hanare @ Kutsuki Day 4

Sep. 9th Today's Dinner
- Curry pilav w/chiken
- Pumpkin soup
- Tabule with grilled vegetable
- Local vegetable cooked with tomatoes





Sep.8th Today's breakfast
- Rice
- Miso soup with fried tofu and tofu
- Rolled egg
- Green salad w/Kabosu (Japanese lemon)

*We forgot to take pictures!

Hanare paper in Kutsuki vol. 03 2009. 09.09
Today's menu in detail. A percentage of locally produced ingredient in today's menu.

Pepper, produced in Kyoto Prefecture
Onion, produced in Kyoto Prefecture
Garling, produced in Kyoto Prefecture
Eggplant, produced in Adogawa,Takashima-city, Shiga
Japanese pepper, produced in Shin-asahi, Takashima-city, Shiga
Sweet potato, produced in Shin-asahi, Takashima-city, Shiga
Pumpkin, produced in Shin-asahi, Takashima-city, Shiga
Kidney bean, produced in Mukugawa Takashima-city, Shiga
Soymilk, produced and processed in the USA
Couscous, produced in Tūnis
Caned tomato, produced in Italy
Olive oil, produced in Italy
Kabosu (Japanese citrus), produced in Kyoto prefecture


[Today's Memo]
  Today,  kitchen crew were busy working on the project in Kyoto. We have no interesting findings or interview to share with you.... Instead of writing the memo on local food culture, today we will introduce ourselves. Both Naho and I (Sakiko) run a collective called "hanare" in Kyoto. Here is an introduction of "hanare"

  Started as a weekly café in 2006 and now entering its fourth year, hanare is a project space that collectively and dynamically searches out ways of realizing a better world, through the weekly coffee house project, "Kissahanare," workshops, lectures and political visual projects. It attempts to engage with the emergent social issues relevant to life today: food, art, politics, urban planning, cultural theory, farming, and more! hanare also works together with people from various fields who are experimenting with creative projects to find ways of practicing a new, spontaneous way of living. While hanare's work has its roots firmly in the local Sakyo district of Kyoto, it also wishes to be a space with direct links to other regional towns and cities in the world, and an independent place where critique and creativity are nurtured. hanare continues to expand its effort to be a 21st century social & cultural center.

  Do you understand what we do? Yes? Even if you don't understand our activities, don't blame yourself. We have had many people asking us, "so what exactly do you do?" Our answer is, "we do everything!" We see that the problems apparent in Japanese society have a lot to with the fact that our life is fragmented and professionalized (don't take it personally, you guys are good professionals!) So we do everything from cooking food, organizing lectures/workshops, running a residency (Interesting People in Residency ) with Rad, making visual propaganda, making the dating service website dedicated to Israelis and Palestinians, collaborating with local farmers, and maybe making a day-care center for babies and old people in the future, who knows? Anyway, an important aspect of hanare's activity is not to go into one field, but going into as many fields as possible as amateurs.
    Our another slogan is "No, no, no we have nothing!!!" This title is what represents hanare's activity. We passed out a free paper at the hanare's 3rd year anniversary party. In a process of preparing texts for the paper, we came up with this title, "San-nai Undo," meaning that hanare's activity is all about turning a very negative condition, "no money, no land, no profession" into a positive one. It sounds so hippy... (we are not bunch of hippies!) Though what I like about this condition is that it automatically forces us to work with people collectively no matter what project we are engaging. I guess, realizing our limitation kind of opens up a new possibility for creating a network of people from a diverse spectrum. As proud multitude, we need to take advantage of a very negative  condition and  turn into a good thing, which is to connect people and create a human network.

 

hanare @ Kutsuki Day 3

今日は朽木に来て３日目。宿泊場所周辺を歩いて雑草を拾ったり、木の端切れを拾ったりして、雑草達で毎日食卓をコーディネート。毎食作るだけでは面白くないので、そして、こちらで料理することで見えてくる地域の食事情について、アジアからの研究者の人に少し知ってもらいたいと思い毎日hanare paperなるスモールメディアも発行中。提供する食事に使う材料の産地を表示するのと、この地域の食事情をちょっとだけ調査して、毎日夕食時に机に置いてます。発行部数７部！超、極小メディアです。誰にも頼まれていないのに、そして今他にもする事が山積みなのに、こういうことをしてしまう、性やわ。今日は買い物先のA-COOPのマネージャーに、農家の直売ブースについて直撃インタビュー。桂田店長はこの取り組みが１６年前に始まったことを教えてくれた。これはかなり早いんじゃないか？今でこそ里の駅ブームみたいになっているけど、１６年前というのはかなり凄い。でもスーパーマーケット全体の中で、この地元の人が稼ぐ割合とかって、２〜３％くらいだと推測するので、多分お小遣い稼ぎの域を出ていないと思う。ま、そういうことを毎日メモみたいにして、みんなに読んでもらっています、ということ。英語で書いているので、日本語はありません！すいません。

