Japan

The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

It has been my consolation, and without being overly fanciful, I truly believe that although you have not laid eyes on these pages, still you have read every word I have written. You, dear Mother, know my true heart.

• 1 2-inch piece of fresh ginger, split


• 2 shallots, split


• 1 garlic bulb, split


• 11⁄2 cups sake


• 1⁄3 cup maple syrup


• 1⁄3 cup soy sauce


• 1 cup chicken stock


• 1 4x6inch piece of kombu


• 2 lbs skinless pork belly


• 1 Tbsp cornstarch


• 2 tsp water


• 2 tsp rice vinegar


• Sliced scallions, for serving


• Maple furikake, for

Despite the fact that we had come on this trip together—even if it was only a two-day trip—I felt as if the person moving steadily away from me, Sensei, was a stranger.

“Japanese people feel relieved once you put a name to something,” said Mitsuo Takeda, a judge of the Shodoshima contest and an artist who designed a large installation featuring a bug-eyed yokai large enough to walk through. “If you are pulling grass and you get a cut and you wonder what happened,” he said, “if you think, ‘Oh, it is just a yokai,’

Haiku and waka poems convey perhaps more easily than painting the subtle differences between the four moods of sabi, wabi, aware, and yugen.

absurdly smoky motsuyaki restaurants,