By Sasha Wizansky

On October 21st, chef Kanji Nakatani took a small group of the OPENharvest crew on a trip to the Hokutei Fish Market to visit fish purveyor, Katsuhiro Sato. Apparently, Sato was kicked out of the main local fish market many years back and started his own small, maverick fish market, Hokutei Suisan. For thirteen years, Kanji has been buying fish from Hokutei twice a week for his restaurants, Soba Ro and Soba Ra. He says there is more variety than the other local markets, and the fish is fresher.

Kanji treated us to hot “Boss” coffee in cans from a convenience store and we ventured off. In the car he explained that fresh fish he buys for the restaurants can be used in sashimi for three days, and then is used for vinegar-cured shimesaba, or wrapped in kelp and salt-cured for kobujime. He also explained the process for karashishime, or fish cured with mustard flowers.

The market was in an unassuming building, in an unassuming neighborhood. Sato smoked a cigarette and amiably showed us around. Jerome photographed nearly every fish. Kanji had already purchased the fish for the OPEN dinner at Soba Ra planned for later that day, but when he saw the komochi ayu he bought a case of this seasonal specialty to add to the set menu.

We asked Sato if his customers were concerned about radiation. He said they were a little nervous, but they have continued to buy fish as usual.

Kanji inspecting the fish

Sylvan and Kanji

The tuna case

Whale meat, on sale for “research purposes”

Ebi

Kanji Nakatani and Katsuhiro Sato

The dinner at Soba Ra was exceptionally delicious. The sashimi platter was abundant with variety and color.

Sashimi platter at Soba Ra

In fall, ayu are pregnant with roe. They were served grilled and their bellies were fascinatingly bitter.

Grilled komochi ayu

While eating the meal, I reflected on Kanji’s long relationship with his fish purveyor, and was sure I could taste his loyalty in the fish.

*Sasha Wizansky is the Editor-in-Chief and Art Director of Meatpaper magazine, a print journal of art and ideas about meat and meat culture.

**All photos by Sasha Wizansky

***This post was originally posted on www.openharvestjapan.com on October 24, 2011.

Look at this tuna head! It was fucking HUGE–I could easily fit my own head into its mouth. Its eyeball was so clear, it looked as though it were still alive, looking deep into my soul, prodding me to try its precious ruby red flesh.

Sorry I have not been blogging so much. Every day is a new adventure to far away lands within Japan! This week I’ve been to a whisky distillery, as well as a produce facility where they test for radiation. This was quite an intense experience, and I’ll tell you about it once I’ve processed it all.

When you read this, I’ll be in Nagano prefecture, slaughtering a trapped dear.

Yup, every day is a new adventure. I’ll have more for you next week, I promise. Until then, go out for sushi this weekend and treat yourself to some toro sashimi. Mr. Tunahead thanks you.

As I’ve written in a post some years ago, Iceland is a nation of candy addicts. Especially if the candy is chocolate mixed with liquorice. It’s crazy how much candy the Icelandic people eat – but since there’s no fresh ice cream tradition like in Italy or warm, salty pretzels like in Germany – I guess you can’t blame them. This is what they got.

Check out this shitload of nammi – candy in Icelandic. It goes all the way to the end and continues on the other side.

This and many more aisles are standard equipment in all supermarkets of Iceland.

They also have a lot of darkness in Iceland. In the winter there’s hardly any light so the body and mind needs something to get a little positivity from when you’re curling up under the blankets while it snows outside and the lava and volcanos are bubbling underneath the floor boards. This is the exact opposite of sunny Los Angeles where people wake up every morning under a palm tree and blue skies – no need for anti-depressives or truckloads of candy in the city of angels…. oh, never mind.

The island of Iceland is a vast, windy, miserable, mysterious and very evil place to live.

Out driving and having fun on the icy roads. Well, actually we almost died, but that’s another story…

But it can also be very very beautiful.

Especially the Icelandic horses are super friendly, brave, strong and very well bred.

And they’re always ready to give you a ride to the nearest supermarket.

Like, for example BÓNUS, the most popular discount chain in the country.