Sep. 8th Today's Dinner
-Rice bowl with sauteed fish cakes and with vegetable toppigs
- Sauteed shishito (peppers) with Jako (small dried fish)
- Suteed bittermelon with tofu, egg, and locally produced chicken
- Soumen soup with scarlion






Sep.8th Today's breakfast
- Salty pound cakes (Tomato, olives, cheese)
- Japanese pear
- Chai


 


hanare paper in Kustuki vol.02 2009. 09.08

[Today's menu in detail. A percentage of locally produced ingredient in today's menu.
Trip to A-COOP]

Ingredients:
Rice, produced in Mukugawa, Takashima-city, Shiga
Aji (too lazy to find out English name), comes from Obama, Fukui prefecture near Shiga
Goya, (bittermelon), produced in Shin-asahi Takashima-shi, Shiga, precisely by a farmer, Kikue Shimizu,
Shishito (Japanese pepper), produced in Takashima-shi, Shiga, precisely by a farmer, Miyoko Shimizu, and in Kyoto prefecture
Chirimen jako (small dried fish), produced in Hyogo prefecture
Tofu, in Imazu Takashima-city, Shiga, precisely by Aoyama Food company
※Despite that this product is produced nearby, its main ingredient, soy beans come from the US and Canada.
※Soy beans are non-GM if we believe the company
Egg, produced in Kutsuki, Takashima-city, Shiga

Soy source, produced in Nagasaki prefecture
Milin (sweet cooking wine), produced in Saitama prefecture
Sesame oil, produced in Shimane prefecture
Salt, produced in Kyoto
Suger, produced in Tanegashima, Kagoshima prefecture

[Today's Memo]
Today, we took a short trip to A-COOP again. A-COOP is a local supermarket in Shin-asahi, that has "local farmer's produce section" by the entrance. Farmers nearby individually come to the supermarket to drop off their vegetable and flower in the morning with the prices they decide. This "local farmer's produce section" started 16 years ago, according to the manager, Katsurada-san. Having "local farmer's produce section" at big supermarket chains is recently in fashion all over Japan, based on the idea, "Chisan-Chisho," meaning that people should consume the food produced in their surrounding areas. Many supermarkets therefore are pushing this "regional character" more and more to meet consumers' request and make more profit, of course. The section at A-COOP started 16 years ago, which as far as I know, is very early. Katsurada-san said, "they are all small farmers who make 2-3 vegetables, so there is less variety, and sometimes they all bring the same vegetable over and over again." In fact, today, we saw only 10 kinds of vegetables on the shelf, about 20-25 farmers, more or less bring the same produces. "The good thing of this "local farmer's produce section is that all the vegetables are cheap because they are all seasonal vegetables and give consumers a feeling of safety. Every morning, shoppers first check out the section located just by the entrance and then move to a conventional vegetable section," he said. He also mentioned that all the meat comes from Shiga prefecture although "Made in Shiga" sign was not in sight, as opposed to vegetable, all of which have names of a prefecture. I guess it' got to do with the national agriculture regulations that have different standard on vegetable and meat. Today, there is no conclusion but a conventional supermarket like A-COOP is at least trying to include the products that are not included in the national distribution network, but its attempt is still limiting, considering that roughly 70 percents of what the supermarket sell is processed food, who knows what ingredients are.

 

hanare @ Kutsuki Day ２

Sep. 7th Today's Dinner
-Onigiri - Japanese rice balls
-Soumen - Japanese rice noodles with toppings, mushrooms, egg, age (fried tofu)
-Fried eggplant and age (fried tofu) with mushroom broth
- Wakasagi fritt





Sep. 7th  Today's Breakfast
-Breakfast pound cakes (Chocolate, Lemmon, Rum raisin, Orange marmalade, Carrot )
-Potato salad with chickpeas and cucumber.

