Soba for When You’re Sick

Ugh and ack, I am sick. Sick, sick, sick—and sick of being sick! It’s no fun trying to navigate life with a head full of snot (sorry, but it’s true). And let’s not talk about the deep-throated cough that rattles both my ribs and the windows at the same time. No fun at all.

How long have you been sick, you might ask? Oh, weeks.

I took it lying down at first—I’ve been doing far too much, I know that. I went to bed and slept for hours, days even. I was okay with the rest.

But then I got a little better—enough to smell things at least. That was a good sign.

Then it got worse, and it’s stayed there for far too long. The weather hasn’t helped either—cold, wet, damp.

Now I’m mad and not going to take it any more. I’m fighting back with soba. I’ve done the soups, the honey and lemon, tea, and even Thai food (a good Tom Yum can break up the congestion, but only for an hour or two). Now it’s time for soba, and a dish that is partly Japanese, partly my invention, all delicious. Even with a cold you can tell.

First you cook the soba, making sure to drain the noodles over a bowl to collect the cooking water.



Chop some bok choy, which is full of Vitamin C—good for cold busting.



Mix your soba tsuyu (see below) and throw the bok choy into the sauce, just to warm it up a bit. Grate some fresh ginger in as well, if you feel you need it (how serious are you about getting rid of this cold?). Pour this over the noodles. Doesn’t that look good? Sprinkle the whole thing with sesame seeds, maybe a little bit of crushed red pepper flakes.



Poach an egg—because you need your protein, after all; this cold busting stuff is hard work. Put the egg on the top of your noodles and break it open so that the thick yolk slowly pours out and mixes with the soba and sauce.

Eat slowly, enjoying the way the soft noodles slip down your throat, soothing it after all that coughing. The bok choy gives a fresh and sweet crunch to the dish, and you know it’s good for you. The ginger, the red pepper, seem to be doing their job. You realize that you can breathe through your nose just a little bit.



But the egg, the egg is glorious. The yolk slicks the noodles, mixes with the sauce, makes everything come together in a way that is as close to perfect as you can think of right now. In fact, you might want to poach another egg once you’re finished with the first (see—your appetite is coming back, that’s good).

And when you’re done, all that’s left is a pool of sauce with a few long noodles and sesame seeds. It’s so good you’re tempted to lift up the dish and drink it down—which you would do without hesitation in Asia, it would be expected. Trot on off to the kitchen and pour that sauce into a smaller bowl, more suitable for slupring. You don’t want to miss any little bit.

You’re feeling better already.



SOBA FOR WHEN YOU’RE SICK
Serves one, multiply as needed

Soba are Japanese buckwheat noodles. They are usually made with some wheat flour, but 100% soba is available for those who need to eat gluten-free.

Soba tsuyu (pronounced “sue-you”) is the dipping sauce for zaru soba and the broth base for soba soups. It can be purchased in a bottle, from stores that sell Japanese food products (ask for it if you can’t find it, as the Japanese brands are not always labeled in English), or you can buy packages of soba that include small packets of tsuyu with them. You can also make your own, which is probably not what you want to do if you’re sick. I save the packets for such an occasion, but if you want to make it from scratch, here’s a recipe.



One bundle of soba, or about 90 grams (see photo above)
3/4 cup bok choy, thinly sliced
1 Tbs soba tsuyu (one packet, see photo above)
1-2 eggs
2 tsp distilled vinegar
salt
sesame seeds, red pepper flakes, and fresh ginger, as desired.

Bring a medium pot of water to boil on the stove and add the soba noodles, making sure they don’t clump together. Cook until tender to the bite, one stage beyond al dente. Be careful they don’t turn mushy from overcooking.

Drain the noodles, making sure to collect the cooking water in a bowl. Set noodles in a serving bowl.

Thinly slice the bok choy. Cut more to snack on, it’s good for you.

In a small but deep pot, bring to boil 2 cups water, with a pinch of salt and 2 tsp distilled vinegar.