Here you really have a visual company identity with Icelandic attitude: shocking yellow featuring a pink fucked up piggy bank on drugs.

It’s so awful that it totally rules. You can see from miles a away when someone’s been shopping in BÓNUS with one look at their plastic bags. Great branding.

This is where most Icelandic peeps get their daily groceries from. A yellow/pink plastic hell.

There’s a very long way to Berkeley’s green farmer’s markets and organic outdoor hippie stalls.
At least that little dude is eating a banana. It’s not nammi time all the time after all.

So, back to Copenhagen where for dessert last week,  my Iceland-resident (but American) friend brought nammi (candy) from Iceland. And I thought I’d snap a few photos and talk about it.

Basically, it’s all chocolate with liquorice. Not everyone likes that mix, many people don’t even like liqourice in the first place.
But this is Scandinavia and babies are fed liquorice from before they can walk.

Lakkris sprengjur (liquorice bombs)

Liquorice flavoured hard caramel covered in chocolate.

They’re really good, but watch your teeth. They might crack when biting into a bomb.

Oh, and what is this? Lakkris konfekt. I wonder if this is available outside Scandinavia? It sure is popular here.

Yes, the theme again is liquorice, you guessed correctly. Those other colours are stuff that tastes of sugar, marzipan and mint.

Quite good. Very toxic. Stay alert for spontanious rashes.

But wait, there’s more. Nizza Lakkriskurl (liqourice chippings bar) is super popular in Iceland with many variations in flavour and colour.

This one’s the classic.

It’s a chocolate bar with bits/chippings of salt liquorice inside.

Can’t really say I dig this one, actually.

The milk chocolate tastes cheap–like the hollow chocolate bunnies you get in Easter holiday gift baskets from people you don’t like. Low-quality factory chocolate for children with undeveloped tastebuds.

Big bits of liquorice inside. I can’t eat the whole bar unless I want to see my lunch again.

Last bag of nammi: Perlur (Pearls). Stökkar súkkuladiskeljar med lakkrískjarna (Crazy chocolate shells with a liquorice core):

They look like mint drops, and they actually taste like that; mint, chocolate and liquorice.

The taste is kind of busy, there’s too much going on. Again, the taste of the chocolate reminds me of kids’ Christmas calendar candy.

In spite of the above general fails of icelandic nammi sampling, there’s still a lot from the dark island that is very good and edible.
And if your local kiosk doesn’t carry these jewels do not despair, www.nammi.is is a webshop dedicated to ship Icelandic goodies across any borders for you to munch in.

You should try the Lakkrísreimar Fylltar, the Marzipan Liquorish Rolls or the handmade by local farmers Rhrubarb Caramels.

Happy nammi shopping!

Yay, there’s finally a real farmer’s market in Copenhagen!

After decades of supermarket deathbore, a new race of DIY vendors, small farmers, honey harvesters and local produce hippies will show up in their home-built vans with truckloads of cheap, fresh, delicious and organic fruits of the earth, and deliver the goods our generation has been raving about for the last 15 years!!!

Or not.

You see, there’s not really any money in cheap healthy produce or farmer hippies. Where’s the sex? Where are the cool, trendy metropolitan vibes? What are tourists going to do with a nasty soiled leaf of freshly picked spinach?

Nah, let’s scrap all that and invite all the chain shops around Copenhagen to squeeze in a miniature version of themselves into the new, trendy starchitect-built glass halls so the tourists and Copenhageners who don’t know better will have yet another place to buy a latte, a box of frozen dinner or an overpriced premixed cupcake ($5.50 for a small cupcake, anyone?).

Entrance to one of the two long glass halls. The white and red stickers are horrid and reduce the lines of the architecture to a suburban discount mall. Please get rid of those now.

So, that is state of the art “farmer’s market” anno 2011. As you can probably tell, yours truly is slightly underwhelmed. But now that I’ve gotten all this out of my system I have to admit that it’s better than nothing. Even though things are overpriced with discrete hints of tourist trap and snobbish wannabe hip city culture, I actually have fun there.