 




Using our spare time, we made hanare paper that connect our role of cooking for the conference members with local food culture. I guess hanare's speciality is to create more work by ourselves with no money.... We put it on each table to accompany our food.

hanare paper in Kustuki vol.01 2009. 09.07
Today's menu in detail: A percentage of locally produced ingredient in today's menu.
How local are our ingredients?

Ingredients:
Rice, produced in Takashima-city, Shiga
Somen (thin rice noodle) , produced in Nagasaki prefecture
Shitake (Japanese mushroom for making broth), produced in Kyoto precisely Naho, chef's home
Eggplant, produced in Takashima-shi, Shiga, precisely by a farmer, Fumie Adachi
Age (Fried Tofu), in Adogawa Takashima-city, Shiga, precisely by Kurimoto Food company
※Despite that this product is produced nearby, its main ingredient, soy beans come from the US and Canada.
※Soy beans are non-GM if we believe the company
Egg, produced in Kutsuki, Takashima-city, Shiga
Wakasagi fish (sorry, English name not known), comes from the lake Biwa, Shiga
Soy source, produced in Nagasaki prefecture
Milin (sweet cooking wine), produced in Saitama prefecture
Suger, produced in Tanegashima, Kagoshima prefecture

[Today's Memo]
We are the ones in a kitchen, we make everyday meal for everyone. Hello! We sort of participate in this conference, by way of cooking, but we sort of don't, like everyone. To say good-bye to our laziness and shyness that we hide in the kitchen, from today we have decided to make a small theme for each menu and be a little bit more playful with food and local food culture. Oh, don't expect us too much, only if we have enough time in-between cooking, going to picnic in the morning, exploring local plants, playing with a card, and drinking coffee, tea, and hot wine at night!!!
Anyway- today's theme is to examine how local our ingredients are. Yesterday, when we were out for buying food at a local super market in Shin-asahi, we learned that local products we have access to are pretty limited; in fact even the food that is known as a Shiga's speciality, comes from a different prefecture. Because organizers of this conference had previously asked us to use local ingredients as much as we can, we were more careful with our buying selection. The local products available to outsiders are, we found out, several kinds of vegetable and some processed food (we are excluding fish and meant since they are pretty expensive to include in everyday menu). Through this shopping trip and our conversations afterwards, the following questions came to our mind. Are we able to give up desire to have variety of food on a table, and willing to eat only locally produced food as much as possible to show solidarity towards farmers and local people we have contact with during the conference? Or should we set up a minimum percent of Shiga produced ingredient in in each meal? Or what should we do?  How do we treat the soybeans from the state but processed here? We have to make a shopping trip to a super market every 2 days or so, meaning that depending on your suggestion we can change everyday menu. So feel free to come up to us, and let us know your thoughts on  how we make a decision in the remaining days.
To be continued...

hanare_paper_01.pdf 

hanare @ Kutsuki Day 1

Sep. 6th Today's Dinner
- Curry
- Pumpkin salad

Our first day in Kutsuki.  After taking a shopping trip at a local food store and supermarket, we arrive at Kutsuki in the afternoon. We cooked a curry dish and pumpkin salad and said hi! to API (Asian Pacific Intellectual) fellows, researchers form South Asia, and Japan. We are asked to cook 2 meals a day for the researchers while using local foods. Usually we prepare for 10 people at Kissahanare, but simply making the portion three times more does not work. People eat a lot here, and I guess it's a good thing.

朽木での初日。今回はAPI (Asian Pacific Intellectual) の会議の食事を作るために朽木に出張。買い物したり、昼食を食べたりして、えっちらおっちら到着。今日は時間があまりなかったので、カレーに決定。米を持ってくるのをわすれるという致命的なミスを犯しながらもなんとか完成。森の真ん中にある宿舎で、仕事だけどバケーションにきたみたい。初回を作って気づいたこと。みんな普段の喫茶はなれ客より、もりもり食べる。明日からはもうちょっと量を増やさないと。