Add 3/4 cup cooking water from the noodles into the same pot you cooked the soba in. Add one tsuyu packet—one tablespoon of tsuyu into the cooking water and return to the stove on medium high heat. Grate the fresh ginger into the sauce (optional). When the sauce as begun to simmer, add the bok choy and crushed red pepper flakes (if using). Remove from heat after a minute or two and pour over the noodles. Sprinkle with sesame seeds to taste.

Poach 1-2 eggs in the water/vinegar mixture. Remove the egg(s) from water and—after rinsing gently, if desired—place on top of the noodles.

Eat and savor. Feel better.

Persimmon Pleasures

I hated the first persimmon I ever tasted.

It was a dried persimmon, home-dried by a woman my mother knew in Arizona. We had gone to visit her house and she had these brown lumpy things strung up in her window, drying in the sunshine. She gave my brother and me a taste, which we both thought was pretty icky. We swallowed it, but just to be polite.

It wasn’t until I moved to Japan that I fell in love with persimmons. The area I lived in was known for the fruit. Each fall the trees were laden with globes of deep orange. The stores were filled with these persimmons—called kaki, in Japanese—a herald of autumn. I was soon in love with these gorgeous mini pumpkin-like fruit.

Each fall I would look forward to the bounty of persimmons that would naturally follow. I am awfully fond of the Asian pears—called nashi—that would appear around this time as well, but I love persimmons with a fervor reserved only for peaches, blackberries, and Meyer lemons. The mere glance at a bin full of ripe persimmons is enough to send my toes tapping. They are one of my favorite fruits.



I am not the only one who thinks of persimmons as great and grand. The genus name, Diospyros, means “food for the gods.” In Japanese they are kaki, in Spain they are caqui, and in Israel they are called Sharon fruit. The name persimmon comes from the native American Powhatan language of the East Coast and means a dry fruit.

But the persimmons we know today do not come from the Americas. Today’s persimmons are from China, where they have been grown for centuries and more than two thousand cultivars exist. From there the plants were introduced to Korea and Japan. It wasn’t until the mid 1800s that persimmons were brought to Europe and the United States.

Of course, not all persimmons are created equal.



There are two kinds of persimmons—fuyu and hachiya. When people tell me they don’t like persimmons, I always ask them which kind of persimmons they’ve had. I assume that anyone who has been turned against the fruit has had the misfortune to encounter a bad hachiya persimmon. I put the blame squarely on this unfortunate variety.

I am sure that hachiya persimmons have their supporters, but I am not one of them. They are the more attractive fruit, this I will admit. They are slightly elongated—an acorn-shape—and tend towards shiny skin. They turn a lovely deep orange color, but that beauty comes with danger. To my mind, the charms of a hachiya persimmon are only skin deep.



The problem with a hachiya persimmon is two-fold. If you do any reading about persimmons, you will see that hachiya is considered to be the “astringent” variety. This little word in no way prepares you for the experience of accidentally tasting a hachiya persimmon before it is ripe. Imagine a bitter cotton that coats your tongue and you cannot scrape it off. You will spit it out, you will rush for water with which to wash your mouth out, but it won’t make a difference. You must be very careful not to eat hachiya persimmons before they are ripe.

The other problem with hachiya persimmons is perhaps only a problem for me. Hachiya must be allowed to ripen so completely, to overcome their astringency, they go over the line that I prefer not to cross and into gushy territory. For a hachiya persimmon to really get good, it must be allowed to come to near liquid form, contained only by its skin. Imagine a water balloon of a piece of fruit and you won’t be far off. It may be a failure on my part—some character flaw, I am sure—but this is a consistency that I just don’t enjoy.

At the same time, I know of people who love hachiya persimmons. A friend of mine says the best way to eat a hachiya is to make a small hole in the skin with your teeth and suck the innards out. My own squeamishness over mushy and gushy things prevents me from enjoying this experience; I am sure it is my own loss.



I prefer the fuyu persimmons, which are—it must be said—the shorter, stumpier, squatter fruit. No matter, in this case beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder (or in the palate). Fuyus can be eaten hard, like an apple, though they only get sweeter and softer with age. I like mine at about the same place you might eat an avocado, with just the tiniest bit of give to the pressed finger. You can let them get softer, to the point where you can scoop them out with a spoon and let them slide down your throat. It's not a bad way to go.

