Fish and Chips in the glory days

There are few possessions that I own or have owned about which I give a toss.There is however a select band, a coterie, of stuff for which I feel real affection. One of those rare articles has just passed. My lovely bright red serving dish. I bought her on the market in Divonne les Bains in, I think, 1997. Since then she has been my companion in the kitchen, my girl in gastronomy, my friend in feeding, my oracle of the oven. She grew old and one meal too far, baked pig’s face, signaled her demise. Quelle tristesse. I will never find another.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her;
Wherever she may be
I may search the wide world over
And never find a better plate than she

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet plate; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Leg of Wild Boar

Quail and snail

Choucroute!

Aie! Paella!

Fish in Okinawa. Fresh!

I think a tiny crack arrived and the baked Pig’s Face expanded it. Sad yes, but how can plate die better than facing fearful odds. For the ashes of her Fathers and the Pig’s face of her Gods

Truffaut, Renoir, Chabrol, Blier, Lelouch, er Malle, um Klapisch and now Arin Pillot. A long time ago I made a publicity clip for CERN with a young French film student called Cedric Klapisch. He went on to be one of France most beloved movie directors. Check the film: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1003588?ln=fr

Lately I made a movie of the same genre with another young French film student, Gabriel Arin Pillot. This time in Okinawa. It was an amazing experience. Everything was filmed with the video function on a  Canon photo camera using one lapel mike attached by  student sound person Emile Trimoreau. The movie was constructed in my front room on Mac laptops using Final Cut. Filming, editing,subtitling, rendering  took less than 4 days.

Modern times

A brioche baked by Gabriel

Emile left and Gabriel with a piece montee that they made

Anyway I think the film, in its genre, is very good but if he doesn’t make it as a film director Gabriel could always be a boulanger. Thanks to both Gabriel and Emile for the film

Watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/oistedu#p/a/u/0/dp3HDq6b8ag

It has been quite fun observing the hurricane excitement on the east coast of the US. I feel vaguely superior in the condescending European  “Oh yes, so I heard ” tradition. Ours are of course much better.

The last one completely devastated my poor little garden. The aubergine, peppers, beans, flowers, radish and Daikon were simply blasted away. Only the local speciality, Benni Imo, has flourished.

Anything green is Benni Imo er except the little onions I put in yesterday.

However there has been progress. After weeks of tramping orange, clayey earth into my car and apartment, I bought myself some Japanese gardening shoes. They are wonderful. They have semi fetishist clasps up the side, a separation between  the big toes and the others, giving me cloven feet.

Why does the Pope wear a dress?

I wonder why they are made like that? However I think they must be the germ of the great Japanese  cartoon monster tradition. Bored farmers looking at their feet and rushing off to become millionaire graphic artists.

In the shop and out of focus

Mine are very tight and I am lucky to find a pair that I can actually squeeze into. I like wearing them.

Shisa (シーサー) (Okinawan: siisaa) (shishi or shisaa) is a traditional Ryukyuan decoration, often in pairs, resembling a cross between a lion and a dog, from Okinawan mythology. People place pairs of shisa on their rooftops or flanking the gates to their houses. Shisa are wards, believed to protect from some evils. When in pairs, the left shisa traditionally has a closed mouth, the right one an open mouth.^[1] The open mouth wards off evil spirits, and the closed mouth to keeps good spirits in.

"To refrain from imitation is the best revenge" Marcus Aurelius Shisa

These lion dogs are everywhere. They are Okinawa for me. One tells evil spirits to take a hike, the other keeps good spirits cuddly in the kitchen.

Ben spent a good chunk of his time on Okinawa modeling a Shisa at Yamada san’s workshop. Ben is a talented and  extraordinarily meticulous clay man. This is his Shisa which is now waiting to be fired.

"I came, I saw, I conquered." Julius Shisa

In every butt and ben, nook and cranny, you find Shisa staring out at you.

"Which death is preferable to every other? "The unexpected". " Julius Shisa

"Hasten slowly." Augustus Shisa

"What an artist the world is losing in me" Nero Shisa

"Say not always what you know, but always know what you say." Claudius Shisa

"Shisa's wife must be beyond suspicion"

On the island of er tokasuku, tungnagusuku, tolumnaka, tilanakatoka, I can’t remember, there is a camp site. The sign at the entry of this site is below.

The habu is a very poisonous snake

That should get the punters pouring in.

3 dives. This really is it. My fantasy of what scuba diving is, happens in the seas around er T????????????. Ben and I are picked up by a pick-up and off to the port. H???????? and G??????????? are our guides. We hammer off in the boat which is of a design peculiar to Japan. High prow, very narrow and very long.

