The World in My Kitchen (19 page)

When I went back to New York in the fall, I asked my friends for donations and sent books, boxes of pencils, and shoes to Dodoma, hoping that all the kids in the Wagogo village would be able to go to school.

The following year we returned in the summer to Dodoma. This time I was really prepared. I knew exactly what food to bring: boxes of flour ready to be turned into bread by just adding water; cans of meats, cans of vegetables, and bras of all sizes for bartering, plus clothing for the young Wagogo children and notebooks for the school that I bought in Paris. As this was to be our last summer in Tanzania, Jimmy decided to take us for a long weekend to visit a game park. We flew to Ngorongoro Crater and saw elephants roaming freely, hippopotamus swimming, and hyenas eating while we waited to drive on. On another weekend, Jimmy and Thomas climbed to the top of Tanzania’s highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, while I contented myself with climbing with great difficulties to the first stage.

At the end of the summer, the day before we left Dodoma, a stream of Tanzanians came to bid us good-bye. Our new Wagogo friends came too, carrying dark brown wooden stools made of a single piece of wood, carved ivory bracelets, and multicolored cloths. For Thomas, they brought a ceremonial wooden spear.

To this day, I miss Tanzania. I was bitten by the African bug. I loved the country and its people. I had made many friends, and from afar, followed their lives, hoping that one day I would return.

In September, back in New York for the beginning of the school year, I was restless. Once again, I found myself scheming to travel to some faraway country. This time I put all my effort to find a way to go to Japan. Japanese restaurants were opening everywhere in New York, and I wanted to learn more about their cuisine.

At my friend Arakawa’s suggestion, I joined the Japan Society and met Peter Grilli, who was their culture and movie director. Peter was short and woolly like a lovable teddy bear. He had been brought up in Japan, where his father was a well-known music critic. He loved Japan and Japanese culture and cuisine. He very quickly understood my curiosity for Japanese ingredients and ways of preparing food, as I often dragged him to Japanese restaurants asking hundreds of questions. Very quickly I learned that Japanese food wasn’t merely sushi and sashimi, which had started to sweep New York City, but was an incredibly complex and fascinating cuisine. Peter taught me how to order and ask for dishes that were not on the menu, such as soba, the buckwheat noodle, eaten cold with a dipping sauce; tiny broiled sardines; or sautéed eggplant topped with bonito shavings that seemed to be alive, moving in the air.

One day, Peter announced that he was organizing a gastronomic tour of Japan for the Japan Society’s most important supporters and trustees. I was envious, but the trip was very expensive, and I simply could not afford it. A month before they were to leave for Japan, Peter approached me. Would I like to join the group? He needed someone who had some knowledge of Japanese food, someone who would ask intelligent questions and discuss food with the chefs who were going to prepare very special meals. We would be traveling in Japan for three weeks. The only thing that I had to do was to make a small contribution to the Japan Society. The trip was in June, so I would be finished with teaching. But what about my four children? I was hoping that Jimmy would accept my going and take care of the kids. My friend Elisabeth once again came to the rescue. The children could come and join her children in East Hampton, and Lucy would go with them. Jimmy very reluctantly accepted my departure.

“I will miss you, but I left you when I went to Tanzania,” he said with a sad smile, “so now it is your turn, and three weeks is not that long.”

On the plane to Tokyo, I learned that most of my companions were going to Japan mainly to buy antiques. No one, it seemed, was too excited about the gastronomic tour, and I understood why Peter had asked me to join them.

On our first evening in Tokyo, Peter announced that we were invited by the emperor’s principal chef for a kaiseki dinner. A kaiseki dinner, Peter explained, is based on food of the season and also on the chef’s mood and inspiration. The dinner proceeds through a series of small dishes, each one a work of art as the dish itself is an important part of the presentation. There is harmony in the order of the dishes, their color, texture, and taste. Just before dinner, he added, the emperor’s chef would demonstrate how he prepares a fish that later would be served to us as tempura.

