'Japanese Farm Food'

choi

David Tanis, Sharing Lessons of a Farm in Japan. New York Times, Oct 17, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/1 ... -farm-in-japan.html
("Her visits always included piles of gifts, a habit picked up in Japan. Sometimes it was a smuggled package of delicate bean curd, sometimes a handmade teacup, but she never arrived empty-handed")


My comment:
(a) About the quotation. Now I realize where the Taiwanese custom of bringing gifts (which I often consider a bribe) comes from.
(b)
(i) Nancy Singleton Hachisu  
http://www.nancysingletonhachisu.com/

Her Japanese name is 八須 ナンシー (the latter, pronounced "nanshī," being the katagana for Nancy)--without "Singleton."
(ii) For photos of (A) her and her husband, and (B) cover of her cookbook, see
Hiroshi MATSUBARA 松原 宏, American Farm Bride to Japan Pens Book About Traditional Food. Asahi Shimbun, Aug 15, 2012.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/cooking/AJ201208150009
(iii) Her husband is Tadaaki HACHISU 八須 理明, an organic egg farmer.

Radiation and Japan: Tadaaki Hachisu, Egg Farmer. YouTube.com, Uploaded by umamimart on Nov 10, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-tTX5ktHFc
(iv) "AJW (Asia & Japan Watch) is Japan's leading newspaper, Asahi Shimbun's English digital edition: ajw.asahi.com"
(v) Her cookbook:
Nancy Singleton Hachisu, Japanese Farm Food. Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2012.

(c)
(i) Chez Panisse Restaurant
http://www.chezpanisse.com/about/chez-panisse/
(in 1971 founded by Alice Waters and a group of idealistic friends; named after Honoré Panisse, a character in Marcel Pagnol’s 1930s movie trilogy about waterfront life in Marseille (Marius, Fanny, and César))
(A) Chez Panisse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chez_Panisse
(B) chez (preposition; French, from Latin casa cottage):
"at or in the home or business place of"

Pay attention to its pronunciation, due to its French origin.
(ii) Alice Waters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Waters
(1944- ; an American chef)

(d) The article states, "Used to the weather in temperate Northern California, where seasons change only subtly, and it never snows, she needed to change her mind-set when relocating to the Japanese countryside."

So it does not snow in Northern California.

(e) The article says Ms Singleton Hachisu "join in seasonal rituals. There’s a lovely description of the communal celebratory pounding of mochi (glutinous rice) for the Japanese New Year to make traditional sweet rice cakes."
(i) The Kanji for "mochi もち" in Japanese can be either 餅 (cake made of glutinous rice) or 糯 (glutinous rice).
もち
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%82%E3%81%A1

For the former, see mochi  餅
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi
(ii) Japanese New Year  正月
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_New_Year
("The Japanese New Year has been celebrated since 1873 according to the Gregorian calendar, on January 1 of each year (New Year's Day where the Gregorian calendar is used). In Okinawa, the cultural New Year is still celebrated as the contemporary Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese New Years")

(f) The article follows with the sentence: "Nancy also insists on her own tradition of Champagne and French gougères for Christmas."

gougère
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goug%C3%A8re
(g) udon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udon
(thick wheat-flour noodle of Japanese cuisine)
(h)
(i) kabocha  カボチャ 《南瓜》 【かぼちゃ; なんか(ok)】 (n): "pumpkin; squash"
Jim Breen's online Japanese dictionary
(ii) カボチャ  南瓜
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/カボチャ
(カボチャ属（学名 Cucurbita）の総称である; 一般にはポルトガル語由来であるとされ、通説として「カンボジア」を意味する Camboja （カンボジャ）の転訛であるとされる)

translation: "kabocha" is the name of the genus 属; "kabocha" is corrupted from "camboja" of Portugese language.

(i) In the photo, sake bottle has a label 出羽桜 Dewazakura.
出羽桜酒造株式会社  Dewazakura Sake Brewery Co.,Ltd
www.dewazakura.co.jp/
* founded in 1893 and based in Tendō City 天童市, Yamagata Prefecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tend%C5%8D,_Yamagata
* Dewa Province  出羽国
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewa_Province