Oshogatsu: New Year's Dishes With Chanto

The night before the Oshogatsu party that Jolene and her brigade of mom friends from El Marino Language School held in early January, I found her frantically mashing yellow satsuma-imo and chestnuts in a pot. She then began to puree them - by hand - forcing them through a fine metal sieve with a plastic rice paddle. The end result was an attractive dish of kurikinton, a traditional New Year dish that with its golden hue, symbolizes prosperity.

Jolene uses a sieve to make the
kurikinton as smooth as we hope
the New Year will be.

"It's not Japanese cooking unless you've kicked your ass five times to make it," she said, not without a touch of irony as she toiled.


Over the last decade and more, Jolene's connection to Japanese culture through her marriage to Hiro, and now, through her sons and the families of their friends at school, has made the fare at gatherings that much more Martha-esque (or Harumi-esque, depending on where you live). Her cooking and hostessing skills have been elevated as well as culturally enriched in terms of presentation, tastes, and subtlety.


Watching my sister cook and knowing what she and her fellow Moms turn out daily in their respective kitchens, is a lesson in what Japanese Americans call "chanto," or self-discipline. Being ten minutes early for any appointment or always having change for the parking meter are forms of chanto. Using hand tools to do what a food processor does is Chanto 2.0.

Kurikinton, topped with chunks of sweet golden chestnuts,
signifies wealth.

That being said, it stands to reason that the delicacies that are served to celebrate Japanese New Year require unusual ingredients not used in everyday Japanese cooking, and are laboriously prepared, fortunately, only once a year. The feast we enjoyed on January 6 (the holiday is celebrated anywhere between Jan. 1 and 4, but we're not that chanto) was, happily, a modern abbreviation of a meal that usually takes days to prepare.

Tomoe led the feast as mistress of the o-zoni, the traditional soup served at New Year celebrations, topped with the infamous cakes of fresh mochi. Great caution must be taken when eating ozoni, particularly by the elderly or by children, who can easily choke on the sticky, gooey rice cake. Our mochi, another homemade marvel thanks to Tomoe and her Volkswagen-sized mochi maker, was cut into safely navigable pieces. Anna and I were fascinated by the way it puffed up when toasted, and tended batches of it in the toaster oven, squealing with glee at the pillowy, crispy cakes.

Rollin' in dough: Nothing says "Happy New Year"
like fresh mochi.

Another example of chanto has to be the fresh tamago that Tomoe was cooking throughout the meal. Cooking a thin layer of omelette while simultaneously rolling it into a log in a tiny rectangular pan takes not only a lot of skill, but infinite patience. It is among my favorite Japanese comfort foods, and reminds me of the crepe-like sweet omelette filled with grape jelly that our Dad used to make, except that there's no jelly in tamago. It is just a marvel of very simple ingredients - eggs, rice vinegar, and a little sugar or soy sauce - cooked to perfection, and eaten at flavor's peak.

The rest of the meal was a cornucopia of traditional Japanese osechi-ryori and various world cuisines. On the buffet table were Amy's Thai beef curry, Anna's famous coconut milk tapioca pudding, a Spanish sweet made with almonds called turron, and Yayoi's presentation of a jubako, a tiered lacquer box filled with traditional Japanese foods served to welcome a healthy and prosperous New Year. There was also an unexpected treat, a "dip" that Judy kept warm in a Crock Pot, that earned for her our undying worship as a culinary goddess. While the name "Hot Crab Salad" might be more reminiscent of a 1970s Southern rock group, it actually makes a better hors d'oeuvre. We enjoyed eating scoops of it on top of hot, fluffy rice. A good, buttery cracker or slices of toasted baguette would work nicely too.

Tomoe puts all her eggs - and concentration - in one basket
with her amazingly light and carefully created tamago.

Judy graciously parted with the recipe and few days later, the coveted formula was in our email inboxes. The scan of a handwritten recipe was labeled, "From the kitchen of Watanabe," a family friend. It was charmingly related in the kitchen shorthand that only expert cooks and busy recipe-sharing moms can decipher. I will insert some descriptives in brackets, but here is - in verbatim, the originally penned formula:


Hot Crab Salad
Bake 350 at 45 minutes

1 kamaboko (package of Japanese fish cake)
13 shrimp
8 imitation crab (this means 8 sticks of surimi, not 8 actual crabs, as I had thought!)
2 c. Napa (cabbage)
1 t. pepper
1 potato
1 egg (raw)
1 c. celery
1 c. onion
2 c. mayonnaise

Dice (all ingredients) w/pepper & and mayonnaise. Put in casserole dish. Sprinkle paprika and bake.

At Oshogatsu, most of us ate the Hot Crab Salad on top of rice, like a fluffy and oceanic souffle. In retrospect, crackers or slices of toasted baguette would be good too. What made it stand out, I think, was that it was different from most of the food. While the menu was far from the fare at a traditional Oshogatsu, our collective dishes tended toward an ethnic theme. Judy attributed the unabashed luxury of Hot Crab Salad and its appropriation of a non-Asian ingredient like mayonnaise, to its Hawaiian origins.