It’s become a new place to hang out with friends. Instead of sitting in a cafe bitching about bypassers’ haircuts and lack of footwear style (American tourists usually take the win, sorry guys), well at Torvehallerne you can walk and bitch at the same time. It’s fabulous. You can use one hand to hold your overpriced latte and the other to point at stuff or carry bags of luxury chocolate, a shark’s head or salt scrub if you have dry skin on your eyeballs (from looking at too many Crocs).

During warm days they open up the whole side of the glass building right next to the Coffee Collective coffee stand and you can sit outside on benches and watch five baristas at work simultaneously inside. People want their shopping latte.

So I will stop being a drag and not complain anymore. At least it’s here–now we can work (and shop deliberately) to make it better. I made the mistake on going on a Saturday when EVERYONE alive on Earth had decided to shop at Torvehallerne. I could barely see the individual stalls due to the long lines of human fat in motion. But I did my best to shuffle and push peeps around to catch a glimpse of the goods with my lens.

Slagter Lund: I like that they put up white tiles and old photos of butchers.

Another butcher across the hallway. Before I buy any meat I would like to borrow his knife and cut off his Seattle 1994 goat beard before it ends up in my steak tatare.

But props to them for using a nice font to write the prices. Old school serifs FTW!

Live lobsters screaming for mercy in lobster language. Unfortunately at Torvehallerne no one can hear you scream.

Buckle up, guys. Yamahomo will come for you in a minute.

Lots of expensive chocolate from exclusive boutique brand AXOCO from Danish chocolate factory Anton Berg.

Cofoco Supermarche offers frozen dinners, sauces and side dishes. Not cheap. But easy.

A shop sells kitchen knives, murder weapons and more chocolate bits.

A deli offering freshly made dishes. Why use tools when you have two hands (and lots of body hair)? Yum.

Fresh garlic from France, $3 a bulb:

At least the style is more what I think of in regard to farmer’s markets: rustic and natural.

French chickens with head:

Quite photogenic. Is that what they call beautiful mortality?

Italian chocolate cigars at $10 a piece:

So politically incorrect, I love it. Buy one for each of your grand children.

This is more market square style:

That’s what I’m talking about–real unprocessed food. These are fresh herbs to take home and plant in your window or in a pot next to your bed for that healthy moonlight snack.

$5 mint, time and oregano.

This place is fun, you can mix your own food oil. Or foot oil? Didn’t quite get the details.

You can always use more oil when eating a slice of pizza.

Veggies: looking good but the prices are silly.

$5 for a box of cherry tomatoes that are not even organic or Danish.

Hanging hams and Italian specialties.

Tapas del Toro:

People in Copenhagen are suckers for red wine and tapas hence the totally crowded corner stall with bar chairs so people can get their drank on and desperately try to make believe they’re on holiday. I really don’t get tapas, it’s oily, salty, lots of dull bread and fatty meat, you never know if the food is old as it already sits there on the bar desk when you order it, possibly having been slowly rotting for days–and also there’s never enough to get you full. I also hate wine. Guess Spain isn’t on my to-do list.

The Chinese Merchant:

Also overpriced like cray cray. $5 for a small block of silk tofu. $9 for a small pack of miso. I miss Tokyo and California and their food prices.

Organic malt drops made on an island in Denmark:

The red “Ø” is the official Danish logo for organic foods. Organic is “økologisk” in Danish, hence the Ø.

Different French food oils; walnut, hazelnut, olive, some herb, and lemon/garlic.

Peter Jackson called, he wants his Lord of the Rings extras back.

$5.50 cupcake (quite small). Love the Italian Almond flavour though, sweet and crunchy.

Princess Tart (lovely name):

$7.5 a slice. Borderline tacky but with all those boring tapas we need something festive for the gays.

Fun sign for a French chicken themed preserves stall. Made with cut out cork!

They sell lots of different chicken and goose specialties:

No idea what this is. Not eating though, that’s for sure.

Soup de possion de roche. Cute rural packaging. Not eating this either though.

They’re also cooking at the spot. Chicken here as well.

LOVE the French beret.

Italian/Turkish(?) themed sweets stall:

I tried their French nougat with cherries – sugar overload, but quite good in small bites.

