black garlic and ffffire!

Today Masan took over the kitchen, clearing the habitually-ingredient-and-implement-strewn table (10 years of arguing with Rie, now they accept their differences - he can't work amid clutter!) to make black-garlic paste: a blend of 2-week-baked black garlic, roasted almonds, salt and several different oils. (See photo album and video on FB.)

Then I managed to get blisters peeling 2kg of garlic cloves, to be added to chillies, oils, and sake and converted into "Fire", Masan's premium product. It's a wickedly hot sauce that we add to just about every meal. Masan created it as a hobby, a few years ago. Since then sales have been growing, to the point where he is unable to meet demand. The plan is to sell 1500 jars over the next year. (Again, see FB for pics and video.)

The garlic-clove peeling was a lengthy job. So I had the i-pad alongside and, with Machiko, Youtube-toured around Western and Japanese classical music. At one point we risked making Fuku late for kindergarten as she gazed, transfixed, at the ballerinas in Swan Lake. All was relaxed until Masan, in the nicest possible way, told us to buck up. Unknown to us there was a timescale: food processing needed to be finished in the morning window before lunch. "So why didn't you tell us?!", I riposted; so that we didn't stress about it, he explained. Yet again, thinking of the other person.

Working with Machiko gave me an opportunity to test the universality of Masan's description of social interactions. For Machiko, the "Please accept my unworthy gift" rhetoric is a thing of the past, abandoned in her early twenties. (She is now 28.) And we both agreed that feisty Fuku, currently aged three, would punch out the lights of any husband who introduced her as "my poor unworthy wife". So things may be changing. But I'm also aware that there are layers within layers in Japanese itself; the language morphs, depending on who you are speaking to. (And there was me making a fuss about the "tu" and "vous" forms in French! Trivial, in comparison with things Japanese.)

As I write, I'm keeping an eye on the clock. Yesterday I screwed up on bath-fire duty, failing to understand that the stove needed to be refuelled every 15 minutes. It ended up with Machiko taking over and the water only heating very late. Embarrassing, and although no one gave me a hard time, I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. Though with me on duty it's tempting to stop heating at a point well before the third-degree-burn stage preferred by Machiko and Dai chan. Funny how the Japanese are built differently from us: they don't need or wear sunglasses in sunlight equivalent in intensity to the south of Spain; and pile on layers when the temperature goes below 20 degrees.