Some people bake things with persimmons—cookies, bread, puddings even. I seem to remember a persimmon pudding with sour lemon sauce in the first Martha Stewart book, Entertaining. I am sure these are all fine, I’ll even hunt up some links for you to check out, if you’re of a mind to do so, but for me I am a purist. For me there is only one way I like my persimmon and that is mildly ripe, peeled (though it is true you can eat the skin), and cut into quarters. For me, this is true autumn bliss.



It is also true you can freeze persimmons, just whole, in their skins. When they begin to soften you can eat them with a spoon like a sorbet. This is what I had for my birthday last year, when I was trying to eat deal with some food restrictions. The color is pretty astounding.



I suppose I can also say that I like dried persimmons—but again, here I am picky. I don't like the full dried fruits that turn brown, but I did fall for these orange-colored slices last year. They were chewy and sweet and I took them with me on hiking trips. They were my favorite new snack for a while.



But really, give me a plain, unadorned persimmon any day of the week. Just please make sure it’s a fuyu.



When I lived in Japan, one of my favorite signs of fall were the peeled persimmons hung up outside homes to dry in the open air. This is how hoshigaki—dried persimmons—are made (you can see a photo here). I’ve since read that the fruit is massaged every day, to keep it soft, but I never saw such a thing. As time goes by they do turn brown, and the sugars rise to the surface and create a bit of a bloom effect (see here). I like them fine, but they’re not the same as fresh persimmons. I’ll take a fresh one any day of the week.

Perhaps my favorite sight was a small thatched Japanese farmhouse that sat just off the road I took to work each day. There was a persimmon tree in the yard which didn’t ever seem to be harvested. At least it was never harvested early. When the first snow of the season fell it blanketed the tree and the vivid orange globes of the persimmons. Next to the dark thatch of the traditional farmhouse it was a glorious sight. I think of it often this time of year, and kick myself for never having photographed it (this shot gives you an idea). I hope the farmhouse is still there, with its crop of persimmons.

Persimmons, this time of year they have me seeing stars.



If you really must cook with your persimmons, here are some ideas:

Elise's persimmon pudding cake on Simply Recipes
Lara's persimmon madeleines on Cook & Eat
Shuna's persimmon pudding and naked persimmon salad on Bay Area Bites
James Beard's persimmon bread recipe from David Lebovitz
Chocolate persimmon muffins on Riana's Flickr account
Susan give us a savory use for persimmons—as a salsa for pork on Food Blogga

The Big Book Sale

There are many good times to be in San Francisco but, for me, September is one of the best. The city is free of summer fog and some of my favorite events of the year take place in September. Chief among them is the Big Book Sale. When I planned my departure from Seattle, I made sure it was early enough in September so that I wouldn't miss this annual event.

You may wonder what on earth the Big Book Sale has to do with a food blog, but let me tell you one word: cookbooks. More cookbooks than you can shake a stick at.

The Big Book Sale is a fundraiser sponsored by Friends of the Library, the nonprofit organization that helps and supports the San Francisco Public Libraries. Each September they collect all the books that have been donated to the library over the year and sell them off in a five-day extravaganza of cheap used books. It doesn’t sound spectacular when I explain it like that, but the scope of the event is impressive.

It’s held at Fort Mason, on one of the covered piers. This is a structure about the size of a football field.



On this week, it is filled with books. Books, books, and more books—200, 000 of them, to be exact.



The event begins on a Wednesday, with a preview for members of the Friends of the Library. On this day people start lining up early in the morning, to be the first into the building. They have boxes and handcarts with them, to carry away their purchases. This may sound a little fanatical, but many of the Wednesday visitors are used bookstore owners themselves. They are here to stock up on merchandise. The book they buy for two or three dollars, they can sell in their own store for five or six. Book people come from up and down the West Coast for this event, and from as far in the middle as Colorado. If you are a booklover, this is the place to be this week in September.