They also have cake:

Not sure how fresh or homemade it is, but the surface of the pink champagne rosé biscuit one looks deliciously marshmallowish.

Oh look it’s $37 chocolate sushi!

You get 128g of small luxury chocolates along with two sets of hashi, raspberry sauce and small ceramic bowls for the sauce.

This completely non-adorable steel clad ice cream stall caught my eye, for all the wrong reasons.

They sell chocolate and raspberry yougurt ice cream.

With 4 choices of toppings!

If there ever were slutty ice cream this would be the one.

So as you can see, lots of fun walking around looking at stuff. It’s not as rustic as a French food hall, as stylish as the one in Harrods, London. Or as hippie trendy as the ones in Berkeley, California. But it’s still better than a discount chain supermarket.

Here’s to hoping it will by time grow into a less cold, less expensive place with more small local vendors doing their thing.

Last week on Japanify, I proposed the idea of marrying two of my favorite things in life: Japanese food and Twin Peaks. A few hours after my post went up, Kayoko emailed me this post from Mental Floss, on a series of videos from 1993 that came very close to this vision. These videos were even directed by Mr. David Lynch himself and the humor proves that they are 100% authentic.

I was giddy with excitement as I watched the videos for the first time. In this series, Agent Cooper and his entourage try to solve a case of a missing woman, uncovering the mystery clue by clue in each episode.

These Georgia commercials made me nostalgic for kan-kouhi (can-coffee). Coincidentally, one of my favorites was Georgia’s “Emerald Mountain Blend.” It’s probably the most hideous of all the kan-kouhi in terms of design, but I loved that it was quite strong. It was my chain-smoking grandma who turned me onto this brand. Instead of giving me anything of nutritional substance, she would give me several cans of this stuff plus some packaged ham from the combini Lawson (convenient store) whenever I would visit her house.

Here is a commercial for Georgia’s Emerald Mountain Blend from January of this year titled “Excuse us for being men.”

The copy describes the weaknesses of males (i.e. not communicative, powerless to the charms of women) but in the end… men are awesome… thanks to Emerald Mountain Blend. 日本の男. The Men of Japan.

Talking about all this kan-kouhi piqued my thirst and I snooped around my local Japanese market to taste test several canned coffee brands available in the U.S. I probably should have gone to a larger Japanese supermarket because my independently owned Japanese market only had two types of canned coffee: UCC and Pokka.

UCC

The UCC milk coffee was lighter in color and less robust in taste. Although it gave off a roasted smell it wasn’t so rich. The milk they use must be low in fat because there was hardly any milky aftertaste. This can is wide for canned coffee standards since it’s the same width as standard soda cans here in the states.

Pokka

Pokka had a richer, darker caramel color. The taste reflected that as well, it was really sweet and the coffee taste was strong. I found this one to have a great coffee flavor, it was well-rounded and creamy. However, I was not so crazy about the fact that it was so sweet and I found it to be perfect after pouring it in a cup full of ice. I also love the packaging of this classic Pokka can that I rarely see anymore in Japan.

The winner here is Pokka with its rich taste and creamier texture. Although the larger size of the UCC can is attractive for people who want to share, it loses points since it tastes a bit too watery.

All the great directors seem to be getting in on the kan-kouhi action. Here’s Akira Kurosawa on a subway platform, directing with plenty of energy, thanks to his Morning Shot.

My brother-in-law Chris fell in love with the Morning Shot when he came to visit Tokyo. Here’s what he remembers about it:

Well the name is fantastic for starters–Morning Shot–is it a wrestling move? A Good Morning America-like TV show?

Taste-wise I preferred Wonda because they were right in the middle of UCC (too sweet) and Boss (more bitter).

I also like food that has a woman’s name. Gives it more personality, and you can create a private story around the name–like how Little Debbie is the cute neighborhood girl you had a crush on when you were growing up. I imagine that Wonda is full of attitude and sass, she is the reliable Les-Bro that you can gossip with, AND who serves you a mean cup of Joe.

It was also all over Shimokotazawa, so super easy to find. And I always got the hot-can, gotta love the hot-can.

