Travel

Tokyo – Edo Museum, Tokyo (Ghibli Tour 1)

We’re back from Japan so I thought I’d revisit the original plan and how it all worked out.

Staring with Tokyo, with just four nights and a stroppy teenager channelling her inner toddler, we just didn’t have enough time.

We had four nights in Tokyo, staying in a four bed family apartment near the Ueno metro station. We arrived mid-afternoon after a punishing trip so were just too tired to try anything other than finding our apartment and food for supper/breakfast.

We then woke up for a full day tour based around Studio Ghibli which includes a trip to the Ghibli Museum in the suburbs which might sound difficult given jet lag but actually turned out to be an ideal way of keeping us going, helping to acclimatise us all to Tokyo in a very benign manner.

The Ghibli Tour is based on a bus tour and includes the Ghibli Museum, a buffet lunch at Hotel Gajoen Tokyo (a possible inspiration for the Aburaya bath house in Spirited Away, and the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum.

Bizarrely for a tour that starts at 10am (or thereabouts) it starts with “lunch” at 11am at the hotel and the hotel’s link to Spirited Away felt like a stretch.

Does the entrance to the main building really look like the bath house? Does the open plan set of floors really reming me of the floors inside the Spirited Away bath house? Not convinced.

Next the tour took us to the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Here historical buildings from across Japan have been reconstructed in the middle of a wooded park, to create the atmosphere of feudal era Japan – it’s supposed to feel like walking through a Ghibli set. And the links to Ghibli are much more obvious.

Edo Tokyo Museum
Edo Museum, Tokyo

You can believe that the people working at the nearby studio came here for a packed lunch in the museum park.

Edo Museum Tokyo

On a damp day, an empty street of historic buildings could very plausibly be the inspiration for the empty daytime row of shops leading to the bath house.

Bathhouse Edo Museum Tokyo
Edo Museum

As well as the main street there are various traditional buildings and a tram very reminiscent of the “train” over water in Spirted Away.

Edo Museum

Although nothing to do with the film, the farmhouse rebuilt at the museum was very beautiful

Edo Museum Tokyo
Edo Museum Tokyo
Edo Museum

The House of Korekiyo Takahashi, a politician of the Meiji period and the site of apolitical coup, has perhaps more links to Ghibli, with its windows very reminiscent of those of Yubaba’s through which Haku was attacked.

Edo Museum Tokyo
Edo Museum
Edo Museum Tokyo

But as always, it is the details of life, the feel of the place that was most striking – very serene.

Edo Museum
Edo Museum
Food

Japanese Curry Brick

Just back from Japan and we’re missing the food already. Japanese curry is a funny sort of thing, but made immeasurably easier to cook with a pre-prepared curry brick that can be dissolved to make a quick curry sauce.

Japanese Curry Brick

FOR THE SPICE MIX:

  • 1 (2-inch) cinnamon stick, pounded into small pieces
  • 1 dried bay leaf
  • 1 tablespoon brown mustard seeds
  • 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
  • 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
  • 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
  • 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
  • ½ teaspoon whole cloves
  • 2 cardamom pods
  • 1 dried shiitake mushroom, broken into pieces
  • 1 (1-inch strip) dried kombu, cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1 ½ teaspoons whole black peppercorns
  • 1 orange, zested
  • 1 tablespoon ground turmeric
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 1 tablespoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or more to taste

FOR THE ROUX:

  • 1 ½ cups/340 grams unsalted butter (3 sticks)
  • 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
  •  Nutritional Information

PREPARATION

  1. In a large skillet, toast cinnamon, bay leaf, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, cloves and cardamom pods over medium heat, stirring until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Be careful not to burn the spices. Transfer the toasted ingredients to a spice grinder.
  2. Add the mushroom, kombu and peppercorns to the spice grinder, and grind at the highest speed for 30 seconds. Shake the grinder a couple of times as you blend to make sure the cinnamon stick is pulverized. (You can also grind the spices in batches, if necessary.) Transfer the pulverized spices to a small bowl. Add the orange zest, turmeric, ginger, sea salt, paprika and cayenne pepper.
  3. To make the roux, melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. When the butter is nearly melted, lower the heat to medium-low. Gradually whisk in the flour, and cook, stirring constantly, until the roux turns light brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Be careful not to burn the roux. Turn off the heat, add the spice mix and stir until well combined.
  4. Divide the mixture among three mini aluminum loaf pans, adding about 3/4 cup per loaf pan, or transfer the entire mixture to a parchment-lined quarter-size sheet tray. Let cool for a few minutes at room temperature, then transfer to the fridge so the bricks can solidify. Once firm, unmold, cut each brick into 9 small curry brick cubes (or, if using a sheet tray, cut the mixture into 27 pieces total) and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Store in the refrigerator for about a month or in the freezer for 3 months.