I got to the Big Book Sale a few hours after they opened this year, so I missed watching the rabid bookies run (and I do mean run) into the building as soon as the doors are opened. One year I was inside the building already—on official business—and couldn’t believe the sprint to the books. The Friends of the Library staff and volunteers had to yell at people to try to get them to slow down and make sure the didn’t crash into each other with their careening carts. I would not have been surprised had there been accidental bloodshed over getting to the books first.

By the time I got there this year, many people had already done their shopping and were ready to head home, taking their boxes of books with them.



I headed straight to the cookbooks section, to see what might await me there. There are two looooong tables devoted to cookbooks. This is one of them.



And below them are boxes of more cookbooks, to replenish the tables as the days go by and the stock begins to dwindle.



The selection is always a bit quirky, I will admit, but I love poking around in odd cookbooks. There are Junior League cookbooks, family compilations, funky old copies of The Frugal Gourmet. Some cookbooks make me think of the trends and fads that American food has gone through. Copies of fat-free cookbooks and books on microwave cooking remind me of the eighties, while other books seem classic—Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Laurel’s Kitchen, Craig Claiborne. I almost picked up this copy of Martha Stewart’s Hors d’Oeuvres, which I believe would have made my early Martha collection complete (check out her hair and dress!).



Some of these books bring back memories. I used to check out these little Time-Life recipe booklets from the library when I was in junior high school. They seemed exotic to me then.



I’m always tempted by old little cookbooks such as this one.



I want to know who wrote this, when, and where. All of these cookbooks have their own story, and since I am generally interested in food I am interested in all of them (witness the Swedish immigrant cookbook I picked up this year—why not?). Some of these books have dedications scrawled on the title page, and that always gets me wondering as well. Who was it who wrote on the flyleaf of a book by Julia Child—“Dear Kathleen, Your equal?” And who was Kathleen to eventually let the book go? (perhaps she truly didn’t need any pointers from the great Ms. Child).

The Big Book Sale is filled with funky little books—small corners of the food world that pull me in and fascinate me just the same. This year I bought books on tea, Chinese cooking, mushroom growing (I sense a new obsession), and a book devoted entirely to dumplings. They are not the latest, hottest books, this is true, but as a food lover I am interested in all sorts of foods. I’m curious where the pages of the Viennese Cookbook will take me, or the Spanish cookbooks, or Recipes from the Regional Cooks of Mexico. There is something for me to learn and discover wherever I go.

The Big Book Sale is the only place I’ve seen people shop for books by the shopping cart.



Partway into my visit, I wished that I had grabbed a cart as well. With the books all under five dollars, it’s easy to want to stock up. A few years ago I went on a fiction bender and bought so many novels that by the time the book sale came around the next year I hadn’t read them all. I didn’t let myself go to the book sale that year, I told myself I wasn’t allowed to buy any new novels until I read the ones I already had on the shelf. But cookbooks are a different matter entirely (right?). They’re reference and inspiration, a portal to new ideas and flavors and knowledge. They are worth stocking up on.

I swear, these are not my shopping carts. Really.



My haul this year was much more modest. Fifteen books, all intriguing to me, and for a total of forty dollars. I probably would have bought more had I gone back on Sunday, when all the remaining books are only a dollar each.





But for now I’m stocked up. I’ve got worlds to discover in these books—dumplings! Mushrooms! Tea! Chinese food!—and I’m looking forward to it. This winter I will hole up in my kitchen and attempt to conquer new territory, new flavors, new techniques; these books will take me there.

Perhaps your city has a big book sale as well. If not, maybe I'll see you next September in San Francisco. It's a lovely time to visit the city. Just make sure to bring an extra suitcase for all the books.

The San Francisco Friends of the Library Big Book Sale

Grey Saturday Tea

I came back to San Francisco in mid-September, right in the middle of our "secret summer." Suddenly the fog is gone, the sun is shining, and every day is filled with blue skies as far as the eye can see. It’s a pretty heady time to be a San Franciscan. Just as folks elsewhere are pulling out their mittens and scarves, we’re basking in a late summer glow, enjoying the sunshine that has been barred from us all summer by the blanket of fog that covers the city June to August.