+++

I’d still like to pitch several ideas to Lynch about a Japanese cooking show, for example: “Hamachi in the percolator with your host Pete Martell” or “Brewing the perfect Hario pot of coffee with your host Norma Jennings.”

But for now, I’m totally satisfied with these Georgia commercials.

My new favorite thing to cook with!

Photo by Erin Gleeson.

My parents do their daily and weekly shopping at the vegetable shop just down the road from their house. The thing about South Asian countries is that even though their produce is fresher than fresh, but because of the heat, things go bad very quickly (who wants a bunch of wilted greens?). The main market day is Sunday but we try and avoid the crowds and do our shopping during the week. Most local shops are located on the roadside and look like this:

You can see they sell more than just vegetables. In the back to the left you have the essentials: garlic, onion, ginger, tomato, potato, fresh chillies and lime. To the right, you can see they also sell a variety of dried fish including maldive fish (which is like katsuobushi), an essential ingredient in vegetable curries and salads. And of course there are various spices and chilli powders hanging in packets. In fact, it’s a one-stop shop for curries.

One of the more exotic vegetables you get in Sri Lanka is the banana flower. It’s a beautiful purply red colour and is the size of a medium papaya. It’s usually chopped finely and cooked as a curry. Here you can see it flanked by some kind of root vegetable on the right and white cucumbers on the left, spring onions above and long beans next to it.

There’s also bread fruit which looks a little like a cross between a jack fruit and a durian, similar to a small green football. This is also curried and has a colour and texture similar to young bamboo shoots (takenoko).

Next to the bread fruit (above) is one of my favourite vegetables eaten as a milky curry. I think it’s a type of gourd similar to the ridge gourd. And just above it is a mound of pale purple aubergines.

Leeks sandwiched between ridge gourds and snake gourds. Green bananas on the right.

Baby bitter gourds flanked by ridge gourds and sour mangoes. The baby bitter gourds are not as bitter as the usual ones. And the sour mangoes are also cooked in a hot/sour/sweetish curry that tastes a bit like chutney.

The baby bitter gourds look a little like baby hedgehogs.

I first thought this was a pile of discarded, dried-out leaves until I took a closer look and found they were bundles of herbs for curry.

There’s curry leaf (karapincha), lemongrass and rampe (pandan leaf); all essential ingredients in a proper Sri Lankan curry. I was a bit surprised at the inclusion of lemongrass but my father assures me that it’s normal. I guess it could take the place of kaffir lime leaves which are often used in curries.

And of course no vegetable shop can be without coconuts! We normally crack the coconut open with a hammer and then grate it with a traditional grater attached to a table.

We bought a huge bag of vegetables, then we headed off to what my father says is the most important shop of all:

Sri Lankans cannot live without bananas. Apparently they are happiest when they have a cup of sweet tea in one hand and a banana in the other. There are so many varieties and are available all year round. My favourites are the sour banana (which isn’t all that sour) and katta kolomba which is sweet and sour at the same time. So different from the bananas we get in London.

I had mentioned previously a little bit about betel leaves. As I had been going on about how I wanted to try them properly, my father popped out to get me a small bundle.

Betel leaves are traditionally given as offerings in ceremonies such as weddings. They are also presented to Buddhist priests in temples. Although most often used as a stimulant, it is said to have various ayurvedic properties and have been in use for over 2000 years in the Indian subcontinent.

My father doesn’t chew betel himself and admitted he has an aversion to them because as a child, one of his chores was to collect all the betel leaves people left behind as offerings for his grandfather (who was an ayurvedic doctor and village headman) and which his grandfather sold. So he can’t stand the smell. I, on the other hand, love the smell. I’ve only had betel leaf in the Indian manner, as paan, filled with spices, coconut and sugar/honey, which you eat as a palate cleanser and breath freshener. I’ve never chewed it like tobacco. So I opened the packet and found the following:

Surprisingly, it came with chewing tobacco plus the betel nut (areca nut) and a small slab of slaked lime paste. You are supposed to make a little parcel with a little bit of each ingredient and chew. I left out the tobacco (as it looked quite gross) and just put a tiny bit of the lime (which is a stimulant) and a big piece of leaf and nut to chew.

