My arrival here has coincided with a major new project for family Morimoto: today they are launching a range of home-made cakes and desserts, drinks, condiments (miso, soy sauce) and lunch boxes - the classic "bento" but with their own macrobiotic/vegan spin - at the monthly market at Gifu, a 2-hour drive from here. Rie, helped by the team, has been cooking for days, the final push being this morning, when she got up at 3am to make the bento boxes. So, from around 4am, delicious smells we're wafting up to the first-floor "attic" space where me and the other two woofers sleep.
Yesterday I helped Machiko wrap up and label individual slices of cake, my Neanderthal fingers making heavy weather of the delicate operation. Even the muffins were lovingly packaged - no "pile it high" strategy here.
Meanwhile, Masan played with the children who, in their different ways, are all confident and supremely independent. Far from clutching to mummy's skirts, 3-year-old Fuko is already taking responsibility for dressing herself, laying the table, serving out the miso soup (hilarious, as it slops wildly around). The boys draw and read and play board games. At supper they are at ease using the lethal kitchen knives to slice up sausage for the pizza. Squabbles are rare, the house rings with laughter. Even Rie, slogging non stop, does so with serenity. And this on Kanta's birthday when most European - and indeed Japanese - parents would have been doing their nut putting on a complicated party event. Instead, Kanta went out to see his friends (it being such an intense work day at home). We then had a simple but lovely pizza-making evening. For once all rules were broken and both meat and cheese appeared. But Masan was keen to point out that the birthday dessert (a fruit tart) had no butter, eggs or white sugar! And yes, it was delicious. Rie is a wizard.
This was the ultimate non-materialistic birthday. Kanta's present from his brother was a tiny home-made "space ship"; from his parents it was comic books. Did he feel any disappointment, in the face of peer comparison? Who knows... He sat in his "throne", surrounded by a forest of decorative streamers while we sang - in English - Happy Birthday, and looked contented enough.
The daily activities change - this has been the weekend, so no school - but the household is anchored by rituals of different sorts: at 6.30 the valley is filled with uplifting muzak, a signal to farm workers that it's breakfast time; in the house each meal is preceded and finished by simple words created by Masan and Rie; bathing for the whole family is completed before supper; there is no fuss and no negotiation at any time - the children and parents eat, together, the same food and everyone clears the table together. At the end of the day Masan reads a bedtime story and that's that. And, as described, life is celebrated. The dream family?
With the family away for the day, today is a "free day" for me. Most days my tasks seem to be making the fires; laying the table and clearing up for every meal (a major job with no dish washer and unbelievable numbers of pots, pans, implements and dishes used in the ultra-complicated meal preparation - the downside of vegan cuisine); heating the bath water. Masan told me on day 1 that I was "staff", and therefore a different status from the permanent woofers. But the pecking order is pretty friendly, the atmosphere relaxed.
I see that Masan has FB'd a couple of food snaps from this morning, so I'll share the link. If you click on "translate" you'll have a rough idea of why cooking here is such a complex operation, and why it is so delicious. I'm hoping to sample a bit at lunchtime!
I'll also post a few more of mine to FB - and this will be my strategy for photo sharing, at least for now.
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