Pumpkin Soup

Happy Fall! In Ishikari, fall means kabocha and other delicious vegetables. Recently we received lots of kabocha from friends:

We also received a gigantic nappa cabbage, grapes, apples, zucchini, tomatoes... Ishikari is a good place, especially at this time of year. I've been looking for creative ways to eat all this deliciousness!

One such cooking adventure was a simple pumpkin (kabocha) soup. I used a pale green kabocha like the one in the back row center of the picture above. I liked it a lot, so I decided to share the recipe here. "Recipe" might be a bit of an overstatement, actually... the measurements are approximate. Kabocha vary in flavor and sweetness, so amounts of seasoning will change from one soup to the next.


Pumpkin (Kabocha) Soup with fruit and nut topping

Ingredients:

• 2 onions, coarsely chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter (I used unsalted)
• 1-2 tablespoons white wine
• 2 cloves (roasted) garlic
• Roasted pumpkin, kabocha, or other squash (I used half of a fairly large one--I would guess about 700 grams. Boiled or pan-fried would also work, but roasted is so nice!) 
• Chicken or vegetable stock, approx. 3-4 cups
• 3 tablespoons fresh herbs, minced (I used parley, sage, rosemary, and thyme); you will use half in the soup and reserve the rest for the topping.
• 3/4 cup cream
• Maple syrup to taste (I used about 2 tablespoons)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Melt the butter in a medium pot over low heat. Add the onions, sprinkle with salt, and stir to coat with butter. Add the white wine, cover, and cook for about 10 minutes. Uncover and continue to cook over low heat for another 10 minutes or so, stirring frequently, until the onions are medium brown (caramelized). Throw in a couple of cloves of garlic when the onions are almost ready.
2. Add roasted pumpkin (kabocha) and cover with stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add herbs (reserving half for the topping) and remove from heat.
3. While waiting for the soup, I assembled the topping (recipe below).
4. Puree the soup. I recommend a stick blender, but use whatever method works for you. Add cream and more stock to thin the soup to desired consistency. Taste and add maple syrup, salt, and pepper as necessary. 
5. Return soup to heat and bring it back to a simmer. Serve with topping, recipe below. I also recommend focaccia bread.

Topping:

• Pecans, small handful
• Pumpkin seeds, small handful
• 1 tablespoon butter, if you live in Japan and your bacon isn't all that fatty
• 150g bacon, strips cut in 5mm pieces 
• 1/2 cup dried apple, diced (Fresh apple would be fine, but add it later with the nuts and herbs and omit apple juice)
• 1 cup bread cubes (on the dry side, 5mm)
• Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, minced (reserved from soup recipe, above)
• A drizzle of maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons apple juice
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Toast pecans in a frying pan over low heat. Chop coursely. Then toast the pumpkin seeds.
2. Melt the butter (if you are using any) in your frying pan over low heat, then add the bacon. Fry it until it's somewhat crispy. (Japanese bacon doesn't get crispy… and those of you using super greasy American bacon may want to remove some of the oil at this point. The ingenious Japanese way of doing that is soaking it up right out of the frying pan with cooking chopsticks and paper towels.) 
3. Add the dried apple and bread cubes, saute a bit to coat with oil, then add nuts, herbs, maple syrup, apple juice, and salt and pepper. Stir until the bread and apple absorb the liquid, and then saute on low until everything is somewhat crispy. Sprinkle over the soup.
4. This would also be a nice topping for salads. Our Japanese friend who ate it with us also recommends trying it as a topping for rice.

An Unexpected Visitor

Today I offer a story. It's a true story, although it happened two years ago, so I've filled in some forgotten details. My mom may remember it differently. No picture included, since many of you would find a picture revolting... ;)
***

Mom’s cry of surprise brought me running. I found her crouched down, staring, eyes wide, at an unwelcome visitor: a large green slug with black spots had found its way into the sunroom. Perhaps it rode in on mom’s garden shoes, or perhaps it had stuck itself to the red bucket she uses to gather vegetables. Regardless of how it got in, it had now left a trail of slime across the doormat and had started to ooze its way up the wall.

Thinking quickly, I pulled a sheet of paper out of the recycle bin and set it against the wall in front of the slug. It seemed hesitant at first, but perhaps it sensed that I meant it no harm, and it slowly oozed forward onto the paper. I waited. Mom waited behind me, poised with a wet rag to clean up the mess. Keith waited, watching and snickering.

Once the slug made it fully onto the paper, I gently removed it from the wall and carried it outside, looking for a good spot for a slug to live. Not too close to the vegetable plot or the flower garden, but somewhere with some cover. I set the paper down amid some tall, late-summer grass. Slowly the slug oozed forward. And I waited.

Time stood still as I watched the small creature, transfixed. In the world, there was only me and the slug and the tall grass. Every tiny undulation of its slimy body, every change of its course, the iridescent pink of the trail left behind reflecting back the afternoon sunlight. The slug came to the edge of the paper, hesitated slightly, and continued into the tall grass. “Goodbye,” I whispered.

Suddenly time started up again. I stood up, dazed by the bright sun. I heard the clucking of our neighbor’s chickens and the distant barking of a dog. Glancing towards the vegetable garden, I wondered what was for supper. I remembered that I had been in the middle of writing an email when interrupted by the slug’s intrusion.

As I shuffled towards the house and my responsibilities, I turned once, gazing back into the tall grass.
***

As I write this story down two years later, I wonder why the slug in the sunroom remains so firmly fixed in my memory, when so many other stories and names and details have faded into the past. Perhaps I remember it because it was a serendipitous moment, a divine intervention, a space to breathe. I have learned not to let these moments go to waste. This moment became, oddly enough, one of the highlights of home assignment for me.

Matsu House update

Hi, everyone. We're still alive over here. And... exciting things happening at Matsu House!

As I write, this is going on:

That's right! Keith and Mr. Inoue are plastering the tea room wall with 珪藻土 (keisoudo). This is so exciting. They finished the floor back in December, just in time for Mom and Dad's visit (because the tea room is also the guest room). However, with everything going on at church, we continued on with bare drywall for eight months.

Meanwhile, a few other improvements have taken place.

All the finishing touches on the bathroom "vanity" cabinet. Dad made and installed the cabinet and cut the other pieces to size. Keith did the wiring and installed the mirror and the light fixture (which Dad made), then did the tiling and put up towel hooks and rings.

Dad made the over-toilet shelf, and after we painted the room, Keith installed it. I picked out the plant.

We also solved a design problem with art. Our house was made for short people. The doorways are short (anyone taller than Keith has to duck), and the original kitchen and bathroom counters were short. What's worse, there were windows in the doors to the toilet room and the bathroom--right at our eye level. Most Japanese houses have tiny windows in bathroom doors, so you can see if the light is on inside... but those are tiny, a lot higher, and have opaque glass. So... we commissioned our friend, Hannah Schmidt, so paint tiny pictures to put in the windows. The light still shines through (and the pictures look really cool backlit) and now we can pee in privacy. Hannah copied photos I took of aka-matsu (red pine) trees on the Tohoku coast.

Keith made me a nice shelf for the laundry room, and hooks to hang stuff. Before it was all out in the front hallway.

We now have a shelf in the kitchen for cookbooks.

Mr. Inoue made us some gorgeous stools for our bar counter back in December. Unfortunately, we never managed to sand and finish them, so they sat around for months... until July! This is my contribution: I sanded and finished them. Now our friends can hang out in the kitchen with us and have a cup of tea or something while we finish cooking the meal!

And last but not least, Keith put this up on our front door. In case anyone had any doubts as to who lives here...

More to come, after the tea room walls are finished!