I was a bit apprehensive as I chewed, but it just tasted very green. I was also expecting my mouth and saliva to turn red as blood, but I don’t think I put enough of the lime so my mouth stayed green. It wasn’t all that good, just very green. So I couldn’t even spit out red liquid like all the people chewing betel on the streets. Would I try it again? Maybe. But I think I prefer eating it the Indian way which tastes much, much better.

These photos my friends in Tokyo sent me gave me a glimpse of what is going on there. The images have also reshaped my idea of what to include in my pathetic earthquake kit consisting of some nonperishable food and 4 gallons of water. (Note to self: buy sweet things and dried foods).

Most of my friends and family are still in Tokyo, feeling that the radiation threat is not immediate. But the news is unsettling everyday.

My friend Abasa who lives in Tokyo sent me a bunch of photos of Shibuya station on the Inokashira line. This line leads to the turnstyle I used to commute to work everyday. This is shocking.

Inokashira line, Shibuya Station, March 13, photo Abasa Phillips.

Shibuya bus station, March 13, photo Abasa Phillips.

He also snatched some photos inside Japan’s Target equivalent Donki, in Shibuya, adding “Donki was pretty much empty, but things that Japanese don’t really eat like granola and oatmeal was untouched.”

Donki, Shibuya, March 13, photo Abasa Phillips.

Even after a huge event like this so many of my friends went back to work on Tuesday.

The panic engulfing Tokyo has left my friend Emi‘s workplace, Union Square Cafe in Tokyo Midtown, desolate enough for her to experiment with new recipes. She expressed concern about the extent of resources many businesses in Tokyo are using up while people in the north are really suffering from a lack of these resources.

Here are some photos she sent to me of the Precce Supermarket in Tokyo Midtown, Roppongi.

This sign says, “For the consideration of others, 2 per person, please.”

Tokyo Midtown, Precce Supermarket, March 13, Photo Emi Tao.

The kombu and sea vegetables section (kombu and other types of kelp are said to combat the effects of radiation):

Tokyo Midtown, Precce Supermarket, March 13, Photo Emi Tao.

My oolong-hai partner-in-crime, Mayumi, who works at Hitachi in Yurakucho says, “Maybe the situation of local supermarkets could be worse. They also don’t stay open late any more due to electricity conservation.”

She sent me these pictures of Seijo Ishii near her workplace.

Pasta section:

Seijo Ishii, Ginza/Yurakucho, March 14, Photo Mayumi Hirakawa.

Dried goods section:

Seijo Ishii, Ginza/Yurakucho, March 14, Photo Mayumi Hirakawa.

Since the embassies of most countries are urging their citizens to flee westward or leave the country, many of my friends have already situated themselves outside of the Tokyo area.

Although feeling relieved after traveling to Fukuoka, my friend Arnar added, “My mind is still with the people in the Sendai and Tokyo area.”

Before traveling to Fukuoka, Arnar sent me these. Notice the one, lone cup o’ noodle:

Shibuya, March 13, Photo Dr. Arnar Jensson.

The night of the earthquake:

Shibuya, 7-11, March 11, Photo Dr. Arnar Jensson.

Superstar (and matchmaker for me and my husband) Takachiho‘s photos proved that his humor is definitely still intact. Here, he snaps photos of Marusho, a market similar to Safeway, standard and mainstream. It looks like all the prepared food is gone. Meats seem to be plentiful.

Fried food natto, and fishcakes:

Setagaya-ku, Marusho, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho

Dessert Tofu:

Setagaya-ku, Marusho, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

Breads and pastries:

Setagaya-ku, Marusho, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

This sign says that on March 16, they will try to open at 10am, but may open later if delivery is delayed:

Setagaya-ku, Marusho, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

The expensive stuff looks like it isn’t going anywhere:

.
Setagaya-ku, Marusho, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

Produce seems abundant:

Setagaya-ku, Marusho, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

Along with the eggs:

Setagaya-ku, Marusho, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

Seijo-ishii is a more upscale version of Trader Joe’s with an international twist. The prices are higher and the square footage much smaller than Marusho. When I lived in Tokyo, I would shop here for dried foods, peanut butter and Best Foods mayo.

