular and pleasing type of chewiness--a quality known in Japanese as "mochimochi".

Trader Joe's Dairy Free, Mochigome Free Mochimochi Mochi: yum.

Yaki Kasu

Yaki Kasu
Ozeki

Kasu snacks are the pork scratchings of sake production, industrial by-products that have become beloved foodstuffs in their own right. When sake has fully fermented, it can be filtered to remove the starchy solids. There are a couple of different methods for squeezing the lees or kasu to extract most of the precious alcohol; hand-wrung kasu comes in soft lumps and contains more residual alcohol, while machine-pressed kasu looks like thick sheets of paper and is less alcoholic.

Kasu has a range of uses. It can be added to winter soups or used to pickle vegetables. Sake manju are sweet buns flavored with kasu, and an almost-instant version of the fortifying winter drink amazake can be made by those who want a similar flavor without the 3-day process of making amazake from scratch (simply dissolve kasu in hot water and add grated ginger and sugar or honey to taste).

I had also heard that you could grill sheets of sugared kasu, so when I found raw kasu for sale at Uwajimaya, I decided to try. I don't have a grill and I didn't have any real recipe, so there is probably a method that would be better/or more authentic. I just sprinkled a sheet of kasu with a thick layer of sugar and stuck it under the grill until the caramel bubbled and the edges crisped. The result was sticky, chewy, sweet, and surprisingly boozy--like butterscotch's exotic and intense cousin. One of my odder experiments, but something I'd definitely try again.

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake
Fumie's Gold, $3.75

Pastry chef Fumie Kumagai makes what one of my friends in Japan calls "OL cakes": light, dainty, and impeccable treats that a slim, dainty, and impeccably groomed "office lady" could enjoy on her afternoon break without ruining her appetite for dinner. Kumagai's bijou bakery in downtown Bellevue features classic American and European pastries given an appreciable Japanese twist (e.g. Swiss roll with matcha, Mont Blanc with red beans). Even without any exotic ingredients, the strawberry shortcake was nothing like my mother makes; it was barely sweet, as creamy as a cow, and so light it seemed to levitate onto my fork.

The one thing that Fumie's Gold lacks is seating. Not being particularly dainty myself, I decided to have a shortcake picnic in the large park across the street. It started to drizzle just as I tucked in so I was able entertain several joggers-by with my attempts to juggle cake, umbrella and spork. I left behind a dry seatprint and, sadly, a plop of snow white whipped cream; I looked back at the bench just in time to see both marks disappear in the rain.

Fumie's Gold

10045 NE 1st St

Ste CU2
Bellevue, WA
425/223-5893

Matsukaze

Miso Matsukaze Cake

Matsukaze is a Japanese expression that describes the rustling sound made by wind blowing through pine trees. It is also a tea ceremony term, referring to the whisper of water in an iron kettle reaching the correct temperature for tea.

Matsukaze is also the name of this simple steamed cake. The secret ingredient is miso, a salty, pungent paste of fermented soybeans that is more usually used for soups, sauces, and marinades. Like meat, truffles, and seaweed, miso is intensely umami, the term used by the Japanese for that "fifth flavor," a savory quality that imparts a feeling of satisfaction.

Although matsukaze is relatively light, containing no butter, egg yolks, or oil, the addition of miso gives it a strangely meaty richness. Thanks to the steaming process, matsukaze's texture is also something you can really get your teeth into; think sweet-salty foam rubber.

Miso Matsukaze Cake

from Masako Yamoko's First Book of Japanese Cooking

2 Tbs low to medium sodium miso

1 c sugar

2 egg whites

1 1/4 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

-prepare a small cake pan by lining it with parchment or coating with butter and flour.

-preheat oven to 400F.

-mash the miso into the sugar, then add a scant cup of water and whisk until there are no lumps.

-beat eggs into stiff peaks. fold into the miso.

-sift flour and baking powder together. sift again into the egg/miso mix. blend well.

-pour batter into the prepared pan. cover with foil and pierce with several holes.

-place the cake pan inside a larger pan with an inch or so of hot water.

-bake around 50 minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test.

-for a brown top, remove the foil for the final 15 minutes, or grill the cake, top down, in an oiled skillet.

-serve hot or at room temperature.

Suikanshuku

Suikanshuku

Minamoto Kitchoan

Persimmon season in Japan is much like zucchini season in parts of the US. In a good year, growers will have such a surplus that it becomes almost a curse, and they resort to ingenious means to deal with it. At one of the schools where I taught in Tokyo, we often found that a silent, anonymous persimmon fairy had left sacks full of ripe fruit in the waiting room while our classroom doors were closed for lessons.