Tip

  • To make a Japanese curry, heat 4 tablespoons of light sesame oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add 1 chopped white onion, 1 chopped carrot, 1 peeled and quartered potato, 2 minced garlic cloves and about 1 1/2 pounds squash. Sauté, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes. Add 4 cups stock, and simmer for about 15 minutes, then add 3 small curry brick cubes, and simmer gently until the curry has thickened, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with miso, soy sauce, sake and minced fresh ginger, and serve over hot rice.
Home, Travel

Japan

A family trip to Japan was a mixed blessing. Two out of the four adored the country and the trip but the other two, not so much.

My partner was anxious the entire time, and it’s a country that really does not merit any anxiety at all. It is safe, secure and reliable. Japanese people are helpful and kind to guests. As a self-guided holiday destination it just works really well.

Tokyo subway

We used public transport to get around every day, covering large distances and only one train was late (by less than 5 minutes). Announcements are in Japanese followed by English, both spoken and written.

Though sometimes working out what the translation meant took some time.

So either my partner is just becoming more anxious with age which my friends tell me is definitely “a thing”. Or it was because of my psycho second daughter.

Let’s start with the obligatory (and entirely true): I love both of my children.

On holiday in Japan, however, one of them was a lot easier to like. It was probably just a reaction to the inevitable stress of an overseas holiday spent travelling around. I’m under no illusions that it’s a holiday type that really does not suit some people. Many of my friends are quite clear that, for them, almost constant travelling from place to place would be the holiday from hell.

So now that my kids are both around 20, maybe it’s time to stop travelling as a family. except the oldest child was just a total delight to travel with and I’m left wondering whether we could just split the parents and kids up 2:2 and just do different holidays. Hmm. I do not have the social skills to explain that to either my partner or youngest child.

Either way, Tokyo was everything a busy modern city should be, and clean, and safe. It was astonishingly mono-culture (and mainly mono-colour) for someone visiting from London.

The food was astonishingly good and accessible even for vegetarians. Travelling around it was often easier to look for vegan food than to explain vegetarian presumably because dairy isn’t so popular within Japanese food. fast food largely consisted of noodle bars and nigiri to go for us, but the choices for unrestricted diets was extraordinary.

If my youngest child hadn’t insisted on heading back to the hotel mid-afternoon and them refusing to leave until morning, we would have enjoyed the whole experience a lot more. Tokyo felt like an evening city. Maybe all cities light up well but it was a place that also felt incredibly safe at night.

I just wish the company had lived up to the location.

Food

Salad with a tamarind dressing

You could make this with something as simple as a plateful of ripe tomatoes, but for the post-match supper at the tennis club, I’ve used the dressing with roasted vegetables, bulked out with some cooked lentils.

summer tomato salad with sweet tamarind dressing | A Brown Table

All salads should be easy to make and shouldn’t require a huge amount of work. This recipe adds fresh brightly colored chilies for heat and color along with fresh cilantro leaves.

summer tomato salad with sweet tamarind dressing | A Brown Table

Ingredients

  • 2 large heirloom tomatoes (see notes above) & 2 cups cherry tomatoes, OR:
  • Around 1kg roasted vegetables e.g. half butternut squash, baby onions, sweet potatoes
  • Cooked puy lentils
  • 4 thai chili peppers, red and yellow color
  • 2 tablespoons whole cilantro leaves, fresh
  • 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt 
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper powder, freshly ground + extra if needed
  • 2 teaspoons tamarind concentrate 
  • 1/2 teaspoon fresh lime juice
  • 3 teaspoons dark brown sugar or jaggery crushed
  • 1/4 teaspoon toasted coriander powder, freshly ground (see notes above)
  • 100mL cup water
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon Maldon sea salt flakes
  1. Thinly slice the heirloom tomatoes and arrange them on a serving platter. Add the cherry tomatoes over them. OR assemble roast vegetables .
  2. Slice the chili peppers lengthwise in half and arrange them over the tomatoes. Sprinkle the cilantro leaves over the tomatoes. 
  3. Take a 500mL mason jar or glass jar with a lid. Add all the ingredients from the tamarind to the olive oil. Close the jar tight with its lid and then shake vigorously until it forms an emulsion. Taste the dressing and adjust seasoning if necessary with salt and pepper.
  4. Drizzle enough dressing over the salad and sprinkle with the Maldon sea salt flakes and/or pepper if needed. Serve immediately.
summer tomato salad with sweet tamarind dressing | A Brown Table
Home

Not dead yet

The hanging baskets are still alive. After a few days of drenching rain, the main garden is looking green and lush but the rest is a little bit depressing.