Most of the stuff here looks pretty untouched:

Setagaya-ku, Seijo-ishii, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

Looks like Takachiho stopped in for something specific…

Setagaya-ku, Seijo-ishii, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

Honancho, Home, March 14, Photo Yuusaku Takachiho.

Thank you to everyone who sent me photos. Love, love, love.

+++
Every dollar counts! SUPPORT!

- 10% of all purchases in the Umamimart Shop will go towards Earthquake & Tsunami relief efforts. Buy a mug!

- Drop by Yamahomo’s Help Japan! Fundraising Party this Friday. An anonymous donor will match up to $10,000 in funds so if you’re in NYC, you absolutely MUST GO!

- Donate directly to Japan Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund. It is a highly trusted source, and they’ve raised over $500,000 to date for this cause.

- In April, Yoko, Kayoko + Friends will be throwing a huge fundraiser in San Francisco to support the relief. Stay tuned.

*The title of this post is inspired by Haruki Murakami’s collection of short stories, published in 2000.

Did you know that Greenland is part of the Royal Danish Kingdom? Well, neither do most Danes actually (they’re busy watching American TV shows instead). But it is, along with the Faroe Islands– and we used to own Iceland too. Since 2009 Greenland has gained 99% self control although Denmark is still supporting the island financially in a lot of aspects.

Thinking about Greenland you don’t exactly explode with an abundance of culinary exquisities or worldwide cultural import successes. It’s a weird, white, cold rock and it’s too far for anyone to care, really. Only 57,00 people live there, mostly Inuits and some Danes. There are no roads, you have to either drive a snow scooter, sail a ship or fly a plane to get around.

As of yet, I’ve never visited the country. Flying up there and back is more expensive than a return ticket to Tokyo or Bangkok. A few years ago I designed a shirt collection for a Danish fashion house, and I was really inspired by the traditional national pearl embroideries and cultural aesthetics.

The collection sold like crap however. Again: Danish people feel no attatchment to the culture, and no need to idenitfy themselves with it. A shame actually.

So, what do they eat up there? Well, what do you eat when it’s cold out? Lots of meat, soups, stews, heavy stuff that makes you full and warm. The food prices are crazy though as everything has to be imported by plane or ship to the island. But they do also export stuff,  and today I went to the DayCatch, a new Greenland-themed store located in the harbour district of Copenhagen. It’s next to the historical Greenlandic Trading Square, where it was a busy center for trade to and from the Faroe Islands, Finmark, Iceland, and in particular, Greenland, over 200 years ago.

Pretty low-key entrance in an old trade house.

Inside, it’s pretty dark and cozy with lowered wooden ceiling. The whole room is filled with imports– meat, liquor, gifts, arts & crafts and more.

The long freezers are filled with a wide assortment of meats. Muskox beef, reindeer paté, huge shrimps, long scary deep sea crab claws, catfish, trout, cod, redfish, uvaq (a type of Greenland cod) snow crab, halibut and other arctic beings.

Muskox steaks.

Long crab claws and hellefisk.

Muskox forcemeat ($32/ kg).

Siku Vodka– brewed with Greenlandish water, by traditional Greenlandish methods ($294 per bottle).

Oh look, it’s backlit by a cool bottle stand. There must be gays in Greenland after all.

If you need some wall decor why not get reindeer antlers to hang your coat on?

Skibskiks (ship biscuits) with lots of nothing in them. To the right a bunch of freezing bags if you get a lot of frozen stuff– practical!

You clearly sense this is a man’s store. I can’t really imagine a single female New Yorker doing her decaf latte and shoe shopping in here. You can also join the “Proviant Club” and get good offers on weird meats in your inbox.

You can buy strangely shaped tupilaq thingies. Did any of the Sex & The City-girls ever date any Inuit men? If not, this may be what they have to rely on if they want some Greenlandish manhood playtime.

In the souvenir department there are also Greenland flag mugs.