That night, we sat on brocade cushions in a large tatami room of a low building attached to the emperor’s palace. In front of us was a low stage fitted with a dark lacquer table where, I assumed, the chef would prepare the fish. When the chef entered the room, there was a murmur of astonishment from all of us. The chef looked like a priest or a great lord in one of Kurasawa’s epic films. He wore a black, shiny silk hat tied around his chin and a white, billowing robe with a magnificent gold-threaded rope around his waist. As he crouched in front of the table set in the center of the stage, two young servants, dressed in black, brought in a silver platter with a large black fish set on seaweed. The chef picked up a long silver chopstick with one hand and a long thin knife with the other and proceeded to filet the fish, never touching it with his hands. I looked at the chef, mesmerized, in awe of his dexterity.
How did he do it?
The knife seemed to fly from one side of the fish to the other. Like magic, within ten minutes, four clean filets were set on the silver platter.

Later we were led to a dining room. There, a low table was laid with twenty black lacquered trays decorated with gold bamboo leaves. Thin slices of a very pale tuna were arranged in the shape of a flower. Near the fish was a small, green glass bowl filled with soy sauce. As we sat down on silk damask cushions, we were offered small sake cups, each different, each more beautiful than the next. I chose a pale, white translucent china cup. Into the cups very dry sake was poured by beautiful, kimono-clad young women.

Slowly the dinner unfolded, one dish after another, each more exquisite than the last. One dish that I will never forget was the tempura fish. Our black trays were removed, replaced by a pure white translucent trays, reminiscent of the chef’s white robe. On each tray was a square of bamboo in the shape of the table on which the fish had been cut. The bamboo was surrounded with fresh bamboo leaves. Fish filets of golden tempura were strung on carved wood skewers and set on top of the leaves. Near each was a snowy white mountain of finely grated white radish. A black lacquered bowl with half a gold moon painted on its side was filled with a transparent dipping sauce. It was so amazingly beautiful that I hesitated for a moment to pick up the tiny morsels of fried fish. The tempura fish was crunchy, light, and not oily. Twelve small dishes followed, each intricately prepared, each in its own setting. For dessert we were served a pink-tinted ball on an ice-carved plate. Called Cherry Blossom Mochi, it was a sweet glutinous rice ball stuffed with a red-bean paste and rolled in edible brined cherry leaves. The strange combination of bland soft rice and the overly sweet bean with a lemony aftertaste made the perfect finale to a spectacular meal.

The next day, we drove about two hours south of Tokyo to a
ryokan,
a traditional Japanese inn, set on the edge of the sea. That night Peter explained to me that near the ocean at the bottom of the hill was a superb
onsen,
a Japanese bath overlooking the sea. If I went very early, say five o’clock in the morning, he explained, I would be alone. Experiencing a Japanese bath was worth getting up at the crack of dawn. So the next morning, dressed in my kimono and with flip-flop slippers, I went down three flights of wooden stairs to the building that housed the bath. A very old man greeted me at the door and with gestures explained that I should undress and place my clothes in the basket he was handing me. I did as he requested, feeling a bit embarrassed to be nude in front of this old man, but he did not seem to look or care. He then led me to a room surrounded with glass walls. In the center was a very large pool of hot clean water. Along the walls were faucets and low wooden stools. The old man gestured toward the faucets. I understood that I had to wash myself first, then rinse the soap off, and then go in the water. I did what he motioned me to do and then slowly slid into the very hot water. As I stood crouching in the water, I looked at the sun slowly rising over the horizon. Its golden rays were playing with the calm surface of the water. I was lost in my dreams. I felt so in tune with my surroundings, that I thought that perhaps in one of my former lives I had been born a Japanese noblewoman. The hot water was so relaxing, my surroundings so extraordinary that I forgot the time. Suddenly, I realized that I was no longer alone in the pool. As I glanced discreetly behind me, I saw four men in the pool looking my way. In panic I wondered,
What should I do? Should I get up, climb the few steps, and cross the length of the pool nude
? I decided against it and felt that I could wait. These men would not be here forever. When they left, I would get up. Half an hour went by. The skin of my hands was all crinkled by the heat and water, but the men were still there. I knew I could not stay in the water any longer, so I decided to get up, climb the few steps, and walk across the length of the pool, reasoning that I did not know these men and probably would never see them again. So without looking, I did just that, feeling their eyes on me as I went back to the old man to pick up my clothes. At breakfast that morning, I told Peter the story just as the same four men entered the dining room and were introduced to us as the owners of the
ryokan.
The men smiled but said nothing; I looked the other way while Peter laughed at my embarrassment, whispering that I had made their day, and he was sure I would be sent flowers. To my total embarrassment, they did just that!