Just as one part of the garden seems perfect, some other part runs out of control. And at the moment so many pieces of the garden seem flawed that I’m daunted. I’d like to start laying another flower (rose) bed but it seems a bit pointless until the rest of the garden falls into place. I need a list.

  • Gravel garden. Too many plants dies last Summer and stripping and relaying the garden to repair the flat roof hasn’t helped at all. It looked relatively elegant in the Winter, but right now the gravel is covered with speedwell and just looks mostly abandoned. Plus cats have started to scrat in amongst the gravel.
    • Weedkiller on the speedwell in the gravel.
    • Cutback the dead plants and consider replanting en-masse
  • Underneath the holly tree there is a more or less abandoned compost “beehive” useless because it’s just too dry to make compost. Some of the houseleeks have taken root but not enough to make a feature of the place.
    • Empty the beehive and move the composter to the dark garden where even if it isn’t effective (also dry) it will at least look better than weeds.
    • Plant more houseleeks
  • The dark garden is overrun with euphorbia and geraniums except for under the yew trees where nothing is growing at all. The fatsia in one of the planters is looking dreadful and cats have started to scrat.
    • Take out much of the geranium to give other plants some space and take out most of the euphorbia (wear gloves)
    • Re-lay the bed in the dark garden and move plants from underneath the yew hedges leaving a relatively large unplanted area. Consider what to do with the space and whether or not the largest compost bin can be dug out and abandoned to add to the space.
    • Dse the pots being babied down by the house to top up any dead zones
  • The beds at the front garden look messy, overrun with the remains of alliums that never really seemed worthwhile. Without pots to cheer up the space, it just looks bare.
    • Either strip the mess out or plant some fleabane over them
  • Bedding still waiting to be planted out
    • Get on with it – using available family
  • I want an extra rose bed at the back before the yew hedge, maybe raised with sleepers to make it easier. I need to find a man to do the work and price up the sleepers, topsoil and labour though this all assumes I can persuade my partner to cut up some lawn.
    • Do some research and ask around.
Food

Lentil Tort

This is based on a very old Cranks recipe, turned into more of a pastry less quiche than a lentil bake. It can be eaten warm or cold.

INGREDIENTS (Serves: 12)

  • 175 grams red lentils (washed and drained)
  • 350 millilitres water, add more as required
  • 225 grams cheese (grated – something with a kick to it such as mature cheddar or Gouda)
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 8 eggs beaten
  • salt (to taste)
  • pepper (to taste)

METHOD

Heat the oven to 190C 

Boil the lentils in the water with the lid on until the lentils are soft  (around 15 minutes) adding more water if the pan runs dry. Meanwhile fry the onions until soft.

Take the pan of the heat and stir the onion into the lentils. Add the cheese and mix well. Allow to cool slightly and add the eggs

Put the mixture in a rectangular cake/bread mould or a springmould. Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Variations:

  • Add vegetable stock cube OR 1 tsp marmite OR 1 tbsp white miso to the water and lentils
  • Add asparagus, tomatoes etc to the basic mixture

Or if you want something significantly different, fry chilli and garlic with the onions before adding to the lentils. Leave out the cheese altogether. Press onion rings into the top of the lentil mix in the tin and bake. Serve this with a curry in place of a dhal side dish.

And then there is an alternative lentil dish that sounded wonderful:

MISIR WOT (LENTIL STEW)

Looking for a recipe for a red lentil bake, something from my very first days as a vegetarian and came across a Moroccan version with spiced butter.

Method

1Begin by making the niter kibbeh. Place the butter in a saucepan along with the rest of the ingredients and simmer over a very low heat for about 20 minutes. The butter solids should be starting to caramelise into a beurre noisette but be careful not to cook too long, or it will burn

2 Line a sieve with a piece of muslin or coffee filter and strain the butter into a bowl

3 To make the stew, add 4 tbsp of the niter kibbeh to a medium pan and add the onions and garlic. Cook over a medium-low heat until softened

4 Add the berbere and tomato purée and cook out for a further minute. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook down for 8 minutes until the tomatoes start to break down a little. Keep stirring to avoid them sticking to the bottom of the pan

5 Rinse the lentils, then add them to the stew along with 500ml stock. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally

6 Serve the misir wot with extra niter kibbeh drizzled over the top

Rants&Rambles

Little Old Lady

Increasingly I find myself embracing my inner little old lady.