The groaning board at Oshogatsu.Clockwise
from left:Thai beef curry, renkon no sunomono,
osechi-ryori rice, and Hot Crab Salad.

Hawaiian cuisine combines influences from indigenous culture, immigrants from throughout Asia, and the islands' European colonizers, to create food traditions that are an idealization of what America is at its best: perhaps not a melting pot where individuals are obliterated into a mainstream, but where they create the mainstream.

Ethnic and cultural differences are not always smoothly navigated (see this book trailer on Sarah Vowell's "Unfamiliar Fishes" - really, it illustrates my point!). However, the preparation and enjoyment of food is what we all potentially share.

I think our Oshogatsu embodied this very well. The entire meal embraced the polyglot of cultures that had gathered together due to each person's connection to Japan or Japanese culture, whether by birth, marriage, or association with friends. I hope that in the New Year as always, that we can find a way to understand each other, if nowhere else, at the table.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Another Westside Icon Disappears With Closure of Junior's Deli

I was distraught when Anna's, the old school Italian ristorante with its red checkered tablecloths, encyclopedic menus, and ancient wait staff, closed its doors in 2010. I was - make that, still am - beside myself when they closed the Barnes & Noble at the corner of Pico and Westwood a year ago, taking away the Westside's last outpost of cozy-alone-in-a-crowd possibility. And tomorrow, after 53 years  of providing classic deli comfort food and ambience near the corner of Pico and Westwood, Junior's Delicatessen will close its doors.

Junior's iconic sign, with its mid-century joie de vivre,
has graced Westwood Boulevard for 53 years.
Photo by Shiho Nakaza

Shiho and I enjoyed a last brunch at the famed spot today. At around 10 a.m., the place was packed. We were told the wait was 30 minutes, which we accepted without protest. We fortified ourselves with coffee from Starbucks (me) and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (Shiho), since the counter was untypically packed with diners and in the chaos, there was no way to get just a cup of coffee. But it was forgiveable.

I stood around shyly in the restaurant's lobby when Shiho left to get coffee at CBTL. Since I've been on vacation for a couple of weeks, my interview skills are a bit rusty and my usual desire to question strangers is on hiatus. And it seemed, well, unseemly to chat up the throngs of Junior's fans, who like me, were experiencing gastronomic bereavement with our impending loss. But I eavesdropped on conversations about buying "our last corn rye," watched people take photos of each other in front of empty bakery cases and under the restaurant's signage, and marveled at the sheer volume of customers in general, who, as I was assured by Miguel at the front cashier desk, were not a typical Sunday crowd.

Love for sale: The bakery's last cakes,ever.

My friend Mark, who had grown up in the neighborhood, introduced me to Junior's years ago. He had raved about their scrambled eggs with lox and onions, which was available on the menu all day. I remember eating dinner there with him one night when the power went out for a couple of minutes and the restaurant was dark. Although the din of conversation ceased briefly,  I recall a strange feeling of reassurance despite the pitch black dining room, as if our companionship and the food on the table were a safeguard against any intrusion or discomfort. When the lights came on again a moment later, the sounds, sights, and smells of a bustling restaurant returned to focus as if nothing had happened. Since then, I have returned to Junior's faithfully over the years, alone or with friends, dependent upon the restaurant as one of those rare sanctuaries of delicious and wholesome food in a comfortable atmosphere.

This morning, through a window in the lobby, I could see several bakers working steadily to fill advance orders that must have been called in when the restaurant's closure was announced earlier this week. They were also making breads and rolls to supply the restaurant's needs, but cakes, babkas, and other baked goods were no longer being produced. Rows of pre-boxed bundt and pound cakes were stacked on top of the glass cases, like orphaned puppies hoping to find a loving home.

The inner workings of Junior's bakery, where industrious bakers
performed the last rites on a soon-to-be-abandoned kitchen.

Contained in what were normally bountiful and tempting cases of baked goods were two lonely trays of rugelach, a treat that has as many different spellings as it has flavors. As a faithful fan of the variety of Canter's bakery, I was never bowled over by the seemingly modest offerings at Junior's. However, knowing that the restaurant would be closed by the end of the next day made the last two pans of rugelach look like the crown jewels.

I bought a bagful of rugelach to nibble on with our coffee and now am regretting it, because at this late date, I have decided that they were the best rugelach I have ever had. The chocolate chip, of course, won out over the more authentic walnut and cinnamon (see reference to "The Lesser Babka.") Not only were the cookies generously laden with tiny chocolate chips, but they were crisp and flaky and melted in our mouths. They were almost diet-conscious, formed as they were in miniature, about a third the size of typical rugelach specimens. However, I would hesitate to ascribe to them the magic number of a 100 calorie nosh - especially as we ate about half a dozen each while waiting to be seated.

The last chocolate chip rugelach at Junior's -
not to be confused with "arugula." These go
better with coffee.