For the next two weeks, we traveled through Japan. We went north to the temple of Issey, and we had dinner in the head-priest’s private dining room, feasting on food I never had eaten before while facing a most extraordinary Zen garden of sand and rocks, so incredibly peaceful. Then we went on to a Buddhist temple where we were served a vegetarian dinner that defied the imagination. What we thought was steak were mushrooms, and what we thought was fish were vegetables.

Our next stop was Osaka to visit the famous French-Japanese cooking school and visit the Bunraku Theater. Later we flew to Kanazawa on the west coast of Japan. Kanazawa was and is the center of lacquer. We went to visit a very great lacquer artist, one of the “living treasures” of Japan. Visiting his house was like visiting the inner sanctum of a lacquer museum. There was intricately designed furniture, vases, bowls, and Geisha combs of all sizes. As we left, we each were handed a small box hiding a lovely black and gold lacquer bowl.

The next day we left for Wajima, a small fishing village on the end of a peninsula. It was home to hundreds of types of seaweed drying in the sun. All along the harbor where the fishermen brought their catch and the divers their seaweed was an extraordinary, mile-long vegetable, fish, and seaweed market. The women in Wajima, I was told, ran the market. There were stands of long strings of dull-looking seaweed next to piles of shimmering seaweed that I remembered eating in salad. But it was the fish that attracted my attention. There were so many different kinds of fish I had never seen before: small and large sardines, mountains of miniscule fish that once dried would be served on top of rice next to, what looked to me, a young tuna, and near it, whale blubber that I was told, was a great delicacy for the Japanese. After the fish market stands, the vegetable stands followed with every color and shape of eggplants, vats of miso filled with cucumbers, carrots, and beans that ended up on our table as pickles.

In the next few days, we flew to Nara and were guests of the Shogun of Nara, who offered us dinner in his ancestral home. In a long, pale green room with sliding shoji screens framed in blond wood were twenty small tables. On the wall was a magnificent calligraphy by a twelfth-century artist. In a corner, a large pale blue iris in a slender bamboo vase with silver filigree stood majestically alone. Across the room, two musicians were playing on ancient violins. As we sat down on low stools, young Japanese kimono-clad waitresses brought out dishes, sliding gracefully to the melancholic music of the musicians. The dinner was like a dream.

Our next stop was Kyoto. I loved Kyoto, with its temples and gardens, but most of all, I loved the indoor market. The market was a mile long, winding around city blocks and selling everything from Kyoto’s famed vegetable pickles, the best bean curd I had ever had, transparent, light as air, to embroidered silk kimonos to splendid lacquer ware. While my companions were roaming the antique stores of Kyoto, I spent every minute in the market. On Sunday, I sped to the temple garden where the best flea market in Kyoto was held. I learned to bargain and bought what is today my most precious possession: an iron tea kettle from the eighteenth century.

I often called home and talked to Jimmy and the children. Jimmy was complaining. He was lonely; the children missed me. When was I coming back? Soon, I said, wishing that I could continue to travel and explore Japan. But we had been traveling for two weeks. After Kyoto we were flying back to Tokyo, and to my chagrin, the trip would then be over.

I had a friend in Tokyo. Andre J. was the cultural attaché at the French embassy. A well-known writer, he had been sent to represent French artists in Japan. I had written him that I was coming to Japan, and he invited me to stay with him and his wife until the date of my departure. On our arrival in Tokyo, I was met at the hotel by Andre’s housekeeper, Eufemia, a young Filipino woman. She was to take me to Andre’s home. On the way she told me the most astonishing news: Andre’s wife had run away with the Greek cultural attaché! It was a terrible scandal in Tokyo; Andre was crushed. The French Ambassador was embarrassed by the scandal. The situation, Eufemia said, was a mess.