A life on the ocean wave! A home on the rolling deep! Where the scattered waters rave, and the winds their revels keep!

Down we go into the gin clarity water. Above, the sun is shining, the sea is speckled with islets with arches and bizarre shaped rocks. Below, the sea is a Paisley  design of brilliant fish and coral.  It is of course perfectly warm. Every fish you have seen in tropical fish stores or in aquaria infancy hotels are here. At one point a turtle swims up to us and just hangs out. Er I mean, like um kinda, you know.

Ninja

The last dive of the day is around a pillar of rock a long way out. Different from anything I have done. Strong currents, big fish , more turtles, vodka water, goes very deep, slabs of rock, tuna flash by.

Gin

Why are fish in Scotland all silver whereas fish here come in every possible colour and every possible combination of colours?

It is a great thing to be able to remember stuff, especially in Japan. Unfortunately I can’t. Well to be precise I cannot remember names. Ben and I go away for the weekend to an island some miles to the West of Okinawa. I can remember the name of the group of islands, the Keramas, but  I cannot remember the name of the island we are going to. This becomes tricky when we get to the port from which we are to take the boat. This is the weekend of Obon – big festival when your ancestors come back to visit. The place is teeming with people. We go to the terminal place to get tickets. There are lines everywhere, very civilized Japanese lines, but which one to join?  Everything is in Japanese and I cannot remember the name of the place we are going to- neither can Ben. I spy an Anglo Saxon and after a conversation of confusion he suggests we stand in this line. I get tickets and we get on a boat. The one thing I do remember is that the boat leaves at 10:00. At 10:00 the boat next to ours leaves, ours does not. Oh well, let’s just see where all this will lead and some minutes later our boat takes off and we head West. Great trip with flying fish terminates in a port on an island. Is this where we are supposed to be? I cannot remember the name of the guest house we are going to stay at but we get onto a mini bus the sports a vaguely familiar combination of syllables. The driver keeps up a narrative as we drives across the hills and rice fields of this tropical isle but neither of us have a clue of what he is saying. We arrive at a guest house on a beautiful beach and are greeted by smiling faces.

Actually, the island's name is Tokashiki

” Neil San, I am Kinjo San’s sister, my name is K????????? , this is Kinjo San ‘s mother, her name is K???????????’ these are Kinjo San’s brothers, their names are H?????????? and G????????. Welcome, we are so happy!”

I cannot remember their names. I do not remember the name of the island. ” What is the name of this village?” Bad move. “It is A??????????.”

As Ben walked out on the streets of Aheren

The people are wonderful, A?????????? is idyllic, but I feel guilt because I manifest disrespect by not knowing the name of the island, the village or any of the people’s names.

So as London burns, here in Okinawa the burning is more restrained – essentially it is limited to big trees stuffed into the nobori-gama  – check previous post: https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/harry-potter/

Fortunes smiles as, now quite good buddy Yamada san, asks Ben to do er pottery and help with the firing.

I've seen Fire and I've seen Rain. Other way around actually

It is one of the three firings of the year and Ben has been there for the last 2 days.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

On a warm Okinawan night

Sorry for long silence but we have just been through one big Typhoon, which amongst other stuff cut the internet connection for several days. This was a schoolboy dream as at 11:30 0n Thursday there was an announcement at work telling us all to go home as the typhoon was a coming.  We go back tomorrow – Monday.  Amazing rain, check:

http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/91267.php

Incredible wind, check Ben’s movie for full insight. Standing out in that wind was like riding a motorbike at 120 mph – watch the fat wobble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FTJTQ_8LjY

Destroyed my garden

Devastated garden

Okinawa is the best place to own a barograph. After 30 years of around and around you get this.

Way down low in the 960s. Never ever saw anything below 990 in 30 years of europe and California.

More about MacWhirr :

“Had he been informed by an indisputable authority that the end of the world was to be finally accomplished by a catastrophic disturbance of the atmosphere, he would have assimilated the information under the simple idea of dirty weather, and no other, because he had no experience of cataclysms, and belief does not necessarily imply comprehension.”

Don’t you love Conrad

Ben

So son Ben comes to stay. Straight off the plane into the sea and he completes his open water diving training in record time. He is like a, er, fish to batter, um snail to garlic, like lobster to creel, you know,  a Zulu to Ukweshwama, a Scotsman to the MacBraynes’ bus.

Andy Murray eel

Ben does Ukweshwama

Ben

Ben & I

Ben

Congratulations Ben