Little old ladies are scary buggers. They are not the people to mess with, if you’re ever given a choice. Whilst some of the little old ladies that I know can be the sweetest people alive, they also give the fewest fucks about living up to expectations, and just occasionally, they are the meanest humans to ever walk this earth. Never ask a little old lady what they think of your looks, your clothes, your politics, or anything really, unless you’re happy with a brutally honest reply.

So a few years ago, I finally decided that I’d sat for long enough in a hairdresser’s salon, and allowed my hair to revert to its natural colour. I like to describe it as silver, but I’m entirely ok with the idea of steely grey. When I turn around, people are shocked with how much younger my face looks than my hair colour might imply – and you never really want it to be the other way around.

Last Summer, I spent my entire life living in a version of the same free-flowing linen dress, which could plausibly be described as a bit “Maid Marion”. It’s not quite a sack as it fits too well cross the shoulders but it’s certainly not shapely, not hugging my menopausal waistline. It does happen to be incredibly comfortable, easy to wear and has pockets, something most women’s clothes seem to bizarrely lack. Trousers make no sense to me whatsoever at this stage of life.

Having worn my little-old-lady dresses to death, I’ve invested in similar free-flowing linen dresses for this year. I can dress them warm with leggings and thin under-layer long sleeve t-shirts or just wear them as they are on the warmer days. And forget heels. I’m wearing flats these days because they just feel better on my feet. And when I write flats, I mean comfortable well-made flats, none of that trendy platform nonsense, though clogs are tempting.

I will not be one of those tiny “attractive” flirty little old ladies. I am growing into a battle-axe persona with considerable joy.

When someone beeps their horn behind me as I drive along, I’m now more likely to stop my car, get out and politely ask them if there’s a problem that I need to know about. When some young men look to be hassling a young girl on the metro or bus, I’m almost certain to ask the girl if she’s ok and, if pushed, tell the young men that they should be ashamed of themselves for being such bullies.

I am also much more interested in my garden, my tennis, visiting galleries with girlfriends and playing bridge, because this stuff is fun. The people that I meet through all of these activities are entertaining and exasperating but mostly out to have a good time, rather than pick a fight or score points on some unknown cosmic ego scale.

And all of this means that I spend more time with women than men, which is just a lot more pleasant. Men are harder work than women in everyday life and at each stage of life, and I’ve reached a point where mostly they just don’t seem to be worth the effort anymore. My partner is obviously worthwhile, but other people’s men, not so much. men are just too convinced that they’re entertaining intrinsically and without effort. It’s just not true and never has been.

The world pretends young men’s opinions have some value out of politeness, just as parents pretend everything their toddlers do and say has some significance, but now if men are basically talking bollocks, it seems entirely reasonable to point it out or just note that I disagree with them without a need to make an argument at all. Why dignify a half-arsed opinion with a logical rebuttal?

Maybe men die earlier, often when they retire because no one can be arsed to spend time with them anymore, not even their own wives and daughters. Men do not seem to age well. I have run out of patience for sitting at a party asking a man questions, waiting for them to ask anything about me or my life, where they mistake my politeness for interest and their own monologue as conversation. Fuck off.

I’m a little old lady now and if you want me to pay you some attention then be interesting or interested. Only family get a free-pass for my time and attention.

Home

May Garden

I’ve started tracking my garden through instagram. The alliums have started to flower and are just so ridiculously cheerful as bright white and purple pom-poms. The smaller pinkish alliums are appearing in the new beds whilst the yellow alliums are just about to brighten up the gravel. Last year at the Chelsea Flower Show we fell in love with the allium display, not really noting that they’d had all their leaves cut off. The reason why has become obvious with slugs and snails really enjoying making a mess of them. Still worthwhile though.

Allium + bee

The surprise has been the early appearance of the pink roses which are now flowerful enough to need to cut. We headed off to the shops for two new smaller bowls just to cope with the overspill of rose blooms about to go over. The white roses have yet to make an appearance en-masse but they are a year younger and it is still ridiculously early in the year. Bizarrely the nine roses were planted out at regular intervals (measured by an OCD partner) but have grown quite obviously into three groups of three. It’s not unattractive, but it’s certainly unexpected. I’ve replaced some penstemon in the gaps.

The very old roses are flowering but very straggly and riddled with blackspot. The books tell me that this fungal disease is basically endemic to all rose plants though the younger varieties should have some resistance. Anti-fungal sprays are available but th basic answer seems to be to remove the infected leaves and try to limit the re-spread that way. Maybe if I feed the roses and keep them relatively well watered it will help them just through avoiding plant stress.

My hanging baskets are still alive which is cheering though only because I’m still in the first month of watering. This year I’ve added some of those water retentive pellets to them, but ultimately the answer is pretty obviously to water them daily and not lose interest after 6 weeks. Ho hum.

