Note:
(a) "Yūsuke SHIMO-KI 下木 雄介 runs Engawa, a tiny bar in Kaga, in the Ishikawa Prefecture of Japan, on the mountainous north-central coast, near the Sea of Japan. * * * The name of Shimoki’s bar translates as ‘‘porch’’ in English, a place to gather and hang out as we did — drinking sake, talking sake and eating excellent food."
(i) 和酒Bar 縁がわ Washu Bar Engawa https://www.facebook.com/washubarengawa/info?tab=overview
("お陰様で１年が経ちました")
translation: Thanks to your honor, a year passed [the shop opened a year ago].
(ii) Kaga, Ishikawa 石川県 加賀市 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaga,_Ishikawa
is the glob with magenta color, in the southwestern corner of the prefecture.
(b)
(i) Japanese English dictionary:
* engawa 縁側 【えんがわ】 (n): " (1) veranda; porch; balcony; open corridor; (2) meat at the base of a fin (esp of a flatfish)" (The (2) is used used in sushi.)
^ gawa P[rincipal] 側 【がわ(P); かわ】 (n,suf[fix]): "side (of something, or taking someone's side), part"
(ii) veranda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veranda
(c) "We [author and Shimoki] met by chance in Brooklyn, at a dinner at the home of Hannah Kirshner, a food writer and recipe developer who publishes the small magazine Sweets and Bitters. * * * We communicated haltingly as he poured sake and Kirshner cooked, our words translated by Hiroshi Kumagai, Kirshner’s fiancé. * * * Ms Kirshner, 27, grew up on a farm in Washington State, home to goats, sheep and, yes, chickens * * * Mr Kumagai, 39, an artist and a graphic designer"
(i) Kirschner (Kirshner being a variant) is German/Jewish surname meaning "furrier" (one who makes fur coat).
(ii) Elizabeth A Harris, A Home for Them, And Their Chickens. New York Times, Nov 13, 2012 www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/nyreg ... o-chicken-coop.html
("Hannah Kirshner and her boyfriend, Hiroshi Kumagai * * * Ms Kirshner and Mr Kumagai are not in the best of circumstances: they are among the thousands of New Yorkers who were displaced by Hurricane Sandy, which filled their garden-level rental apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with water just a few inches shy of the ceiling and rendered it uninhabitable for months")
(iii) Kumagai 熊谷 is a Japanese surname.