Plain Greenland national flags. We love our flags in Denmark and Greenland and use them for any occasion– birthdays, celebrations etc.

And of course the national animal: the ice bear. Cute.

Polar ice cream, a super old school Danish ice cream company.

In the corner there’s a fridge with beer. I usually avoid such cabinets like the plague, but I needed something affordable to buy as the shopkeeper had been eyeballing us for the last 15 minutes while we were snapping pictures and looking at the tupilaq manhood replacements.

I buy a Faroe Island produced Black Sheep dark lager. Invokes evil sheep power from Arctic Hell.

And a Grønland Ice Cap Beer– “Brewed with the purest water in the world from the Greenland Ice Cap”. Yum!

Besides these beers, I bought the COOLEST ice cubes in the world.

Behold: 2000-60,000 years old ice cubes, cut from the Greenland inland ice. These rocks are older than Jesus!

Ancient ice cube porn!

When you drop the rock into the drink, a loud fuzzy noise erupts– all the prehistoric air caught inside the ice brick is now escaping in skull cracking bursts! Serving any drink with this icy awesomeness makes it so much better, and it’s always a great conversation starter– age, life, death, eskimo Jesus. It’s all in there.

Hm, tastes like water. With a hint of polar bear pee.

What does a cheesemonger do on Christmas vacation? If that holiday involves traveling to Boston, then it means paying a first-time visit to South End Formaggio. In my estimation, South End Formaggio and its parent store Formaggio Kitchen (in Cambridge, Mass.) are among the finest purveyors of cheese, wine, charcuterie, condiments, and the like in New England. They know their stuff, and the carefully stocked shelves prove it.

The range of cheeses they offer is vast, including the usual (e.g. English cheddars, camembert and boucheron, to name a few), as well as cheeses previously unfamiliar to me, such as Hafod and Romadur.

And these cheeses come directly from the producers, rather than a middleman distributor. Translation: South End takes great pride in sourcing, tasting, and buying what they eventually sell to the rest of us. As if that’s not enough, they even make their own charcuterie. Upon hearing all of this from my brother, a local Bostonian, I placed South End Formaggio at the top of my itinerary; and its products at the top of my Christmas list.

Undeterred by the massive blizzard that slammed Boston and the entire Eastern seaboard, I trekked in my ill-equipped, traction-less boots to South End Formaggio on a very snowy Boxing Day. To my surprise, I found a swarm of customers at the cheese counter at 11am, huddled in tortoise formation. One-by-one they ordered large quantities of prosciutto and expensive hunks of cheese as if preparing to hibernate for the rest of winter.

This entire scene proved to me that Bostonians love their cheese enough to risk hypothermia. They must love it as much as I do.

For 30 minutes I scoured the shop to discover not only a staggering number of cheeses, but also many fantastic non-dairy delights, too. Like an old school delicatessen, this store was chockablock with Old World specialties and staples that ranged from Sant’Eustachio coffee (where the well-to-do caffeinate in Rome) to nice table wines like Les Hérétiques from France.

I also managed to contain my sheer giddiness at the sight of the overstocked cheese counter, filled with domestic artisan cheeses and European classics, long enough to spot the shop’s own “Cheese Paper” newsletter. Inside this slim holiday issue were articles about the various flavors of Comté, the virtue of the Italian Christmas panettone, and other tidbits for the gourmand.

Limited by the reality that I had to transport all purchases back to Washington in an already-full backpack, I selected a few choice items. Among them were a package of Rancho Gordo’s Moro beans, a bottle of Edmond Briottet’s decadent and unparalleled crème de cassis, a bell-shaped Charollais sheep’s milk cheese, and the delectable Tronchetto di Capra Carbone (which I’ll be writing about in my next post).

Massachusetts may be home to Dunkin’ Donuts (not to mention the nation’s worst drivers) but I can still hold it in regard thanks to South End Formaggio (and the Red Sox, of course). And for anyone (like myself) who resides outside of Boston, Formaggio Kitchen has an outpost in NYC’s Essex Market, as well as online shop. They will ship many of their products, including cheeses. And neither rain, nor sleet, nor SNOW will prevent their delivery and consumption.