by Bruce Rutledge | April 17, 2008
Koto master Elizabeth Falconer first visited Japan as a summer exchange student in 1973. During that summer, Elizabeth became fascinated with the country and vowed to return. When she did in 1979, an English student of hers told her to check out the koto. That advice would end up altering Elizabeth’s life.
Elizabeth took to the koto right away, and began studying under Utayumi Nagane, and later under Tadao and Kazue Sawai. Elizabeth proved a quick study, perhaps because of her background in violin and the diligence with which she practiced in those early days. The koto, a relation to the Chinese zither that was introduced to Japan about two thousand years ago, has a strict, codified culture around it which Elizabeth excelled in through hard work.
Eventually, Elizabeth married John Falconer, a shakuhachi player, forming a group they call Duo-en. When Elizabeth returned to the US after a dozen years in Japan, she and John went through some fiscal hard times.
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by Bruce Rutledge | December 14, 2007
What turned a football-loving Clevelander into the world’s foremost non-Japanese expert on saké? Perhaps a combination of dogged determination, boyish enthusiasm and a very sophisticated palate. Plus, of course, a dash of missionary zeal, because John Gauntner is out to dispel perceptions in the West that saké is somehow the second cousin to wine.
Gauntner is the only non-Japanese to win the coveted Kikizake Meijin (Accomplished Saké Tatster) honor from the Junsui Nihonshu Kyokai (Pure Saké Association) for his sake-tasting skills. In fact, he has won the award three times: in 2001, 2003 and 2006. He is also the only non-Japanese member of the Ginjo Saké Research Group. Gauntner is also the go-to guy when the West wants to know something about sake: He’s lectured at Harvard and Yale, has been quoted in The New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine, and he’s even held lectures on sake for the Japanese government His five books on the subject, including one in Japanese, offer the perfect starting point for people wanting to know more about nihonshu, as the drink is called in Japanese.
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by Taichi Kitamura | November 12, 2007
Photograph by Craig Mod
Jiro Ono, proprietor of the famous Sukiyabashi Jiro sushi restaurant in Ginza, and his son served a mouth-watering array of sushi to us on a rainy spring day in Tokyo. Although I mentioned the menu in part 1 of this interview, it is worth repeating:
Jiro started us off with karei (flounder), followed in rapid succession by sumi ika (squid), inada (baby yellowtail), maguro, chutoro, toro, kohada (marinated shad), awabi (abalone), katsuo (seared bonito) and sayori (saury fish).
Everything was good, but the squid was exquisite.
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by Taichi Kitamura | August 14, 2007
Photograph by Craig Mod
In late spring 2006, three master sushi chefs with very different backgrounds gathered at what is arguably the most venerated sushi restaurant in the world to discuss their craft. That restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, tucked away in the backstreets of the Ginza district in Tokyo, is run by the octagenarian Jiro Ono, named a “modern master” by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in 2005 for his contributions to Japanese cuisine.
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