I love sweet and sour cabbage soup because of Junior's. But sadly, it is only their version that I love - a piquant broth of tomatoes, cabbage, with generous chunks of tender flanken. Since then, I have tried it at every deli in L.A. without discovering any other version that I liked nearly as well, which didn't really matter when I thought that Junior's would be there forever.

I had talked the soup up so well that Shiho ordered it (see her awesome sketch!) today with her lox and eggs. Ironically, it did not contain the fabled beef chunks, which when you know a restaurant is closing the next day, makes some sense. But I was disappointed nonetheless. A part-time vegetarian who had never had the soup before, Shiho was nonplussed by the absence of meat, and loved the soup with its tangy broth. She packed it to go, joking that she would add bits of her Honeybaked ham from Christmas dinner to give it a meaty embellishment.

Breakfast of champions: Lox, eggs, and onions

Several items have been 86'd from the menu - including the actual menus themselves. Miguel said that they were all given away or pilfered, and will probably appear on Ebay soon as collector's items. We had to order from stained paper to-go menus, one of which I snatched off a prep station and stashed in my purse as a memento.

There is talk of relocating Junior's elsewhere. Although most people I have spoken to have said that it hasn't been their favorite deli, you wouldn't know it from the crowds that have gathered for one last meal there. Landmarks like it make a neighborhood, are depended on by locals, and treasured by visitors, who will travel a loving pilgrimage for miles to a favorite spot.

I now need to invoke the First Amendment. GMS has never really been a forum for any deep controversy. However, with all the blame game stories about the closure of Junior's that point the finger at greedy landlords or the tarnishing of a restaurant's legacy, I feel that I want to put my mandelbrot where my mouth is.


Say what you will about the public's refusal to pay $13 for a sandwich or the changes in the Los Angeles demographic, i.e., thinly veiled references to a dwindling population of Jewish food lovers. However, when you can get a native Okinawan and a Filipina-American to walk into a deli (sounds like a bad joke, nu?) and get them to kvell over a bowl of soup and some flaky pastries, you've done more for international relations than the UN has done in seven decades.

Simply called "cabbage soup" on
Junior's menu,the name belies a
robust and flavorful broth.
Photo by Shiho Nakaza

As is the case with any tradition that has become over time, an integral part of what we consider America's cuisine, the delicatessen is a dying art form. Food is an important aspect of modern Jewish culture that has the potential to encourage in non-Jews an appreciation for that culture and its history in a warm and profound way. The melting pot at the corners of Pico and Westwood, which offers a variety of cuisine from every corner of the world, from lamb vindaloo to homemade soba, will be much diminished indeed with the absence of Junior's Deli. Very much like a bowl of cabbage soup without flanken.

Why My Nephew Should Be President Someday

In the midst of all the 2012 election hoopla, Seiji wrote this letter for a class assignment on persuasion. It really impressed me as a no-nonsense approach to a problem, an example of how even a ten-year-old could find a simple and economic solution. If only balancing the national budget without sacrificing the necessities were that simple! Read and discuss:

Mural of spot-on J.R.R. Tolkien quote, borrowed from here.

Dear Lunch Ladies:

I am Seiji, a ten-year-old in Omuro Sensei’s class.  I am writing to you about our lunch closing time.  Please extend the time for selling lunch so that the fifth graders who come late to lunch will still get food.  I have a few reasons for this.

If a kid comes late to the cafeteria there will be no lunch for him.  He will either starve, or beg for food from other people, which isn’t very polite.  In other words, if he did get lunch he would be eating well and his parents won’t have to be concerned about him starving.  If he tells his mom about that he had to starve at school with no food, she would then make his food every day so then you wouldn’t get as much money as before and your profit would go down.

Another reason is that if he doesn’t get enough food he will not have the energy he needs to study in class.  And if he does not pay attention in class he will have to ask the teacher too many questions and will get in trouble with the teacher for not listening, which is not fair because he just didn’t get enough lunch.  If he doesn’t listen or notice, he will not know how to do his assignment and would have to call a friend to ask questions.  This would probably annoy his friend, especially if there are a lot of questions.

Finally, a student without enough food wouldn’t have the energy to finish his homework.  He would either complain to his mom, who may be tired from work, that he’s hungry or just stay up late doing homework. Or he might have to do most of his homework in the morning, especially if he has a lot of activities like sports or music like I do.  The next day in school, he would be tired and in P.E. he would try as little as an ant to do the activities, which would affect his grade if this cycle continues daily.

I know that extending lunch may cost the time and extra money.  However, the food left over could be eaten by you, or can be put in the refrigerator and be used for another day.  This way you can keep the profit, and may save time and money because the food is already cooked.

Again, please take this seriously and extend your time for selling lunch for the good of our grades, energy, and stomachs.  Thank you for your time in reading this letter and again, please consider this suggestion as a way to keep the money going.

Sincerely,

Seiji


Epilogue: Seiji's friend, whose parents own a restaurant, wrote a similar letter addressing the quality of the cafeteria's food. If the children are our future, we're in good hands.