I was really just very hungry

My cancer treatments are over for now, and since my body is no longer being bombarded by gamma rays and such, I am feeling quite a bit better. So now it’s time to get back to the huge task of renovating the old house we got more than two years ago. Renovations have been stalled for months due to all the other crap going on in my life. One of the first things we are tackling is the kitchen. Folks, I am supposed to be a food blogger/writer. I’ve written a cookbook and everything....

My Japan Times Food article this month is about all the raw proteins Japanese people like to eat. You probably know that Japanese people like raw fish (in the form of sashimi, and as a topping for sushi), and raw eggs (on rice or noodles) - but did you know that we also eat raw horsemeat, beef liver, and even chicken' Read more about it here. The accompanying recipe is a how-to for making a great plate of sashimi. A couple of photos that didn’t make it into the article: Here is a...

It’s been a bit too serious around here, so here’s some fun. I think I’m pretty good at savory cooking, but when it comes to pastry I definitely need more practice. However, my little sister Meg is an amazing pastry chef. She used to work at Toraya in New York, and has also done a stint as a speciality cookie designer. She decided some years ago to stop being a fulltime chef, but she still does some catering. She recently catered the wedding of her friends Bennie and Tyneia...

Today I started a 3-week course of brachytherapy. Unlike the 6-week course of external beam radiation therapy that ended on Friday, which definitely made me feel pretty horrible, brachytherapy is not supposed to cause any adverse side effects. We shall see. I know that many of you want me to get back the regular programming of recipes, food fun and Japanese things, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to describe the treatments I’ve been getting, and how they’ve...

Following up on the last entry from my sketch diary: Just one more week to go with the radiation therapy, and it’s really tough. I was in a lot more physical pain just after surgery (or before surgery last year when I had a bad infection), but mentally, I am struggling. I do have a lot of pain. From the constant diarrhea mainly, and its side effects. And other things. And then there is the debilitating fatigue, which makes me incredibly cranky and hard to live with. I love food,...

My latest article in The Japan Times is about edible cherry blossoms and leaves. Japanese people love the cherry tree so much that not only do they eagerly look forward to their all too short flowering season each spring, they use the whole plant. They eat the berries of course later on (cherries are called sakuranbo and are in season in June and July) but they also eat the blossoms and the leaves, pickling them in salt and umeboshi vinegar (a by-product of making umeboshi). The wood is used...

I am two and a half weeks into a six week course of radiation therapy, to zap the remaining cancer cells in my body. The course I am doing now is the type where a highly localized beam is aimed at my abdomen from all sides of my body. Every weekday, an ambulance-taxi, or The Guy, drives me to the radiotherapy clinic in Avignon, which is about an hour away from where we live, and back. Each session lasts about 10 minutes, and is completely painless. It’s the side effects that are the...

I am in New York, for family reasons. Not the best of circumstances, and I wasn't even sure I'd make it given my lousy health these days, but with the kind help of airport staff, I did. So, what does an ex-New Yorker after many years spent living elsewhere' A sparkling meal at one of the city's finest restaurants' Not for me. I started here: And, moved on to these (any expat American starts to crave stuff like this after a while. We can get salsa and chips in France...but it's just not the...

This month’s Japan Times article is about the traditions and superstitions surrounding Setsubun or Risshun, the first day of spring, which is coming up on February 3rd. The focus of the article is on the tradition of mamemaki, or the throwing of roasted beans to drive away oni, the fierce evil spirits that embody bad luck. I’ve always wondered myself why beans are thrown - and now, through my research, I know. It’s really fascinating to find out about all the rituals and...

Furusato is a Japanese word for which there really is no direct equivalent in English. Most times it is translated as ‘home town’, and the sentiment is similar. It means the place where you grew up, the place where you come from. The place where a part of you, however small, yearns to return to, I have mostly lived outside of Japan for the last couple of decades - for most of my adult life in fact. And I spent quite a bit of my childhood in other places too. But still, Japan is...