みちのくてくてく

寺山修司の本に出会ってから、ずーっと行ってみたかった青森県。
ようやく念願叶って3泊4日のみちのくひとり旅に行ってきました。

1日目　青森市（青森県立美術館・棟方志功記念館）

青森出身、棟方志功に奈良美智に寺山修司・・・。驚きだったのがウルトラマンのデザインをした成田亨の作品。ウルトラマンなんて何でこんなもの額に入れて美術館に飾るんだ、と思って見ていくと、あれあれあれ。なんかめちゃめちゃかっこよかった。怪獣のモチーフの取り入れ方のセンスや、いわゆる「キモカワイイ」愛嬌のある表情や、造形はシンプルなんだけど割と細かいところが描き込まれてたり、スケッチのひとつひとつがとても面白かった。カネゴンのポストカード、その場の勢いで買ってしまった。あと私の好きな菊池敦己氏のVIを見るのも目的だったんだけど、やっぱりデザインってものはそれがちゃんと機能しているところで見ないとね、と思った。椅子はそれに座ってこそ、服はそれを着てこそ、サインもその場で誘導されてこそ。ロゴタイプやサインは前から雑誌とかで見て知ってたけど、実際に使われている現場を見て、こういう大きさで、こういう環境で、この建築の中で使うから、だからこうなったのかぁ、と一人で納得しながら頭に焼き付ける。何でも勉強、勉強っと。
棟方志功も良かったので、その後棟方志功記念館も行くことにした。青森市に宿泊。夜の冷たい空気や海の深い色がやはり東北っぽい。喫茶店のおじさんに一人で来たと告げると、「失恋したのか」とお決まりの文句を言われてがっかりする。

2日目　三沢市（寺山修司記念館）・十和田市（十和田市立現代美術館）・八戸市

18か19才のころに読みあさっていた寺山修司。「人生は演劇である」という言葉は今でも大好き。あれからもう何年もたって、寺山の本を読み返すこともなくなってたけど、また読み直してみようという気になった。特に短歌は前はピンと来なかったのが、えらく胸に突き刺さったり。と念願の地を訪れたのだけど、三沢で何よりも印象に残ったのは軍用機がビュンビュン飛んでいたということ。この町は米軍基地があって、空を割るような轟音とともに黒い飛行機が次から次へと飛んでいく。何でも人工の1/5程がアメリカ人なのだとか。おまけに航空自衛隊の基地まである。私なんか飛行機が飛ぶ度にビクビクしてしまうのだけど、そこで生活している子供たちは素知らぬ顔で遊んでいる。三沢の人にとってはこれが日常なのだ・・・。気になって地図を広げて見てみると、三沢の北には射爆撃場、そして原発の六ヶ所村。三沢を南に行った八戸には陸・海の自衛隊のとても大きな基地がある。そういえば三沢のあちこちには自衛隊募集のポスターが。京都ではあまり見かけないのに。私たちにとって都合の悪いことが、こうした本州の端っこに押しやられているのかと思うと胸が痛む。

その後、十和田の美術館へ。参加者が体感できる作品が多くて、一緒に楽しめる作品が多かった。真っ暗な空間で映像作品を見るところがあって、その中のベンチに座ってしばらく観賞していたら後から入ってきたおじさんが私の前で立ち止まって、私のことを上から下までジロジロ見だしてあせる。席をゆずれということなのかとちょっと躊躇していたら、「わー、人だった」とおじさんがすごいビックリ声をあげた。私も作品の一部のオブジェか何かだと思ってたらしい。そこにいたみんなで大爆笑。作品も建築もとてもいい美術館だった。ただし、寂れた街の中にここだけが「異物」のように浮いていたので、その点が少々心配だった。この美術館を起点にこれから周りにいろんなものを作る予定みたいだけど、アートというものが街とどう関わり合えるのか、これからの動きにも注目したいなと思った。美術好きのための観光地にだけになってもしょうがないしね。十和田に住む人たちが、このプロジェクトにどれだけ関心を持っているのか気になるところ。

3日目　仙台市（せんだいメディアテーク）
仙台に移動。都会。

4日目　松島

せっかくだから松島へ。せっかくだからフェリーに乗る。船内でカモメのエサを売っていて、餌付けができるようになっている。カモメの大群が船にずーっとついて来る異様な風景。ヒッチコックの『鳥』を観て以来どうしてもカモメをカワイイと思えないので、エサはやらずに静かに見守る。そのうち襲われるんじゃないかと怖かった。瑞巌寺、ちょっと霊気を浴びた気分。

ここには書いていない小さなハプニングをいくつか乗り越えつつ、旅は無事に終了。今回の旅でよくわかったのは、私は人の話を全く聞いていないということ。飛行機にちゃんと乗れない人のことを笑っている場合ではない。でも旅にトラブルはつきもの、むしろそれを楽しんでいこう。いろんな土地を見て、いろんな暮らしを見て、いろんな社会を知る。旅はやめられない。

takahashi