Allium

This year I’ve added some white leucanthemum to a border for late Summer and a couple of white lupins in front of the magnolia shrub. I’m finding white works well against the green and looks sharper in late Summer when everything starts to look a little dry and tired. Though I’m still not sure how any of this will hold together if we go away for a three week trip to Japan.

Most of the pots are still in the courtyard part of the garden where they were all brought for our last trip in order to try out a new automatic watering system. In the end we just set it to continuously drip rather than sticking it on a timer. The tap into the garden is so old we struggled to find any connector that would work reliably. I’ve added a fats in a pot to make the area look even more lush and jungle-like.

It means that all of the potted ferns are together though they could usefully be moved towards the very back, the dry dark garden, which is currently being overrun by geraniums. Again. Geraniums, tiarella, woodruff, euphorbia and bugold are impossible to kill but pull out in a very satisfying manner. Obviously euphorbia is an irritant so gloves will be required for any serious removals.

There’s also quite a lot of weeding to be done up on the gravel roof with clover picking through the gravel everywhere. A little bit of rain and a lot of sunshine make the weeding up there look a little daunting. I’m wondering whether to put the miniature confer I have in a pot in the middle of the bed within the blue grasses, but it might just look a bit twee.

So everything seems to be arriving a little bit early, including the weeds and as normal, I’m putting off the weeding.

It does look beautiful though.

Rants&Rambles

Tattle Tale

If your son sent an unsolicited dick pic, would you want to know?

Would it change your answer if they were 14 or 24 years old? 34 or 44 years old? Does it change your answer if you have a teenage daughter who has just been sent such a picture?

Someone sent my daughter an unsolicited dick pic in her first year at university. She was 18 and he was probably the same age. It was neither the first nor the last unwanted picture of a man’s genitals she has received.

The man involved was someone whose name she knew. She had come across him at some social event, but hadn’t had any kind of conversation with him. He was entirely peripheral to her experience that evening. Two days later he sent her a few pictures of his penis. & when I received a picture file on-line from an unknown telephone number, his name was mentioned in passing. His pictures were unsolicited but not anonymous.

& knowing his name, meant that I could look him up on the usual social media sites, so I know he has parents (also easily contacted on-line) and siblings, though not a sister.

I wonder whether his mother knows or would want to know what her son is doing to random young women. & I wonder how big a step it is from sending unsolicited pictures, to making unsolicited comments, threats and abuse on-line. How big a step is it from on-line abuse to real-life abuse?

When did the kind of behaviour ever start to seem reasonable?

Food

Black lime tofu

Dried limes are especially popular in Iran, Iraq, Oman and the Persian Gulf and they come whole or ground, black or white (they also go by different names such as Omani limes, Iranian limes or noomi basra). Use the black variety here, if you can.

I usually serve this dish with steamed white rice or warm flatbreads to scoop everything up but I’ve also been known to use the tofu as an addition to a spinach salad.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s black lime tofu.

Prep 10 min
Cook 20 min
Serves 4

1 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tsp caster sugar
1 small red onion, peeled and cut into thin rounds (use a mandoline, if you have one)
Salt and black pepper
600ml sunflower oil, for frying 
2 blocks extra-firm tofu (560g), patted dry and cut into 2cm cubes
2 tbsp cornflour
2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
60ml olive oil
2 tsp cumin seeds, roughly crushed in a mortar
10g dried black limes (about 2-3), blitzed in a spice grinder to get 2 tbsp
2 tbsp tomato paste
20g parsley leaves, roughly chopped
250g baby spinach

In a small bowl, mix the vinegar, a teaspoon of sugar, the red onion and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, then leave to pickle while you get on with making the rest of the dish.

Heat the sunflower oil in a medium saute pan on a medium-high flame. In a bowl, toss the tofu in the cornflour until well coated. Fry the tofu in two batches, until crisp and lightly browned – about six minutes a batch – then transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper, to drain.

While the tofu is frying, make the sauce. Pulse the onion and garlic in a food processor until very finely minced (but not pureed). Put the olive oil in a large saute pan on a medium-high heat, then fry the onion mixture, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned – about seven minutes. Add the cumin, lime powder and tomato paste, cook for a minute, then add 400ml water, the last teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon and a quarter of salt and a good grind of pepper. Bring to a simmer, then cook, stirring occasionally, for six minutes, until thick and rich. Add the tofu, parsley and another grind of pepper, stir to coat, then add the spinach in increments, stirring, until it has just wilted – about three minutes.

Transfer to a shallow platter, top with the pickled onion and serve.