So you’ll understand how odd it was for me to hear the tap-tapping noise coming from the window side of my bedroom as I got ready to go out for dinner a week or two after my return. It was a persistent clinking sound and, though I knew where it was coming from, I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing could be true. But, as I walked to the window and looked out, I noticed a clear streak on the glass pane.

It’s raining! In San Francisco, in September! I was so excited I nearly danced around my bedroom. I opened the window wide and breathed deep the damp air. I can’t tell you how happy that rain made me.

My goodness, I think I’ve become a Seattleite.

My plans for hiking the next morning with my friend Krista got downgraded to a walk along Land’s End and a visit to a tearoom when the weather remained persistently Seattle-like. More than one person observed that I had brought the curse of Pacific Northwest weather down with me, but I could only laugh. I love San Francisco all the time, but San Francisco in the fog and damp will always have a special place in my heart.

And a walk on Land’s End is a treat, no matter what the weather is.



Land’s End is a wild bit of craggy coast that juts out beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, the southern side of the mouth that opens into the San Francisco Bay. It is the backside of Lincoln Park, a park and golf course that is home to the Legion of Honor, one of San Francisco’s art museums. Land’s End is the other side of the coin, as untamed and rugged as Lincoln Park is manicured. While I love the park and museum for its grand setting and gorgeous city views, I love the rough and rocky coastline behind it even more.

A walk along Land’s End begins with a backside view of the Golden Gate Bridge, perhaps my favorite view of the bridge, today muted in tones of grey and blue (I say perhaps only because it’s nearly impossible to have a favorite view of this bridge).



The trail passes above rocky coves and inlets far below at the water’s edge. Every year there are people who die in this area, trying to climb around on these rocks, so I stay far back from the edge (but check out that darling little orange starfish on the upper left rock).



The other danger along this route is poison oak, which has an easily recognizable three-leaf formation and turns a convenient red this time of year. Children who grow up in this area, as Krista and I did, are raised with the constant reminder: “leaflets three, let them be.”



But other than that, it’s all stunning views.



And staircases.



And my beloved cypress trees.



And sailboats that look like pirate ships as they steal around a rocky corner.



And you know you’re in Northern California when a five-year-old who is out walking with his family spontaneously sits down cross-legged in the middle of the path and begins to meditate!



Krista and I talk about life and work and passions and love and how you know when you’ve found the right place to be—be it a city or a job—and how to reconcile a love of travel and exploration with a love of home. It’s an ongoing conversation we’ve been keeping up for about seven years now. And I’m reminded of how lovely these sorts of friendships are (and how many of mine reside in Northern California).

There are forests of wild fennel along the way, in full bloom. I have a feeling that my friend Cookiecrumb would be harvesting the pollen, if she were with us.



Not to mention the nasturtium flowers, which are also edible.



But today I am just happy to relish conversation and companionship, and a crashing ocean at my feet.



When we’ve had enough of the cold and the grey and the rocky gorgeousness, we tuck ourselves into a little tea shop in the Richmond district that I have been wanting to visit for years, ever since a friend of mine talked about going to the “polo shop” for tea. Tal-y-Tara is indeed a teashop that is also an equestrian supply store. Where else in San Francisco can you buy a riding crop and a plate of scones at the same time?



We order the Motor Loaf, which my friend had told me about. It is a loaf of New England brown bread (an old family recipe from the mistress of Tal-y-Tara), cut out and sliced into sandwiches, then tucked back into the loaf. The fillings vary from egg salad to cheese and chutney, cucumber and cream cheese, and more.



And when you’re done with your sandwiches, you can eat the rest of the loaf, spread with Devonshire cream and marmalade.



You can stock up on British tea.



And any manner of equestrian equipment and fashion. Krista and I find a great pair of Italian low leather boots, at a discount as they are the last pair in stock.



And we go back out into the grey, warmed by tea and companionship.

Tal-y-Tara Tea and Polo Shoppe
6439 California Street (@ 27th Avenue)
San Francisco, CA 94121
Mon-Sat noon - 7pm
Closed Sunday
Tel. 415-751-9275