There is a moment during which a fresh persimmon is sweet and juicy; before it they taste like sour dish soap and after, like insipid mush. There is, however, a laborious and specialized process that extends and magnifies that delicious moment, resulting in dried persimmons known as hoshigaki that are so succulently sweet they seem almost to have been glaceed. The ripe but firm fruit is peeled and suspended by its stem from a rack in open air. Over the course of several weeks, the fruit is massaged every few days to tenderize the pulp and prevent it from becoming tough and leathery. As the hoshigaki cures, the fruit's natural sugars migrate to the surface and crystallize, forming a delicate second skin.

Minamoto Kitchoan's Suikashuku is a premium seasonal confection that features a hoshigaki stuffed with white bean paste and coated in red bean paste. The persimmon stem protrudes from the bean paste skin, and the whole thing is dusted with granular starch that evokes the dried fruit's natural bloom. It's a delectable trompe l'oeil--the mellow sweetness of the bean paste tempering the intensity of the fruit and coaxing from it a pleasant tartness.

Slow Food USA has more on hoshigaki, including information on a growing number of US producers.

Mochi Ice Cream

Mochi Ice Cream

Mikawaya, $4.50/6

When I tell people about my interest in Japanese sweets, I usually get one of two responses: either polite silence, or "Have you tried those mochi ice cream balls?"

If I had a dollar for every time I've rolled my eyes at that question, I'd be able to hire my own personal mochi maker. Yes, I've tried mochi ice cream. Is it delicious? Sure. Is it interesting? Until recently, I didn't think so.

If this criticism seems absurd, let me explain that I normally find mochi as fascinating as it is delicious. Essentially an amorphous mass of so-called "sweet" glutinous rice beaten into a paste, mochi is a bland and blank thing of almost unlimited potential. Mochi can be: dried, steamed, roasted or fried; made sweet or savory; filled, coated, or dipped; formed into a hundred different shapes; eaten as a snack or offered on an altar.

Mochi is a major feature of Japanese New Year's celebrations and many families or communities gather annually for mochi making parties. Last year I attended two such mochitsuki. At Seattle's Nichirenshu, the congregation has been making mochi as a fundraiser for decades; using noisy electric grinders to transform the steamed rice helps them to keep up with orders. On Bainbridge Island, the community mochitsuki is a younger tradition with a more old-fashioned approach; volunteers take turns beating the rice with a heavy wooden mallet while onlookers enjoy the "fruits" of their labor, filled with red bean paste or dipped in sweetened soy sauce.

This year I was unable to make it to any of Seattle's mochitsuki, but I was in the mood for some mochi with which to ring in the New Year. And there they were, in the freezer at Trader Joe's: Mikawaya mochi ice cream balls. They turned out to be better than I remembered and more interesting that I expected.

Los Angeles-based Mikawaya was established in 1908 and named after Mikawa, a town in the Japanese prefecture of Aichi that was home to one of the founders. Ryuzaburo Hashimoto bought the company two years later, and his descendants have been in charge ever since. The company face a major challenge in 1942, with the signing of Executive Order 9066. Along with thousands of West Coast Japanese-Americans, the Hashimotos were "relocated" to a rural internment camp and their business was shuttered. Although Mikawaya remained closed throughout the war, the Hashimotos were able to reopen by Christmas, 1945, one door down from their previous location.

Compared with many Japanese-owned businesses, Miyakawa was relatively undented by the wartime hiatus. The Hashimoto family, however, had one unforgettable reminder of their expereince: daughter Frances, born at the internment camp in Poston, Arizona.

Today, Frances is Mikawaya's President and CEO, as well as guardian of the secret family mochi recipe. Under her leadership, Mikawaya has developed a strikingly diverse line-up. In addition to hand-formed Japanese-style wagashi sweets that Ryuzaburo would recognize, Mikawaya produces cakes, pastries, and gelato in a modern Los Angeles factory.

Introduced in 1994, mochi ice cream is now Mikawaya's best known product. A ball of ice cream encased in soft rice dough, mochi ice cream is an elegantly simple hybrid of Japanese and Europe traditions. Seven flavors are now on the market; Mikawaya asked fans to vote via Facebook for flavor number eight and the winner was pumpkin. When the new treat appears later this year it will epitomize the melding of Japanese, European, and indigenous American tastes.